How to Market a Product Online: 14 Best Ways To Boost Sales In 2022

Whether you’re a retailer or wholesaler, it’s useful to learn how to market a product. Without the right marketing strategies in place, you’re likely to struggle with sales and website traffic. You don’t want that. You want to see your business prosper. In this post, we’ll share the 14 best ways you can market a product in 2022 — because we want the same for you.

How to Market a Product Effectively

There are a few strategies you can use to market a product. We’ll run through the top ones.

1. Identify Your Audience

Before you market a product, it’s crucial to identify your target market. Who’s going to buy your product? What’s the best way to reach these customers? You may want to build a customer profile to get more information on your audience. 

A customer profile includes:

• Demographics (age, income, location, job title, hobbies, etc.)
• Psychographics (behavior, personality type, lifestyle preferences, etc.)
• Pain points that your consumer or industrial good solves
• Where the customer hangs out to research and buy

With all of this information, you’ll find it easier to design campaigns that appeal to your audience. Make sure to plan how you will differentiate your product from competitors in a way that will resonate with the customers.

2. Elicit an Emotional Response

When it comes to encouraging customers to buy, you need to find an emotional trigger that spurs them into action. You can do this by analyzing the comments they leave in different places (on social media, in forums, on competitor websites, etc.). Revisiting your customer profile can also help you identify the areas that evoke feelings in your audience.

For instance, if your customers are unhappy with the shipping fee associated with a particular product and you can afford to ship that item for a lower cost, mention that on the product page.

You can also elicit an emotional response by using urgency and scarcity tactics on your website, such as displaying countdown timers, showcasing limited quantities, and having clearance sales. Implementing these tactics will encourage your customers to make faster buying decisions.

3. Take Pre-Orders

Ever wondered how to market a product before launch? Pre-orders are your answer. 

This product marketing strategy allows you to sell an item that’s not immediately available for delivery but will be soon. The product may already be manufactured but not yet packaged by the vendor for sale. Or it may be in your warehouse and you plan to launch it at a certain time or date.

Taking pre-orders is an effective way to build buzz for your product, gauge demand, and get an influx of cash to invest in additional marketing.

However, getting this strategy right requires some steps to build excitement around the product:

• Share the product’s story. It’s intriguing for customers to discover what an item’s journey has been like from ideation to production.
• Add value by giving rewards. For instance, you can offer a special gift to the first 50 people pre-ordering, while the next 200 can be offered an additional discount on their future purchase.
• Build buzz via influencer marketing. Influencers can help generate buzz for your pre-order campaign by giving sneak previews of the product. You can send them a sample if the product has already been manufactured or collaborate with them to create co-branded posts around an upcoming launch.

4. Create Gift Guides

Although most store owners release gift guides during the holiday season, publishing them months before that time of the year gives your products a chance to gain visibility in search listings. If you sell jewelry, for instance, you can create gift guides for weddings, anniversaries, bridal showers, and more. 

You could also get your products included in gift guides published by other stores. They exist for just about any niche, audience, and occasion you can think of. Type “(your product type) + gift guide” in Google to see which guides are ranking on the first few pages and reach out to the store owners to see if they can feature your products. Even a single inclusion can drive a lot of new visitors to your store.

Pro tip: In the gift guides you create, make sure to add a ‘buy button’ for your products. Shopify offers a buy button that lets merchants create an embeddable product cart and checkout that you can integrate into any website. It’s an excellent tool that makes it easier for customers to buy your products.

How to Advertise A Product

If you have a budget for advertising, you can market your products in the following ways.

5. Run Ads on Social Media

Social media ads are a great tool for presenting your products in an immersive format. Most social media platforms allow you to run ads, including Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok. 

But how do you decide which channels to utilize? 

• Figure out where your target audience is. 

The first step is to evaluate what channels your target audience is on. For instance, if they frequently engage with brands on TikTok, it won’t be wise to run ads on Twitter. You can set up accounts on different channels, then check your analytics to see where people engage with your business.

• Check which channels your competitors are using. 

Looking at your competitors can give you ideas for where to advertise your products. You can use social media monitoring tools to set up alerts that track your competitor’s activity. Reviewing their activity will also give you an insight into the type of content that people like in your niche market. 

• Evaluate your budget and skills.

It’s also important to weigh up your resources. If you have a small budget, it might be best to target one channel initially. Advertising everywhere would probably result in lower reach and Return On Investment (ROI). Additionally, make sure you know the very best way to run ads on the platform you select. Instagram has multiple different types of ad types — do your research before you waste your money.

6. Create Effective Search Ads

Search ads are the online ads you see at the top of the search results page when you search a specific query in Google. What’s special about these ads is that they can match a searcher’s intent. 

How so? When you create a search ad, you get the option to add a range of keywords based on the queries you want to target. Search ads platforms then match your ad with search intent based on the keywords you picked.

Let’s say you’re looking to create ads for office furniture. You’ll create an account on a pay per click platform like Google Ads and enter keywords that align with potential searches. Think about what people might type into search engines when looking for your product. For office furniture, they might search “best office furniture companies” or “cheap office furniture.” Adding these keywords to your ad groups will prompt Google to display your ads to people conducting the search.

7. Advertise in Online Magazines

Online magazines make it easy to reach a particular audience. You can start by picking a publication that relates to your industry and suits your budget. Of course, placing an advert in a magazine with high traffic will cost more, so it may not be a viable choice for newly established businesses.

An alternative is to go with digital magazines that were recently launched or are yet to go mainstream. Find ones relevant to your product’s niche and reach out to the publication to inquire about advertising rates. 

Most online publications do all their advertising via sponsored content. They’ll have information on rates on their site and it’s a much more natural way of advertising with a good journalist writing a normal article but with a link to your great product/store. 

How to Market a Product to Retailers

Do you sell wholesale to retailers? If so, use these promotion tactics to get your products in front of even more merchants.

8. Create a Digital Catalog

A catalog is an excellent tool for selling to wholesale customers. It lets you tell the story of your products and share tactical information that a retailer needs to make an informed purchase. And online catalogs are interactive and super easy to distribute—just share a link and voila!

So how do you create a product catalog? 

The easiest way is to use a digital catalog maker. This is a piece of software or app that allows you to create online catalogs within a matter of minutes.If you’re selling wholesale through Shopify, you can install the Wholesale/Retail Catalog Maker app on your store. The app lets you import all of your items into a drag-and-drop interface, where you can organize them to display in a catalog. There are options for customizing the layout, adding wholesale order forms, and displaying specific product information.

9. Join a Wholesale Marketplace

Joining a wholesale marketplace can lead to your big break. That’s because retailers are full out on online marketplaces to find vendors for their business. So, getting your products up on a marketplace exposes your items to a flock that’s already looking to buy. 

You can sign up to a marketplace that connects wholesalers with retailers worldwide or one that facilitates trade in specific countries, based on your preferences. Want to sell your goods in the United States? Consider Handshake, a growing marketplace that connects store owners with distinctive wholesalers from across the US.

To make the most of a marketplace listing, you’ll need to put your best foot forward. Make sure to:

• Tell your company’s story
• Shoot beautiful product images
• Write compelling descriptions
• List your newest items 
• Be transparent with pricing

Taking these steps will significantly improve your chances of attracting buyers to your listings.

10. Offer Special Discounts on Bulk Purchases

Another way to market your products is to offer incentives on bulk purchases. Typically, the incentive is a quantity-based discount: the more products a retailer orders, the bigger discount they get. This can be an effective way to generate interest in specific product lines and move your merchandise. 

For instance, a fashion wholesaler looking to market a men’s clothing line can offer a bulk discount for this product range. When menswear stores see they’re getting a good deal on a large order, they’re more likely to buy and appreciate the discount—which means more sales for you.

To make buyers take notice, display the promo on both your product and checkout pages. If you have an Info Bar active on your website, use that to promote your bulk discount offer (the bar is often the first thing people notice when they arrive on a website).

How to Market a Product with No Money

Don’t have enough money to pay for ads? Don’t worry—you can still market your products by using the techniques below. 

11. Create Great Content Assets 

With a growing number of people enjoying different content forms, you can create high-quality assets featuring your products to attract their attention. Some options include:

• Blog posts
• Videos
• Infographics 
• eBooks
• Whitepapers 
• Template & checklist downloads

For this strategy to work well, you have to identify who your audience is and what types of content they interact with daily. Analyze the number of clicks, likes, shares, and comments on a given piece of content. The higher the level of engagement, the more relatable the content was for your audience.

Based on the findings, you can work on crafting collateral that promotes your product to your audience via their preferred styles of content.

12. Make an Email List

With a signup form on your store, you can collect the names and email addresses of visitors interested in your business. This will be your email list. 

Messaging your email list is free and incredibly effective. The people on the list are prequalified as they’ve already expressed interest in hearing from you. Send emails to communicate product launches, send out teasers, endorse special offers, and more. 

If you’re using Shopify to run your store, you can use the built-in email software to get started. Called Shopify Email, the software makes it easy to build and send out emails. You just need to:

• Pick a template
• Customize the text, images, and buttons
• Choose your recipients
• Preview the message
• Click Send 

Nice and easy.

Plus, Shopify Email allows you to send emails from your domain. This helps to build brand recognition and avoid those pesky spam filters.

13. Build an Online Community

This marketing tactic has helped numerous stores market their products without pouring huge sums into paid promotions. It basically involves giving people a platform where they can connect and discuss their experience with your items in an environment that’s helpful to you and to other customers. 

You could start a Facebook group, create your own hashtag, or launch a members-only club. Promote your community on your website and in email newsletters. Let people know they have a space to talk about your brand. And make sure there are some rules for what types of discussions can be held. 

Listening to discussions can also help you understand how people view your products. Perhaps they love a certain feature but feel you could improve it in some aspect. Analyzing discussions can give you ideas on how to adjust, revamp, or improve your offerings.

14. Create a Subscription Package

Though it doesn’t sound like marketing, offering a subscription to your products is an effective promotional tactic. Subscriptions help position your products as everyday essentials, driving repeat purchases for your business.

Still, creating a subscription program takes more work than other marketing tactics, but platforms like Shopify make it easy by offering apps that let you set up a subscription package in minutes. For example, with the Shopify app Bold Subscriptions, you can easily add subscribe and save options to a specific product collection on your store.

When it comes to the type of subscription, the nature of the product plays a key role. If you sell a product that doesn’t require refills, you could offer customers a subscription to a bundle of monthly items. Let them make their own bundles from a selection of products. For items that require refills, you can build a subscription model that auto-renews on a standard schedule.

Summary: How to Market a Product Online

It’s no longer enough to have optimized product pages on your store; you also need to know how to market your products to attract customers to your listings. Through different online marketing activities, you can generate interest in your new and existing offerings.

In summary, here are fourteen ways to market a product online:

• Identify your audience
• Elicit an emotional response
• Start taking pre-orders
• Create gift guides
• Promote via Instagram ads
• Run targeted search ads
• Advertise in online magazines
• Build a digital catalog 
• Join an online marketplace 
• Give discounts for bulk orders 
• Create high-quality content assets
• Make an email list and market to it
• Build an online community
• Create a subscription package

How do you market your products online? Let us know in the comment section below.