Having a plan of attack to address multiple consumer touch points.

In researching and planning a PR strategy, designing or promoting a new product, consider input and exposure from multiple viewpoints.

If you really want to get an idea of how your product will be perceived or used by a wide group of consumers in diverse venues and situations; pitch, position and package it multiple times, from the viewpoint of a different audience each time.

Provide them with the same general information, benefits, features, but take careful note of how they interpret and react to it differently. This can tell you more about the product/service than you thought you knew in addition to providing you with an idea of the most effective way to market/promote it.

New products contain complex interrelated functions for multiple consumer demographics thereby creating uncertainties about precisely which solution path to take. Optimal positioning can often not be anticipated beforehand.

There’s no room in the marketplace for all things and all people, so you need to figure out how to be something to somebody.  At the get-go in planning, narrow your audience and be unique, you need to embrace the niche and the out of the ordinary.

It is important to have a plan of attack and address each touch point, whether it’s gender, generation or geography.

Let’s take the kitchen. One place for everyone, or is it? The average American spends three to four hours in the kitchen each day. But various groups view and use the kitchen very differently, in food prep, for gaming and crafting, or simply entertaining.

Even if you are selling one product, you need to think about the entire kitchen experience and how this impacts the way you segment and cross-sell and promote your merchandise in multiple ways.

As consumer groups view the kitchen differently, OEMs will increasingly take the different generational attitudes into consideration when designing and marketing their products.

The Gen Y group is completely connected and wired all day. Most rent, are still in school, or are just entering the workforce.

GenX is typically raising a family, so the kitchen is a family communications hub for them. It involves creating shared experiences and enjoying life’s simpler pleasures. This is a new generation of cooking enthusiasts, and “gastrosexuals” a breed of men who consider cooking cool and use it to impress friends.

Baby boomers are either entering the empty-nester phase or are experiencing children and/or parents moving back in with them. This group is going to need to work longer than planned, but with an overall commitment to wellbeing. They are still the highest group of discretionary income for housewares. Their kitchen is about rejuvenation. Where is your product positioned in that mindset, in this environment?

Prime timers are concerned with safe aging-in-place. They want to grow old where they are, they are inventing themselves, their focus is on ergonomics and intuitive design. Help these consumers save money and offer options that make home food prep easier. Products like pressure cookers, slow cookers, airtight storage and canning products are gaining in popularity and are helping people to live within their means.

For big reach, you have to create niche (smaller) marketing tactics that provide inspiration, excitement and education, like Try Me’s, POP displays, in store demos, and newsletters…that respects the consumer divide.

Whether you are a retailer or manufacturer, you have to show that you understand the specific enthusiast.

 

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