In the world of marketing, demand creation is the process of creating demand for specific products where none might currently exist. Sometimes called push marketing, creating demand is far more involved– and perforce, often more expensive– than traditional marketing and branding, which typically seeks to meet or satisfy existing needs.

Often, business or startup owners realize they need to generate demand when their innovative and new service or product sits on the market with only a few, intermittent buyers. Even if it could be an industry game changer, it’s not uncommon that only early adopters will take a chance with an unfamiliar brand. How can you convince more potential buyers that your product is worth the transaction?

We’re going to outline several demand-generation strategies for any product to help you grow the client base your product deserves.

Make Your Product Desirable

It’s a common failing that in order to appear more professional, companies fail to make their product desirable. With mediocre content flooding every source of interaction for potential consumers, from web searches to social media to traditional advertising, it’s more difficult than ever to break through to consumers. But you can begin changing that tendency by making sure that your marketing content does one of the following: informs, entertains, or shines a humorous light on a subject relating to your product. Even if your product doesn’t necessarily excite on its own, there are absolutely ways you can accomplish this.

Consider the marketing breakthroughs achieved by the Dollar Shave Club, which quickly garnered international attention with buzz-generating content and specials.

Giving Away Your Best Products for Free

Free sample marketing is tried and tested; and especially if you’re creating a novel product, can help to introduce potential customers to your business in a low-risk environment. While many companies will shy away from a marketing campaign which can seem so counter-intuitive, it can net some real perks.

Assessing any traditional price/demand chart can help one understand that demand for a product is always highest when price is lowest, ensuring that the maximum number of potential customers become aware of your product and brand. If you adjust your model not to consider these individuals promotional users, but qualified leads already interested in your product, then it becomes clearer to see that you’re no longer chasing business: business is coming to you.

Drill Down On Facebook Advertising

Social media advertising is enjoying its heyday, in great part because it allows businesses to reach an unprecedented amount of consumers far cheaper and with better targeting than traditional PPC advertising. And Facebook is arguably the most powerful social media advertising platform. There are several different ways to get the most out of your Facebook advertising, too: and it starts with ensuring that you have a Pixel engaged and can track visitors to your website on Facebook.

Using this pixel, create different audiences: one large audience for having visited your website, another which lands on the homepage, another which visits product pages, and another which visits traditional pages. Remarket to all of these audiences for big savings on PPC. But take your marketing a step further by creating lookalike audiences to all of the above. This will create campaigns for people statistically likely to enjoy your product based on the behaviors of established visitors.

The Bottom Line

Traditional pull marketing will absolutely help get you clients: but if your potential audience doesn’t yet see value in or need for your product, you should absolutely consider using demand marketing tactics like those outlined above. But even more importantly: don’t risk the future of your product or brand on unskilled marketing.

If you’d not sure if you or your team has the chops to create demand, consult experts like those at Sachs Marketing Group, or consider a local firm. While paying for marketing services can eat into funds, it can be a safer choice than trusting push marketing techniques to a fledgling marketing department.