What Makes A Best Seller ? (Product)

I have dug out number of things that makes best selling products and these are not some hard to understand things but rather you can use these benchmarks for your own products before considering product development.

Note: These steps for producing a best selling product aren’t meant to be taken in specific order rather they depend on marketing strategist and his team understanding and any other stake holders as per situation.

Proximity to Customer (the higher the better)

The proximity should be greater if you want your product to become a best seller (not just for a sometime but forever).

• Emotional proximity

• Frequency of use

The proximity in terms of Emotions and Frequency of use, if a product has these factors in high proximity like the emotional attachment with that product is high, people love it, people want it and people use it frequently then that particular product has high proximity.

Like we see Coca Cola beverages being in high proximity to its consumers, people love it, they consume it daily. Now one would argue that is because Coca Cola has a really great marketing campaign over the years. Right but what am saying is at heart of every successful marketing strategy lies a bottle (ops I mean a product).   

The Coca-Cola consumption has been increased over the years. Like back in 1991in my country (Pakistan) per capita consumption of Coca Cola was around 3% and later in 2001 it spiked to 5% while in 2011 it jumped to 17%. 

What it seems to suggest that the product is being in high proximity in terms of emotions and frequency of use. That’s why people are using it; tell me why would you use/consume something frequently that you don’t like?

Now if the proximity is high like I mentioned in the heading, well on one side it’s a plus point for the manufacturer that his product has a market but on the other hand it means the market would be hard to penetrate (for you as new entrant). 

Now that’s where your overall strategy counts if you think you can take a head on collision with the market hardened manufacturers (that enjoys high proximity), in my opinion that’s not a good idea.

I happened to witness that over here for few newbies (manufacturers) over here, there were so many local cola’s like Amrat cola, Mecca cola, Salsabeel, they were all taken out even their manufacturers set less prices and used market belief (Muslim faith) to attract market like Salsabeel (a paradise drink in Muslim faith) and you know what Mecca stands for. Now after 4,5 years I don’t see any of them on the market shelves except for Coca Cola and Pepsi.

So a very high proximity could be a very hard nut to crack rather impossible. So one (Organization) should have a clear understanding of his strengths, weakness and better think twice before getting in.

How to calculate the level of proximity

• Identify the key aspects of a product that contribute to emotional aspects of its user/consumer.

• What situations demand frequent use of this particular product and calculate the frequency of all these situations.

• Calculate the intensity of secondary situations that leads to primary situations that causes high frequency utilization of a product.

These factors would help in drawing proximity picture which can also help you in identifying market segments where these factors are prominent thus helping you with segmentation too. The above set of rules are flexible you can add as many indicator’s for proximity you believe would help in refining the whole picture.

Purpose

For a best seller you need to identify what purpose your product should have, in other words what range of needs it would satisfy. Like a match box has very limited purpose that is to set something on fire (off course for an arsonist it would have greater purpose than that of iphone lover ;p).

There are different products that not only satisfy a need, but provide luxury and are status symbols too. Now identifying the proximity level and market segment the next thing to do is to conduct a thorough survey of that particular segment about the purpose of a product. 

Now in most cases there is already somebody selling somewhat similar thing, what you got to do as an organization is to conduct survey in terms of

• How many of its users use it to satisfy a need

• How many of its users think it gives them luxury in one way or another

• How many of its user take it as a status symbol

What I suggest that an organization should create a blend of all these three factors but a blend that goes a step further than others that are already dealing in that product.  For instance a new Porsche does not only satisfy a need but a luxury car that is also a status symbol. 

Status symbol doesn’t mean something very precious, having a high price tag, once Pentium 1 computer was status symbol for most big cheeses in corporate world and at home. Your product may become status symbol if you are one of kind in terms of your product features so on and so forth.

So as manufacturer you need to focus on these elements to produce a best seller.

Alternatives

Consider your would be competitors alternatives in terms of satisfaction

• Are consumers/users satisfied with its features.

• What deficiencies or improvements they suggest for the product.

• Do Consumers/Users consider cost/price when buying a particular product if so why.

• Price range as per Consumers/Users.

Image in Media

Finally the manufacturer should thoroughly filter the mass media, visual media, social media to identify the media image of the product. Like what others on the mass media, visual media, social media seems to imprint on their target market in terms of the product and what are the possible things they are missing in their campaign.

To me media filtering is as important as any other point I mentioned for best seller as it gives the manufacturer the edge, the angle from where they can communicate their product image in a way, to get noticed, to get attention, to give your market a reason to consider your product.