One of the common mistakes often made by new startups and small businesses that are trying to launch their products is that they wait till their products are introduced to the market before they start to market them.

Typically, a product will perform better in the market if enough awareness has been made before its launch date. This ensures that prospective customers get acquainted with the product’s features, and also allows them factor the cost of acquiring it into their budget early enough.

One company which has benefitted a lot from this method is Apple Inc. According to Kissmetrics, Apple has a knack for getting bloggers and other thought leaders on board before their product launches. What really sets them apart, though, is they get everyone talking months before the product launches, usually before there’s even a demo for anyone to see.

Ideally you should implement your marketing strategies at every stage of your products life cycle, starting from the development and introduction stage, down to the stages of growth and maturity.

So irrespective of whether your product is still in the development or introduction stage, here’s what you need to do to market your product, and make it available to be bought.

1. Define your marketing strategy

This is the first step in the marketing process. Your marketing strategies are those careful plans that you put in place to achieve your goals-which is to get your product in front of your prospective customers. You must be able to devise effective promotional methods that are capable of convincing potential customers why your product is good for them, and plan how to distribute your products.

2. Identify your target audience

Identifying your target audience helps you to build a solid foundation for your business. It helps you get your product in front of the right people, thus showing you the most important selling point of your products. For example, if you're offering services related to online divorce, you must be able to identify the best market where your scrap gold is in high demand. If you sell weight loss products, then your target audience are people with obesity or overweight problems.

3. Activate your advertising campaign

You should use targeted adverts to the markets where your products received the highest level of acceptance. Test different advertising campaigns within this market base by placing adverts in all the media outlets that your target audience use. You can also try classified ads, which are going popular once again, thanks to the new – and only – classified ads search engine, AdsWish.

When this is done, you can then reach out to those who’re yet to get a hint of your products by scouting for new market bases.

4. Make your product available for sale

Since the aim of marketing is promoting, distributing and selling a product or service, you must ensure that the products are accessible to customers at all times. Your distribution mechanism must be far-reaching, and must match or even exceed the effort exerted in promoting the products. If not, customers will be disappointed with all the hype you’ve created about the products. Eventually, it will amount to wasted effort and resources.

5. Use testimonials to boost sales

The use of testimonials is a powerful way to increase your chance of making repeat sales. You should request for testimonials from both your customers and industry based experts. If the service you offer is low cost flooring for instance, try getting experts in the home and real estate niches to endorse you. Doing this will add some credibility to your brand product, increase customer loyalty and ultimately multiply your return on investment.