Launching a new offer: how to avoid going off-track?

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Launching a new offer is a sign of a company evolving, daring, and reinventing itself. It’s the excitement of conquering new markets, attracting new customers, and outpacing the competition. It’s also an opportunity to energize your teams, stimulate innovation, and drive growth.

But too often, companies fall into the trap of ‘navel-gazing,’ with offers developed internally without gauging the market’s pulse. The result? Products that may be high-performing but fail to find their audience, wasted investments, and the frustration of failure.

Yet, all it takes is a well-executed market study to avoid going off-track. Let’s break it down…

The three challenges that jeopardize the launch of your new offers

1. Navel-gazing on new offers

This is probably the common denominator for new offers that fail to find their audience. Companies that fall into this trap tend to design products or services based solely on their perceptions and ‘easily available’ resources, rather than the actual needs of the market.

This bias leads to offers that are easy to produce, sometimes technically advanced, but completely disconnected from real market conditions.

2. Neglecting the ‘micro’ dimension

We must also mention the tendency to rely on the Big Picture, overlooking the complexity of the field. Companies often trust macroeconomic data or overall growth projections for the sector while neglecting the ‘micro’ dimension — which is crucial for understanding the market’s reality.

This overly general approach overlooks subjective factors at the consumer (B2C) or buyer (B2B) level: their fears, aspirations, habits, resistance to change, and more. It ignores qualitative elements like potential customers’ verbatim feedback, their unspoken reservations, and their true decision-making criteria.

As a result, companies miss out on valuable insights that could have helped refine the offer, align it with the real expectations of the target audience, and guide marketing and communication campaigns.

3. Market inertia

The development and launch of a new offer must take into account the phenomenon of market inertia. This refers to the natural tendency of consumers and businesses to resist change, even when faced with potentially beneficial innovations. This invisible force slows down the adoption of new offers, regardless of their intrinsic quality. This inertia is often greatly underestimated.

Companies tend to assume that the ‘obvious’ advantages of their new offer will be enough to quickly convince their target audience. This optimistic view leads them to overlook real adoption barriers such as entrenched habits, established processes, the fact that the target audience has already invested in an existing solution, or that they may not have the budget at the given moment.

As a result, communication campaigns focus on technical, functional, or innovative aspects while ignoring psychological and organizational barriers. Consequently, sales forecasts become unrealistic because they fail to account for the time required to educate the market and encourage adoption.

Without a deep understanding of these dynamics, which requires probing the field, companies risk compromising the success of their new offer, no matter how high-performing it may be.

The importance of research in the development and launch of a new offer

Market research is a tool that enables the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data on a target market, its consumers or buyers, and the competition.

In the development of a new offer, research comes in early to identify unmet needs and market opportunities. During the product development phase, it helps test and refine the concept to ensure it aligns with the expectations of the target audience. At the time of launch, it guides the Go-to-Market (GTM), marketing, and communication strategies.

Once the product is launched, satisfaction surveys assess the reception of the new offer and help improve it. They reveal what customers truly like and what frustrates them. Perhaps the way customers use the product differs from initial assumptions. These insights can inspire ideas for future versions or new offers.

Post-launch research also helps refine the sales pitch by highlighting the benefits that customers genuinely value. It’s also an opportunity to see if the price aligns with perceived value.

In short, research serves as a bridge between the company and its market. It allows for:

Combating navel-gazing by confronting internal assumptions with the reality of the field;
Revealing the subtleties of the market’s ‘micro’ dimension with a deep understanding of the target’s motivations and barriers;
Anticipating and overcoming market inertia by identifying the most effective adoption levers.

What types of studies are for launching your new offer?

1. Brand image and awareness study

This study assesses the perception of your brand in the market before launching a new offer. It measures spontaneous and assisted brand recognition, brand associations, and your positioning relative to competitors.