Product testing - public phase

[anonymous-user]

Say you have a new consumer product and it is at the stage where you want people to test it out.

How do you make that happen most effectively?

I mean, I can have someone stand in the street and hand them out or I can have someone post them through letterboxes in random streets in random towns easily enough.

Is there a more structured way that makes useful feedback more likely / easy to co-ordinate and could even be classed as 'sampling' if you were wearing a 'marketing' hat?

[jammy_basturd]

Who is your intended customer?

I'd go with stand in the street for most things. Nothing better than being with the person face to face when they're using the product to get quality feedback.

[Foliage]

Depends on the product, you'd need to ensure you get good critical feedback, which would need to be incentivised or you could hire a market research company to do it for you.

[Hoofy]

New design of vibrator? Stand on street corners offering to demonstrate.

Cupcake with new flavour? Post to people in plain brown packaging.

Portable railgun? Stand outside New Scotland Yard for maximum PR.

[ReaderScars]

Is this not what focus groups do?

http://startups.co.uk/how-to-use-focus-groups-to-e...
http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/market-r...

[BoRED S2upid]

Offer a few out to us to try. I've not seen a more critical place than here.

[Hoofy]

BoRED S2upid said:

Offer a few out to us to try. I've not seen a more critical place than here.

Utter nonsense.

[cat with a hat]

BoRED S2upid said:

Offer a few out to us to try. I've not seen a more critical place than here.

I'd probably agree..