If you want to remain competitive within your industry you might need to think about developing a new product or service or updating an existing one.
There are a few factors you need to consider before investing too much too soon!
Every product is different.
Start with your own independent research and work your way up from there. Don’t necessarily rely on old or generic global data – trends and the market can change quickly! What you launched two years ago could have a completely different target audience now. Make informed decisions based on actual local market opportunity and customer insights.
It’s not just about the end-user.
As you are going through the development of your product, ensure you think about not only the end-user but also other stakeholders that might need to be involved including marketing, sales, leadership team, engineers, distribution and customer service. How will this new product development impact their role and responsibilities?
Market Research is an investment.
Out of all the products developed by companies only 40% make it to the market, and out of that, only 60% manage to get any sort of revenue. That’s a scary statistic! (Marketing Research Association). If you want to ensure you have a viable product or service, it’s worth investing with experts who can use several tools to get you ready to launch with success!
What now?
Start with some Exploratory Research to better understand the general needs of the market and identify new product or service opportunities for your organisation. This can be done via one of several of the below research services:
- Online surveys
- Focus Groups
- Online Communities
- In-depth interviews
- Observational Research
- Competitor analysis
Here you are trying to gain answers to some critical questions:
- Who is our target audience? What type of customer would most likely purchase your product or service?
- Are there already similar products in the market and how are they perceived? Are those customers satisfied?
- Is there a way your product can be different to others – how?
- What is the general awareness of this product or service?
- What does the buyer decision-making process look like for this product?
Once you know you have a viable product or service, it’s time to test, test, test!
New Product Development testing is where you ‘zone in’ on your target audience and ask them what they think of the product or service and, more importantly, how it can be improved.
The feedback is then used to make changes to your product or service before you go to market, and the insights will also help your other stakeholders we mentioned earlier – marketing, sales, customer service for example.
The type of research you can do for this includes (or a combination of):
- In-depth interviews
- Online surveys
- Focus Groups
- Mystery shopping
- Online communities
The type of questions you want insights for now include:
- What is the general appeal of the new product or service?
- How likely would people purchase the new product?
- How much are they prepared to pay for it?
- What are the features and benefits they are most interested in and why?
- What other ways can the product or service be improved?
If you are keen to explore this further, but don’t quite know where to start, take a look at our Research Packages or contact us for a chat.
