If you’ve managed to get through the tough first few months of running your own business and your product is really starting to take off, it’s time to start thinking about expansion. The most obvious course of action is to try to launch a brand new product that captures your customers just as well as the first one did. But launching a new product is easier said than done and just because you found success the first time around doesn’t guarantee your new product is going to be a hit. If you’re trying to launch a product, you need to take these steps to prepare yourself.
Analyze Your Existing Product
There’s something about your first product that made people love it and if you’re going to replicate your success, you need to work out what it was. The best place to start is by looking at your product and comparing it to other similar products to find your unique selling point. What makes yours better than the others? What features does it have that other companies don’t offer? Finding out what makes your product stand out from the rest will help you work out why it was such a success. Looking at reviews is a good idea too. Your customers will let you know what they loved about your products so you can make sure that you replicate it properly next time around.
Manage Talent Risk
Launching a new product is a massive undertaking and you’ll need a solid team of expert employees behind you if you’re going to get it right. That’s why managing talent risk is so important. Talent risk simply means not having enough skilled employees in the positions. It’s worth using the services of a talent risk management expert like Steve Trautman to help you here. Examining the company and identifying where the skill gaps in your company is so important. You need to fill all of those skill gaps and make sure that you’ve got everybody you need to help you pull off a successful product launch.
Testing
Even if you’ve identified what you think the major selling points of your product are, you might get it wrong. That’s why testing is so important before you launch a new product. Identify some focus groups and have them test your product and see what they like about it. It’s important that you get people from a wide range of different demographics, this will help you to target your marketing efforts later on. Once you’ve tested and got some feedback, go back to the drawing board and make some tweaks to the product.
Plan A Marketing Strategy
Now that you’ve perfected the product, it’s time to start thinking about how you’re going to sell it. The key to a good marketing campaign is an all encompassing strategy that combines a lot of different marketing techniques. You should also make use of your existing customers and target them first. If they’re happy with the products they’ve already bought from you, they’re likely to be interested in your new offerings.
If you take these steps before you launch a new product, it should be a huge success and your business will begin to grow.
