Developing Your Perfect Product or Service
Whether you’re just starting out your small business or if you have a few years under your belt, we all know how intimidating it can be to start a new product or service. How will we know that people will want what we have to offer? How can we be sure that our product will perform well in the market? How can we get feedback on the quality of our services? The good news is that these questions can be easily answered if we properly prepare ourselves. That’s where creating a detailed product development plan comes in. In this article, we’re going to dive right into some steps to help you create your perfect product or service.
What is Product Development?
Product development refers to the complete process of taking a product or service from an idea to the market. Whether you want to create a completely new product or want to renew an existing one, all business owners should refer to their product development plan. This plan includes everything from identifying market needs to launching the product or service and collecting feedback. However, your plan doesn’t end after you’ve successfully launched your product; it continues until the end of your product lifecycle (or when there is no longer a need for your product or service, which could take several years).
Why is Having a Product Development Plan Important?
Your product development plan will help you stay on task because it should show you certain checkpoints that you want to reach, and when you want to reach them. It also eliminates risk by ensuring you have the proper information on your competitors, the market, and your target audience. You’ll know who you’re playing against, if there’s a demand for your product or service, and who wants or needs them. Your plan should also contain success metrics (which map out exactly what your goals are and how they should be measured), allowing you the necessary insight to understand if your process is doing well. And if you’re working with a team, your plan will ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal from the beginning stages of developing your product or service.
Starting Your New Product or Service
Before even starting your product development plan, you should put your ideas to paper. It’s easier to forget your goals if you’re simply telling them to friends or family; you need physical reminders of your own ideas in order to get a great start. Make sure to consider some important metrics before starting out your plan:
How long will I need to complete my goals?
What should my deadlines be?
How often can I sit down to work on my ideas?
What are my goals and how will I measure them?
Once you’ve figured out these questions, it’s time to move onto actually developing your perfect product or service.
1. Generate an Idea
Generating an amazing idea from scratch is no easy task. In fact, a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck on this first step. It’s hard to come up with a new idea, which is why the SCAMPER method can come in handy if you need a kickstart to come up with your perfect product or service.
S: Substitute. Instead of coming up with a brand new idea for a product or service, take inspiration from goods that are already available to the public. For example, the Impossible Burger serves as a great example as a substitution for burger meat.
C: Combine. You could also choose to combine two products into one, such as combining a phone case and battery pack.
A: Adapt. If you choose this part of the SCAMPER method, you’re essentially adapting a certain product or service for different uses, such as creating gloves with touch-screen adaptability.
M: Modify. Instead of creating a new invention, you’re changing or upgrading a product or service that already exists, such as innovating the electric toothbrush with a sleeker design.
P: Put to another use. Here, you take an already existing product and function it for a different purpose, such as creating memory-foam beds for dogs.
E: Eliminate. For this choice, you could take something out of an existing product, such as Apple’s choice to remove their headphone jack in their newer iPhones.
R: Reverse/Rearrange. This step includes rearranging certain aspects of an existing product to make it your own, such as creating a clear tote bag with adjustable straps.
2. Clearly Identify Your Target Audience
Once you’ve established a great idea for your product or service, it’s time to consider who will actually want or need it. Figuring out your target audience doesn’t stop at just identifying their desire for your product; you have to research both their demographic and psychographic information to gain a clearer image of who is exactly shopping for your services. Their demographic information would include their age, employment status, location, gender, family size, etc. With their demographics, you’re getting a better understanding of who they are and where they are in life. Their psychographic information should include their personal image, values, external perceptions, and world views. Most importantly, this information should answer the questions: what motivates them to make a purchase? Clearly identifying and understanding your target audience helps you get a clearer picture of who you’re advertising towards.
If you want to read more about understanding your target audience, check out our blog here: Understanding Your Audience
3. Develop a Plan
Now that you’ve figured out who is willing to buy your product or service, the next step is to develop your plan. Being as detailed as possible, you should sketch out what your product or service will look like. Use labels to explain various features, functions, and materials needed for your product. If you’re creating a service, make sure to write down your service expectations and accommodations. In this plan, you should be considering your brand positioning, pricing, costs, and marketing strategy. Finally, make sure you’re able to answer a few important questions in this plan, such as:
Will your product or service be catered towards luxury or accessibility?
What will your packaging and labels look like?
How will this product or service fit my brand?
4. Create a Prototype
Once you’ve figured out the basics of your product or service, it’s time to move onto creating prototypes. This could include experimenting with several versions of your product (and eliminating options until you’re satisfied with a final sample) or launching a pilot service to gauge interest and test certain prices. This is a great time to get a good grasp of what prices your target audience is comfortable with, while also maintaining and gaining revenue. Remember, this is the experimental stage of developing your perfect product or service. Not every prototype will be a success (in fact, most of them won’t be!), so take every opportunity to learn and grow during this stage. You’re working towards your perfect product or service; it won’t just appear after your first prototype.
5. Weigh Your New Product against Competing Products
It’s always important to check out your competition, especially when you’re about to launch a new product or service. See if their offerings are similar or different from yours. Read their customer reviews to see how they’re addressing their audience, and if you can meet their needs better than your competition can. Do some research and see if there’s something lacking in their approach. Take these opportunities as a way to be better than your competition, and use what they do well as inspiration as you continue your product development plan.
6. Launch Your Product
It’s finally time to launch your product. As small business owners, we unfortunately don’t have the same resources as large corporations have when they launch new products; however, we can still get the news out there in our own way. One example is to send a product launch email to your subscribers list. If you don’t have one, you can also work with influencers on an affiliate/influencer marketing campaign. You could also promote via social media, such as TikTok and Instagram and set up an online shop through these platforms. After you make some sales, make sure to gather reviews from early customers. The quicker you gain responses, the faster you can make necessary changes or accommodations.
Once you have an idea for a product or service, you might be tempted to rush into the world of business to get it out there. However, if you don’t have necessary insights provided by your product development plan, you won’t have any idea how your product or service is actually doing in the market. So remember to take it slow and make sure you have all the information you need to successfully launch your perfect product or service.
If you want to read more about Barbie’s journey as a small business owner, check out the rest of her page at barbiepatel.com. Or if you want to learn about her South Asian bridal hair and makeup services, visit her website at cinderellabridez.com.