Searching for the next big thing is a great way to waste a whole lot of time, and few of us have any to give away. So why is there such an allure for finding what is often called, “The Silver Bullet?” Perhaps it’s because the alternative is a lot of hard work.
If what you have been looking for is something other than strong best practices and fundamentals of strategic planning and branding you might want to consider that most products fail and companies drop lackluster brands every day. Even strong brands get into trouble while launching new products because they haven’t thought through their strategy.
So if you have been looking for the secret sauce, the silver bullet, or the shortcut to a successful launch, just remember they don’t exist. What does exist are powerful best practices applied to your specific situation that are learned over time. Here are a few that really make a difference.
Three Common Mistakes Companies Make:
1. Did not request their customers’ input throughout product development
For many years we have observed that companies that do not ask their customers for their honest appraisals of their products, services, and most importantly new product ideas, are usually unsuccessful. It defies all logic! Why not ask the people who are going to purchase the product? What it usually gets back to is the company either doesn’t want to slow down product development, or worse, they actually don’t care what their customers think! Frankly, one of the few CEO’s who got away with this was Steve Jobs, but even he brought out some real product duds by not directly asking for customer input.
2. Trying to be all things to all people
Companies are often tempted to go for the whole market because obviously that’s a lot better than say 5% of a market. Right? Not really when you consider that if your new product fails! Obviously, no rational company knowingly plots a course that is destined to fail. But what is regularly overlooked in product development meetings is what niche can we serve that no one else is serving? Given the alternative, it makes more sense to capture 25% of a small niche than fail at trying to gain a full market penetration.
3. Half-hearted strategic marketing
The evidence is in. The market is jammed with brand messaging each minute of each day on millions of topics, so getting your message seen, read, contemplated, and acted upon is not trivial. It takes more than a casual approach of a press release, a paragraph and photo on a website, and a piece of literature. This approach is bland and will produce just that, bland results, and should be avoided like the plague. Rather than making your strategic marketing an after thought, consider developing it alongside your product development to determine the best ways to get your message out and acted on.
By bringing together these three principles leads to stronger strategies, enhanced product development, and improved strategic branding. This gets your products to market faster and more effectively, and gives them a real chance of success.