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Product Launch

New Product Launches for Startups Requires Market Testing

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New Product Launches Startups

New Product Launches for Startups Takes Planning and Great tactical execution of the plan.

Executing market tests during your company’s product development stage, and before and during its startup’s new product launch, gives you the opportunity to test your sales copy and marketing methods before you commit big dollars to a full-scale marketing program.

The new product launches for startups can be overwhelming. There is so much to know and do. You ask yourself, can I get it all done? Do I know how to do everything?

The response from a market test almost always improves the quality and effectiveness of the early stages of your marketing plan. Sometimes leads to radical changes in the direction of the entire marketing plan. It’s critical to get it right for a successful launch and long-term success.

For example, the shift in your marketing strategy from display advertising to more targeted direct email programs, a change in your marketing focus to reach new or different prospects, or more radical changes, such as abandoning one market for another.

Or could be due to changing your product’s original distribution strategy for an entirely new distribution method.

Market Testing and Market Research

The Value of Testing

Market testing is the marketing manager and most important function during the new venture’s early development stages. If well-executed, a market task and saving new venture thousands of dollars of expenses that otherwise would have been squandered on poorly conceived ad placements, landing pages, emailing, or other unsuccessful new product launches.

The feedback received from the market task and dramatically change of startups marketing direction, its product pricing, or its sales and distribution channel. These critical changes in marketing tactics and strategies can mean the difference between success or failure in a startup’s first critical year of operation.

It’s easy to gather market feedback if you have a lot of money to spend. If you don’t test, you can buy into the illusion of branding, and spend your company’s entire marketing budget on press releases and online advertising, rolling a product out first without testing, and failing.

Just like the dot-coms did during the internet bubble. Or, you can do it the smart way. Spend a little money upfront to run a small market test and learn a lot, and then incorporate the lessons into your next, larger marketing effort.

Failing to Test Leads to Failure

The sad fact is that most startups don’t market test their products. Instead, they rely on an outside ad agency to develop creative ideas to promote the product just before the product launch, usually involving the placement of many full-page ads in trade and business publications, Facebook Ads or email campaigns too many splashy direct email templates to a few, thoughtlessly chosen rented email list.

When the ads in the emails don’t pull, the startup fires the agency. Then hires a new man in the white horse, and repeat the process until you run out of money, or pulls back to take a more pragmatic approach.

Occasionally startup will succeed despite a poor marketing program, if it gets lucky, it is acquired, clenches a big distribution deal with a large corporation outside its normal marketing channels. It can truly be said that marketing budgets for most startups are often simply capital transfers from venture investors into the pockets of ad agencies, PR firms, and trade publications.

For companies who don’t have bottomless marketing budgets—and this includes every startup. The market testing options described in this section can be executed at a low cost, do not require extensive or specialized knowledge of market research techniques. These testing methods also work for new products or market launches in established companies.

They don’t require the use of focus groups or, no special test methodologies, or the other academic trappings of the marketing research field that distracts a company’s marketing team from the salesmanship required to sell its product.

Test Your Copy, Your Sales Message, in Deliverables

In market researchers speak, these testing and techniques are qualitative rather than quantitative, relying mostly upon anecdotal results.

  • Mixed test results happen most of the time: The final response to the most market task is usually neither a runaway success nor a dismal failure. Usually, some aspects of a test better than others. If you can listen to what potential customers in your market tell you about your tasks, you can ramp up the parts of market tests that were successful. Which will help you open new sales opportunities and your startup, well you continue to develop and refine your marketing program?
  • Testing is a continuous process: In a start-up or new product launch, there is no such thing as failure, only failure to test. An exploitative sales opportunity exists and can be found, and many market tests, but the sales rewards from this opportunity can only be realized by testing again, on a larger scale. And, even at these aspects of your testing program start to show promising sales results, and your marketing program begins to generate a good response. You must always test new ways of selling your startup’s product or service on a continuous basis. You must continue your market testing until you are confident you have found the marketing tools, methods, and media that you believe can be scaled up to build sales of your startup’s product or service.

They require you, not an outside market-research consultant, to be involved in their execution, and to form impressions based on the responses you receive.

Most of the time, results gathered from these techniques or require you to take corrective action to change and adapt your marketing program to meet the needs of your prospects and the realities of your marketplace.

These techniques have been proven in actual use, and can help you answer the most critical marketing questions of your startup or new product launch:

  • Are your product sales copy benefits persuasive to the prospects in your market, and will your product’s story be well received by the most likely prospects in your target marketing?
  • Are the other aspects of your product and its marketing messages, such as its price, product features, benefits, and applications, compelling to the prospects in your market?
  • Are the marketing media you are using—display advertising, social media, direct email campaigns, direct sales, trade shows, or sales development reps—the best, least expensive ways for you to sell to these prospects?
  • What is the approximate cost-per-sale for the advertising media year you are using?
  • Have other prospects, markets, applications, or targets of opportunity for your company’s product been uncovered by your test?

Two Stages to the Testing Process for Startups and New Product Launches

The market test process has two stages:

  1. The initial, informal testing stage, where the sales copy points, positioning, and other key aspects of your marketing program and its sales message are broadly established
  2. The formal testing stage implemented as a separate, limited market test prior to the launch of your company’s product or service. This stage can also be implemented as the first stage in your company’s product launch, depending on your startup’s timing requirements, budget constraints, and your confidence in your company’s marketing program. These formal tasks can be repeated as often as necessary, with the more successful aspect of each task being incorporated into the expanded marketing launch for startups, and or in a subsequent market test.

The First Principles: There Is No Such Thing as Failure, Only Failure to Test

Here are two important points to keep in mind:

  • Mixed test results happen most of the time: The final response to the most market task is usually neither a runaway success nor a dismal failure. Usually, some aspects of a test better than others. If you can listen to what potential customers in your market tell you about your tasks, you can ramp up the parts of market tests that were successful. Which will help you open new sales opportunities and your startup, well you continue to develop and refine your marketing program?
  • Testing is a continuous process: In a start-up or new product launch, there is no such thing as failure, only failure to test. An exploitative sales opportunity exists and can be found, and many market tests, but the sales rewards from this opportunity can only be realized by testing again, on a larger scale. And, even at these aspects of your testing program start to show promising sales results, and your marketing program begins to generate a good response. You must always test new ways of selling your startup’s product or service on a continuous basis. You must continue your market testing until you are confident you have found the marketing tools, methods, and media that you believe can be scaled up to build sales of your startup’s product or service.

Wrap-up for new product launches startups

New product launches for startups can be highly successful or flop.

The first marketing testing step for a start-up, the informal market test, put your startup sales copy–the story of your product or service–in front of a handful of actual prospects. The kinds of people you are will eventually be persuaded to buy your company’s product.

The informal market test relies upon your verbal presentation and personal questioning of the individuals who receive your marketing deliverables. You will draw out the constructive comments in response is necessary to put your startup’s sales message into sharper focus.

Informal testing can also be used in an established company launching new products in a new market, in advance of the actual product launch.

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General FAQ’s about new product launches startups

What is a product launch?

A product launch is when a company decides to launch a new product in the target market. Product launch involves various steps that require understanding customer needs, product design, testing of the product, marketing & advertising, and ensuring that the product reaches out to all its audience.

What is the purpose of a product launch?

Purpose. The primary purpose of a product launch is business growth. Businesses must understand the concept and process of a product launch to enable growth by successfully introducing new products into the market. Product launches build sales and revenue through the expansion of the customer base.

What a product launch for a startup?

Your product launch is the inflection point. It’s the point to which everything before it leads up, and everything that comes after comes out of. And a successful product launch starts with a successful product launch strategy. 

Why launching a new product is important?

Effective timing of a product launch is vital for attracting customers and gaining momentum with your product in the market. Launch your product during a window of time with the most opportunity.

Sources for New Product Ideas: Screening, Evaluating, and Business Analysis for New Opportunities

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new product ideas development NPDP

The product development process started with new product ideas.

Finding promising new product ideas is the starting point in the new product development process for idea generation. New product ideas trigger planning for new products.

New ideas of product ideas are the lifeblood of many product development teams. You will how to create new product ideas to grow your business and keep up with new trends.

If you are an entrepreneur or know someone you have worked with. They are a different breed and have different skills than say an equivalent in an enterprise organization.

This digital marketing agency in Denver, Colorado has been helping entrepreneurs and skunkworks projects with new product development, research, product launches, and go-to-market plans.

How to create new product ideas?

New product ideas for products come from various sources. Limiting the search for new product ideas to internal research and development activities is far too narrow an approach for most companies. 

Sources of new product ideas include company employees, customers, competitors, outside inventors, acquisitions, and channel members.

Learn how startups generate new product ideas and launch products.

As new ideas come to the front, new product launch ideas start to gel. The new product launch ideas that don’t exist will either be shelved or canned.

The idea is evaluated as it moves through the process, and new product planning expenses accumulate. There are many internal and external sources of new product ideas. New products may require testing.

Ideas can be generated by information search, marketing research, research and development, incentives, and acquisition.

How would you like a source and process of the best new product ideas?

I’ll be discussing the screening, evaluation, and business analysis to help determine if a new product concept is sufficiently attractive to justify proceeding with development. Including stages in the new product development process with examples.

Sources of Product Ideas

New product ideas come from many sources. Limiting the search for new product ideas to internal research and development activities is far too narrow an approach for most companies.

Sources of new product ideas include company employees, customers, competitors, outside inventors, acquisitions, and channel members.  Both solicited and spontaneous ideas may emerge from the sources, and some even occur by accident.

Procter & Gamble’s Ivory soap was a result of an accident. Manufacturing over-mixed the ingredients in the manufacturing process creating air bubbles in the soap, causing it to float. Customers love it!

The essential issue that management must face is how to establish a program for generating and evaluating ideas that will meet the needs of the company. Several questions must be answered in developing such a program:

  • Should ideas searches be targeted or open-ended?
  • Should the search for new product ideas be restricted to those ideas that correspond to the mission, target market, and the company’s strategy?
  • How extensive and aggressive should the company idea search activities be?
  • Should search being an active or passive function within the firm?
  • Where will responsibilities for new product ideas search be placed
  • How will new product planning activities be directed and coordinated?

My research findings indicate that financial performance is higher for high-technology companies that have proven competence in their products.

Companies that focus their product strategy perform much better over a long time span than those that did not. These findings came from a study of 246 products across 26 small and medium-sized companies.

For most companies, the idea search program should be aligned with the corporate mission and objectives.  

While some far-out new product ideas may change the future of a company, more often, open-ended ideas search the disparates resources and misdirected efforts.

It is impossible to generalize about the other three questions since they depend on many factors.

Factors like size and type of company, technologies involved, new product needs, resources, management preferences, and corporate capabilities. Top management should develop a plan for idea generation that will satisfy the company’s requirements.

Many new product ideas start with customers, particularly ideas for industrial products.

The use of a lead user analysis offers promising potential for the development of new industrial products. Lead users are those companies whose existing needs and requirements anticipate marketplace needs.

The approach is to try to identify these market leaders and analyze their needs to improve the productivity of new product development and product markets that change rapidly.

The objective is to satisfy the lead user’s needs, thus accelerating new product planning. Both industrial and consumer buyers are useful sources of new product ideas.

Methods of Generating Ideas

Several alternatives for generating ideas are shown in Exhibit 1. Typically a company uses more than one of these options.

Generating New Product Ideas

Search for new product ideas

new product ideas small business product roadmap

Systematic monitoring of various information sources may be helpful in identifying new product ideas. New product idea publications and online sources are available from companies that wish to sell or license and ideas they do not wish to commercialize.

New technology information is available through computerized search services.  New sources may also yield information about the new product activity of competitors.

Many trade publications contain new product announcements. Marketing management must identify the relevant search areas and assign responsibility for a search to an individual or group.

Kickstarter and Indiegogo provide a good area to look for new ideas as well.

Marketing Research

The survey of product end-users can be useful in identifying needs that new products can satisfy. One useful technique to identify and evaluate a new product concept is the focus group, which can be used for both consumer and industrial products.

A small group of 8 to 12 people is invited to meet with an experienced moderator to discuss new product ideas. Idea generation might start with a discussion of product requirements for some product use.

Subsequent focus group sessions can evaluate product concepts formulated to satisfy the needs identified in the initial session. More than one focus group can be used at each stage in the process. Focus groups may include channel members and company personnel as well as customers.

Another consumer research technique that may be useful in generating new product ideas is the advisory panel. These groups are selected to represent the target market of the company.

For example, a producer of computer accessories would include computer users on the panel.

Companies in various industries including telecommunications and pharmaceuticals are using customer advisory groups. These groups provide insight and evaluate new and existing products.

Internal and External Department

The company’s research and development generate many new product ideas. New product ideas may also originate from development efforts outside the company.

Sources include inventors, private laboratories, research universities, and small high-tech firms.

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Other Idea Generation Methods

Incentives may be useful to glean new product ideas from employees, marketing middlemen, and customers. The amount of the incentive should be high enough to encourage submission.

The company should also guard against employees leaving the company and developing a promising idea elsewhere. For this reason, many companies require employees to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

Consumer product funds are an interesting concept for generating new products, developing them, and moving their ideas and to commercialization.

While the objective of consumer product funds is to provide a return to investors, corporate participants may gain access to new products without the high cost of internal development.

However, critics of the funds argue that small venture firms do not have the experience to successfully plan and introduce new products. There’s also the possibility that two or more corporate investors will try to compete for a promising new product or perhaps the entire company.

Finally, acquiring other firms offer a way to obtain new product ideas.  This strategy may be more cost-effective than internal development and can substantially reduce the lead time required for new product planning.

Idea generation identifies one or more product concepts to be screened and evaluated. And an idea for a new product must be transformed into a defined product concept.

The complete product concept is a statement about selected anticipated product attributes that show how they will yield selected benefits relative to other products or problem solutions already available.

For example, the pump toothpaste dispenser (attribute) offers a simple and quick alternative (benefit) tube.

SCREENING, EVALUATING, AND BUSINESS ANALYSIS

denver ad agency
Canva

Evaluating new ideas is essential for new product planning. Assume that a successful new product specifies criteria for commercial success (e.g., sales, profit contribution, and market share).  

Two risks are involved in the evaluation as shown in Exhibit 2.

new product ideas screening factors

If the level of risk for rejecting an idea is set too low, then too many ideas will be developed that later must be rejected. Moving too many ideas too far into development and testing is an expensive mistake.

Management must establish a screening and evaluation procedure that will kill unpromising ideas as soon as possible. While keeping the risk or rejection of good ideas at an acceptable level.

Expenditures buildup from the idea stage to the commercialization stage, or as the risk of developing a bad new product decline as more and more information is obtained about the product and the market. Thus, the best screening procedure is one that is not too tight.

The objective is to eliminate the least promising ideas before too much time and money are invested in them. The tighter the screening procedure, the higher the risk of rejecting a good idea.

Based on the specific factors involved, management should have established a level of risk appropriate for the situation.

A new product idea should be evaluated regularly as it moves through the new product planning stages.

Ideas may be rejected at any stage. Even though the objective is to eliminate the poor-risk relatively early in the planning phase before major product development expenditures occur.

The evaluation techniques appropriate to each stage in the planning process are matched to the evaluation task.

Screening for new product ideas

An idea for a new product should receive an initial screening to determine that strategic fit in the company. Two important dimensions should be evaluated:

  • The strategic capability of the idea
  • The commercial feasibility of the venture

The purpose of screening is to eliminate ideas that are not compatible or feasible for the company. These assignments or somewhat subjective since management must establish how narrow or wide the screening boundary should be.

For example, the management of two otherwise similar companies might have very different missions and objectives.

Thus, an idea that involves a new product market area that could be strategically compatible in one company is not in another. The dimensions on which management evaluates ideas/concepts/products included all key management areas.

Some firms develop screening procedures using scoring and rating techniques for the factors shown in Exhibit 2.  The result is a score for each idea being screened. Management can set ranges for passing and rejecting. The methods are effective only if managers agree on the relative importance of the screening factors.

Product Evaluation

The boundaries between idea screening, evaluation, and business analysis are not clearly drawn. Some firms combine two of the evaluation stages. Nevertheless, the distinction seems appropriate.

After completing the initial screening, the ideas that survive are subject to a more comprehensive evaluation.

Several of the factor shown in Exhibit 2 may be evaluated in greater depth, including the buyer’s reaction to the proposed concept. Concept tests are useful in evaluating and refining new product ideas.

Product Concept Testing

The objective of concept testing is to obtain a reaction to the new market concept from a sample of potential buyers before the product is developed.

The product concepts are presented to the test participants in various forms, such as a written description, a drawing, a model, or a package.

Typically, a statement of a concept is part of the testing procedure. The statement should be brief, consisting of one or two paragraphs. Bias must be avoided in the wording of the statement.

When designed and implemented, the concept test offers a very useful means of evaluating a product idea very early. The cost of concept testing is reasonable, given the information that can be obtained. There are some important cautions.

The test, at best, is a very rough gauge of commercial success. Since the actual product and a commercial setting are not present, the test is somewhat artificial.

The concept test is probably most useful in signaling very favorable or unfavorable product concepts. It also offers a basis for comparing two or more concepts.

A requirement for concept testing is that the product can be expressed as a concept. Moreover, the participants also have the experience and capability to evaluate it.

Product Concept Selection

The completion of the evaluation stage should yield one or more concepts for business analysis. In general, consumer products firms spend a higher percentage of time on screening and evaluating ideas than industrial product firms.

The time devoted to the actual development of the new product is greater for industrial goods companies than for consumer goods companies.

Business analysis for new product ideas

new product analysis

The business analysis estimates the commercial performance of the proposed product, obtaining an accurate financial projection depends on the quality of the revenue and cost forecast.

Business analysis is normally accomplished at several stages in the new product planning process. The first assessment is conducted before the product concept moves into the development stage. Financial projections are refined at later stages.

Revenue forecasting

The newness of the product, the size of the market, and competing products influence the accuracy of revenue projections. For SaaS computer software, estimates of total market size can usually be obtained from industry information.

Several industry associations publish in the industry forecast. Industry and financial analysts such as Gartner, IDC and, Forrester provide great industry information as well. The more difficult task is estimating the market share that is feasible for new product entry.

Sales of new-to-the-world products are very difficult to forecast. One approach is to identify the potential size of the target market and then estimate the new product rate of market penetration.

For example, the sales forecast for electric cars could be based on the percentage of penetration in the conventional gas-driven car market over a specified time.

Cost estimation for new product ideas

new product electric cars

Several types of costs or encountered in the planning and commercialization of new products. One way to categorize the cost is to estimate them for each stage in the new planning process. The cost increases rapidly as the product concept moves through the process.

The cost for each planning stage can be further divided into functional categories  (e.g., marketing, research and development, and manufacturing). Executive experience in new product planning should be able to generate reasonable cost estimates.

Profit Projections for New Products

Several types of profit projections can be used to gauge a new product’s financial performance. Those appropriate for new product business analysis include Breakeven computation, cash flow, return on investment, and profit contribution.

Breakeven analysis is useful to show how many units of a new product must be sold before it begins to make a profit. Management can use the break-even level as a basis for estimating the project feasibility.

Senior management must determine the appropriate level of time for projecting sales, costs, and profits. Policy guidelines may be specified. For example, the product may be required to recoup all costs within a certain time period.  

Business analysis estimates should take into consideration the estimated flow of revenues and cost over the time span used in the analysis. Typically, new products incur a higher cost before they start to generate revenues.

Other Considerations for New Product Ideas

Several issues must be considered in the business analysis of a proposed product concept. First, management should formulate guidelines for the financial performance of new products. These can be used to accept, reject, or further analyze the product concept.

Another issue involves assessing the amount of risk. This factor should be included either in financial projections or as additional consideration beyond the financial estimates.

Finally, the possible cannibalization of sales from existing products should be estimated. New products that are substituted for existing products often cannibalize sales.

EXAMPLES OF NEW PRODUCT IDEAS

Wrap Up for Ideas for Products

The new product development process starts with a search for new ideas. The search should not be casual. Senior management should define the products and markets to emphasize.

It should state the new product objectives, whether it is cash flow, market share domination, or some other objective. It should state how much effort should be devoted to developing original products, modifying existing products, and copying competitors’ products.

The purpose of idea generation is to create a number of ideas. The purpose is to reduce the number of ideas to an attractive, practicable few.

Organizations are recognizing the necessity and advantages of developing new products and services. Their more mature and declining products must be replaced by newer products.

New products, however, can fail. The risk of innovation is as great as rewards.

The key to successful innovation lies and developing better organizational processes for handling new product ideas and developing sound research and decision procedures at each stage of the new product development process.

How do you and your organization handle new product ideas?

Remember why you are doing this. Is it to drive new demand or address a missing solution. You still need to make revenue. Here’s a simple sales funnel for you to use.

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General FAQ’s

What are the sources for new product ideas?

There are many internal and external sources of new product ideas. Ideas can be generated by information search, marketing research, research and development, incentives, and acquisition.

How do I search for new product ideas?

Systematic monitoring of various information sources may help identify new product ideas. New product idea publications and online sources are available from companies that wish to sell or license and ideas they do not want to commercialize.

What are some alternative sources for new product ideas?

Incentives may be useful to glean new product ideas from employees, marketing middleman, and customers. The amount of motivation should be high enough to encourage submission.

How to create new product ideas?

Below are 7 ways you can come up with new product ideas.
1. Solve an existing problem for people.
2. Find out what’s the current hot trend.
3. Improve a product that is already on the market.
4. Create a new niche for a current product.
5. Add on to an existing product.
6. Reincarnate an older product.
7. Ask your current customers.

New Product Launch: 10 Steps From New Product Idea To Launch

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10 Steps From New Product Idea To Launch – New Product Launch

The new product launch: 10 Steps From New Product Idea To Launch is about how you can reach your target market and profit goals.

Even the best businesses have new products ideas that are carefully designed and strategically launched which don’t make the intended impact. Sometimes the nature of the market will fluctuate in ways that seem random and certainly are beyond predictability.

However, if you’re strategic in your new product launch, you’ll definitely increase your likelihood of a successful outcome.

The article will cover new product launch 2021, new product launch examples, a new product launch checklist, and a new product launch message sample. Don’t forget to grab the new product launch checklist template.

With that in mind, the following are ten steps to help the next product you launch make it to the destination you’re aiming for.

Determine Costs And Necessary Profit Threshold/Timetable

You need to know what the price tag on your new product is, and how long it will take to see a profit on your investment.

If you’re taking something from drawing board to market, you’ve got to design it, prototype it, test it, troubleshoot it, put it in front of people, get it reviewed, advertise, and then sell enough units to get your money back in terms of resources.

Something that takes six months to develop could take a year or more to turn a profit, and you want to be prepared for that by budgeting strategically from the start. Something you would be wise to incorporate into your strategy is flexibility which allows for the unexpected.

A great way to naturally acquire that flexibility is to “overshoot,” as it were. If you need X amount for a given venture, increase that requirement by 20% or so. Should you not spend the extra, you can apportion it elsewhere. If you go over a little, other aspects of operations won’t be impacted.

Figure Out What Competition Exists

Don’t let competition stop you; it never stopped Pepsi. Believe it or not, Pepsi is only really known in the U.S. It is in other countries, but it’s virtually unknown in them.

Coke has the market worldwide. Still, Pepsi competes in America. How is it able to do this? There are a number of factors, including marketing and social impact.

How does this relate to you? Well, your new product may have an analog out there, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t offering something which has no marketable value.

However, if you don’t account for impediments like competition, they’re likely to undermine you incidentally. Know your competitors, and have an action plan lined out to out-perform or sidestep them.

Check Into Legal Matters Pertaining To The Product

What legal exigencies silhouette your new product? Say your new product is an innovative service like cloud computing. In terms of healthcare, HIPAA stipulates something called shared liability wherein tech companies providing services for a healthcare institution are fined in addition to that healthcare institution should it be determined that technological compliance is not being achieved.

With your new products, you need to know whether there are rules or regulations related to your industry and if there are not which, ones that could end up making a villainous cameo during your product’s run. Anticipating legal landmines can help you avoid them, and at the very least minimize damage.

Develop Multiple Product Ideas

Before you can initiate a new product launch, you need some new product ideas; and you need to see how viable they are, which is one question prototypes help to answer—3erp.com provides: “…rapid prototyping and precision CNC machining services [that] ensure your designs and ideas will make sense in the real world in just a few days…”

The site goes on to point out that this allows you to: “…review the design and functionality of products before you have them mass-produced for the market.”

When you’re looking at a big product launch, you ideally want to couple it with multiple innovations.

This may not be feasible for all product launches. However, it does make sense to present ideas in a multitude of ways before settling on the final product design. This helps you attain the best one.

New Product Ideas

 

Patent, Then Prototype Your Proof Of Concept/Cost Projection

Once you’ve settled on a specific product idea, you want to prototype it so that you can get it into the real world.

Be sure patents have been taken care of before you send information to any third parties. Additionally, a prototype helps you get an idea of production cost per unit. You’ll likely refine prototype production protocols as you develop products further.

Begin A Marketing Campaign With Multiple Angles

Once proof of concept and prototyping has yielded a product that fits budgetary projections and seems like something that will actually work, your next step is to start marketing.

SEO can be instrumental here, as it typically has a high quotient of ROI and is very effective. You do want to generate buzz about your new product as early as you can, but you don’t want to do that if you don’t have anything worth buzzing about.

Release The Product And Get Feedback From A Test Market

Once you’ve got a marketed product that seems viable, you need to release it to a test market, conduct focus groups, and determine whether anything unanticipated hampers intended product use, or may represent a danger to the public.

There are issues that will remain invisible until a given product is put through its paces, making test markets essential to serious and competitive development. Product positioning is critical for success.

Fix Errors Discovered In Trial Run

Any errors discovered in your new product after prototyping and trial run need to be rectified before you crystalize the blueprints and begin mass production.

Sometimes you won’t be able to apply a comprehensive fix because of the type of product you’re developing—this is often the case with software already in use, and being updated.

Perform A Final Testing Of Product After Trial Run

Accordingly, it becomes important to test your new product after you’ve fixed it to ensure your augmentations haven’t introduced additional errors into the system.

Devoting proper time to testing, repair, and re-testing should be flexibly budgeted into your development strategy, again over-shooting the target to account for unexpected issues.

Launch New Products

Launch Your NewProduct Officially

When it comes to your new product launch, there is again some good advice from 3erp.com, who points out: “Turning your vision into a reality is no simple feat. You need to entrust your ideas to a prototype company that will handle the manufacturing process swiftly and with the utmost professionalism.”

Faster prototypes mean faster product design from concept to market. You’ll need to send the new product through prototyping facilities for its final test prior to unveiling. Then, when it’s ready, you can hit the “launch” key and watch that product rocket soar through the stratosphere to a planet called “success.”

Actionable Data

This list of ten points pertaining to steps between new product idea and new product launch is by no means comprehensive, but it does represent some actionable things you would be wise to consider as you go about producing new products for your business.

Attention to detail is key in any launch. The more information you have, the better you’ll be enabled to succeed in the market. So consider your plan as it stands, and see where it would be appropriate to optimize.

Wrap-up on New Product Launches

Once an established company or new startup has developed an idea for a product, tested it in the market, and determined its readiness to launch, production begins, and the marketing campaign begins.

For a successful product launch, you must build awareness and excitement about your product and attract people to buy it. Once the product is launched, the advantages for your company become evident.

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General FAQs

Why is a new product launch important?

A new product launch serves many purposes for an organization— giving customers the chance to buy the new product is only one of them. It also helps an organization build anticipation for the product, gather valuable feedback from early users, and create momentum and industry recognition.

What is a new product launch?

When you’re unveiling a new product, the last thing you want is to launch it without a proper go-to-market (GTM) strategy. To avoid a new product launch disastrous launch, you need to craft a thoughtful, actionable, effective go-to-market plan. 

How to perform a new product launch?

Product Launch Checklist
1. Learn about your customer.
2. Write a positioning statement.
3. Pitch your positioning to stakeholders.
4. Plan your go-to-market strategy.
5. Set a goal for the launch.
6. Create promotional content.
7. Prepare your team.
8. Launch the product.

What is a go-to-market strategy?

When you’re unveiling a new product, the last thing you want is to launch it without a proper go-to-market (GTM) strategy. To avoid a new product launch disastrous launch, you need to craft a thoughtful, actionable, effective go-to-market plan. 

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