4 Steps to a Successful 2016 Product Strategy

Your product strategy must align with the other strategies in the revenue growth chain. Each strategy gets input from the others to achieve strategic alignment.

To create a successful product strategy for 2016, follow these four steps. Follow these 4 steps to create a product strategy that effectively solves market problems.

1. Focus:

This first step relies on effective market segmentation. Focus product efforts on the market segments with the highest potential. This should lead to a product road map with the greatest sales revenue probability.

Define the customer segments that are most attractive to pursue. Then use market research to identify the market problems of these segments.

Now look at your product portfolio and determine:

1. What products address market problems
2. What products don’t address market problems
3. What market problems exist that you haven’t yet created a product to solve

Number one will be on the product roadmap for current products. Number two will be the products you stop investing in. And number three will be on the product roadmap for future products.

2. Business Planning:

Develop business plans that help the product team make product investment decisions.

In this step, you test ideas from numbers 1 and 3 of the focus step. Even products that look good on the road map might not be worth pursuing. Sometimes products aren’t profitable, don’t support a business plan or can’t be priced attractively.

3. Build:

After you decide what products to pursue in the Business Planning step, you build. Specifically, you build products that will be in high demand in the marketplace.

First, define use scenarios. How will someone use the product to solve their market problem?

These use scenarios will become product designs. So the next part of this step is designing products that meet market needs. These products should be something your organization can realistically deliver.

Finally, package the product into something the market will want to buy.

4. Launch:

In this last step, you bring the product to market. Ensure the entire organization is prepared and able to do so. This is the start of selling, and product management must continue to be involved.

First, develop compelling messaging that makes the market stop in their tracks.

Then create launch plans that ensure the entire organization can support the launch.

Finally, execute this plan to achieve the product’s business objectives. The product team should continue to champion the product through the execution phase.

Creating a Fully Aligned Product Strategy:

This post is a high-level view of an involved process. Keep your eyes peeled for more detail about this 4-step methodology. We will dive deeper in upcoming SBI Blog posts.

Can’t wait? Ready to learn how to apply this to your organization? Register for a live How to Make Your Number in 2016 workshop.