How to Create a Product — a Quick Guide to Product Development

Creating a new product requires a ton of work. It’s a process that involves selective acquisitions, intensive design and development, and an effective marketing plan. If you don’t know where to start, don’t worry. This article is going to guide you through the steps on how to create a product.

We’ll also discuss the product development process and its importance. You’re sure to learn many things you can apply in your business.

How to Create a Product

Many companies tend to keep releasing new products but cannot find consumers that need them. To create a new product, there must be a clear idea of what the market is looking for.

There are key strategies you can use to ensure a new product’s success after its creation. Here are some of them:

1. Brainstorm

Conceptualizing your product is the first and most important step. You can try having a brainstorming session with your team or on your own. List down all your ideas and start exploring what would work best.

You can also start with a customer problem and think of product solutions for it.

2. Competitive Analysis

Checking out the competitive landscape is a good strategy to help you make your product stand out from the rest. You can start with your product and see how competitors are innovating. See if they’re going for market differentiation or going for the same products as you.

You must find out what areas they have failed at in the past. Try to come up with your own solution for those areas. This way, you can develop a strategy to help you deliver the perfect product to the market.

3. Research your Market

Getting to know your market is one of the most important steps on how to create a new product. You should be able to measure the demand for the product. In addition to exploring the potential distribution channels, you can also determine your product’s price points and market penetration.

Know what the customers need and how your products can help them with their problems. Find out what types of products they are buying rather than what you can sell them. You can use your market research to find the best market segment and place most of your marketing resources in that area.

Other ways you can validate your new product include:

• Having your idea discussed with your family and friends
• Sending out online surveys to get feedback
• Starting a crowdfunding campaign
• Asking for feedback through focus groups or online forums
• Researching market demand using marketing tools like Google Trends
• Launch of a Coming Soon landing page with email opt-ins and pre-orders to gauge interest

4. Design your Product

Start designing your product by creating quick sketches of how the product looks and what it does. A great product is one that balances design and functionality. When aesthetics are done correctly, it can also deliver functionality.

5. Source Materials and Manufacturing Partners

Having a stable supplier for your raw materials is crucial to success. Before you make a single sale, you will be competing with numerous other brands on the market. And you must have a well-established supply chain. This helps you know what to anticipate in terms of their response time, quality, and price. 

These time constraints are different for every product, so it is not something on which you can rely without careful consideration.

6. Prototype Testing

Prototype testing is an essential stage in the creation of a product. It allows you to test a version of your product with finalized design and materials for quality assurance.

If you have a physical replica of your product, you will be able to answer your marketing questions about its design. It’s important to test its performance, get opinions from potential customers, and explore different solutions.

7. Manufacture Products

The new product is finally ready to move to production. At this stage, you can use an approach like lean manufacturing. In this way, you also eliminate waste from every link in your supply chain.

Measurement and tracking of quality are vital to driving improvements. It is critical that everyone is held accountable for meeting your product cost, schedule, and quality goals.

8. Product Launch

After countless preparations, it’s time to release your product into the market. At this point, your product launch campaigns should be in full swing.

Your marketing team will take full charge of spreading the word about your new product. They can use some of these tactics for your product launch:

• Targeted Email Marketing
• Affiliate marketing and influencer collaborations
• Run Chat Marketing campaigns
• Get reviews from early customers

Takeaway

Whether you are a business professional or a weekend hobbyist, we can all benefit from additional information on how to create a new product. This article is a brief overview of some key strategies on how to create a product.