Will Your New Product Be a Hit? How to Find Out Without Risk
It’s a big deal to come onto the scene as a brand new company with a new product or service. And if you’ve hit pay dirt once, it’s understandable why you may be nervous about trying it again—if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.
Simply knowing how to add a product or service offering to your current customer base isn’t enough to guarantee success. It takes hard work, just like the first launch, except this time you have traction—brand awareness and recognition—to factor into the equation.
You also have an edge you didn’t have before: your existing customer base. However, even with an existing customer base, when you launch a new product or service, it needs to deliver, or you risk your customers flocking to your competition and you'll be watching your hard work go down the drain.
Before you start investing in product development, put your customer data to use and make sure you get it right from the start.
Talk to your customers
Once you’ve nailed down some of the details on your new product or service, reach out to your customers and ask them how they feel about it. Post on your social channels, send an email marketing blast asking for feedback, and talk directly to your loyal base. Research shows 81% of customers would be willing to provide feedback if they knew they’d get a fast response, so be ready to acknowledge their answers.
“If we were to add X to our product catalog, what would make you want to buy?”
“If we were to add X to our services, what would you expect it to include?”
The answers your customers provide will let you know a few things: whether or not they’re really interested in your idea, what they expect from the idea, what they like about it, what they don’t, and how much they may be willing to pay for it.
Listen to your customers. Use the feedback to fine-tune your idea, and finalize more details.
Analyze customer relationship management (CRM) data
If you haven’t invested in CRM, consider this: every dollar spent on CRM yields $8.71 in return. You’ll get access to information you can use to improve your marketing, sales, and customer experience processes. Your CRM data can give you a wealth of information about your customers, including:
- Most valuable customers
- What customers are buying
- When customers are buying
- How often customers are buying
- Where customers are in the funnel
- Why you’re losing customers
Look for patterns in the data. What is the most popular product or service you offer? What complements or is a natural extension of that product or service? Is there a place in your funnel that customers are “stuck” in? What is the least popular product or service? What could you do to improve it?
Patterns in the data can give you ideas about how to not only improve existing products and services, but can also tell you more about what your customers want and need. Use this information to fine-tune your approach with your new offering.
Listen on social media
Beyond outright asking customers about what they think about your ideas for expansion, monitor social media for mentions of your brand, products/services. Listen for things people are having trouble with and what they love, as this can spur ideas for current product improvements in addition to potential ideas for your new offering and launch.
Fast food giant Wendy’s used social listening to address three issues with its customers. Upon discovering that many customers were unsure about what to order due to the lack of readily available nutritional information, Wendy’s developed a smartphone app with nutrition information for all items on the menu.
When the company realized no one really talked about the value menu items, it encouraged people to tweet their own names for the $1 hamburgers they ate for lunch. When the “pink slime” beef byproduct story took the fast food industry by surprise, Wendy’s was quick to turn to social media to let customers know this was not, and had never been the case for its products—earning trust and word-of-mouth discussion from followers.
In 2013, whiskey brand Maker’s Mark announced it was going to reduce the alcohol content of its product. Outraged customers vented on the company’s social profiles, and it wasn’t long before the company reversed the decision, a direct result of customer feedback.
Invite the elite to test
If you determine your idea is worth launching, work on development until the product or service is nearly ready to go public. Then, go back to your CRM data to determine who your best customers are. These are your brand ambassadors, out there sharing your products/services with friends and family, so they are likely going to be interested in whatever new thing you’re offering.
Segment them into a separate email marketing list and invite them to test your new product or service in a private beta. Reward them for their time and feedback, to encourage participation and honesty.
After your customers have tested your new offering, pay close attention to the feedback. What did they enjoy? What, if anything, did they want to see improved? While you may have what you believe is a stellar product ready to launch, your bias could get you in trouble. You won’t be able to make all of your customers happy, but you should be prepared to make adjustments to the product based on the majority customer feedback before the launch.
Once you launch, continue using the same tactics to improve your products and services. When you’re ready to add something new to the lineup, visit this process again. As long as you’re listening to your customers and actively working to provide solutions to a common problem, your product launch risk will remain low.
