Marketing and Sales - Product Development and Brand Management

1. Introduction: Hello, and welcome to this next course in our marketing and sales series in which we take a closer look at product development and brand management. So there are quite a lot of aspects involved here. For instance, we look at describing the product and the services, how we do that effectively. We take a very deep dive on AB testing, look at what it is, why we do it, how we do it. We look at the different stages in product life cycle and development, and we look at then developing a brand identity. Associated with that, of course, we develop a product roadmap, and we look at what that is and how we do it. We then look at product pricing and positioning and the various tactics and strategies that are taken up with this part of the course. And we also look at marketing campaigns, and then the very last one is the actual launch of the product or service, and we look at how we would do that. As with all skill share courses, there's of course a project involved here, and you'll be asked here to either take a genuine product or invent a product of your own and look at how you would create a roadmap for that and how you would launch it. And anything you upload to the system, I would of course be very interested to take a look at it and give you some feedback on your work. Anyway, without further ado, please enjoy the course and any questions, please use your Q&A. You know you'll get an answer. 2. Describing Products and Services Effectively: Welcome to this lesson on describing products and services effectively. Describing products and services effectively is an important business communication, so it enables you to tell people your value proposition, you attract customers and drive sales. We craft compelling and accurate descriptions that highlights the features, benefits, and unique selling points of our offerings. Here are some important things to consider when describing your products and services effectively. Need to understand your target audience. You need to highlight key features. Need to emphasize the benefits. Use persuasive language. Be clear and concise, provide social proof. Use visuals, optimize for search engine optimization, and test and iterate and test and iterate. Now look at each of these in turn. To understanding your target audience. So before you start describing your products and services, you need to have a clear understanding of who you're talking to, who is your target audience. You need to identify their needs, their preferences, their pain points, and their motivations. And knowing this will help you to tailor your description so that it resonates with them and addresses their specific concerns. Depending on the product, you might like to highlight some key features and functionality of the product or service. You want to focus on things that differentiate your offerings from the competition and provide value to customers. You use descriptive language and provide specific details to showcase the unique capabilities or qualities of your offerings. However, the benefits are the things that sell. And so while features describe what the product can do, the benefits describe how it solves the problems and fulfills their needs. So you want to highlight the benefits that the customers can dive from using you're offering. Now, whether it's time saving, improved efficiency, enhanced convenience, or achieving some desired outcome, clearly communicating how your product or service can positively impact their life or business, reaches them on an emotional level. And you need persuasive language. Choose the words and phrases that evoke emotions, capture attention, and really persuade them to take action. You use positive language, use vivid imagery and persuasive techniques, such as storytelling, social proof, or you would appeal to customer aspirations. You'd craft your description in such a way that it triggers interest and desire in the minds of your potential customers. You also need to be clear and concise. This means avoiding jargon. Avoid complex technical terms or overly complicated language that might confuse or alienate and turn away customers. Use clear and concise language and make sure that your descriptions are easily understood by a wide range of customers. I don't need to be have a PhD in physics to understand it. Break down complex concepts into simple and digestible terms, with the focus here on clarity and accessibility. Also incorporate customer testimonials, reviews, case studies, or success stories to provide social proof on the effectiveness and value of your products or services. Be sure to include real life examples and positive experiences from satisfied customers. In that way, you can build trust and credibility and confidence in your potential buyer. If you add good visuals into your product or service descriptions, this would include, say, images, videos, and especially info graphics. This can effectively enhance the appearance and functionality in usage of your offering and make the whole thing easier to understand and more appealing. Search engine optimization is something you can't get around and you need to make sure that your descriptions are SEO optimized. You do keyword research to identify relevant terms and phrases that potential customers could use when searching for things that you are offering. Then you'd incorporate these keywords naturally into your descriptions as a way to improve your visibility in the search engine results. As a very short description, you can do a whole course on SEO. This is just a very brief overview of what we mean by SEO. Of course, test and iterate and test and iterate. This is not a one and done, so you need to continuously test and refine your descriptions based on feedback analytics data and conversion rate. Others make data driven decisions. You pay attention to which descriptions resonate the best with your audience and lead to higher engagement or sales. Then you iterate and optimize your descriptions according to their effectiveness over time. You might also want to perform what we so called AB testing, and we'll look at this more detail in the next lesson. So at some examples. So take, for example, a fitness tracker. And here's what you might see. Our advanced fitness tracker is designed to help you achieve your health and fitness goals effortlessly. With accurate heart rate monitoring, step tracking, and sleep analysis, you can stay on top of your fitness program and make informed decisions about your well being. Whether you're a dedicated athlete or someone looking to improve their lifestyle, our fitness tracker provides real time data and personalized insights to keep you motivated and on track. So if we look at this example, the description highlights the key features of the tracker, such as heart rate monitoring, step tracking, and sleep analysis. But it also emphasizes the benefits of using the tracker, such as staying informed about your fitness progress and making data driven decisions. The description also targets different customer segments, and this would include dedicated athletes and individuals who are looking to improve their lifestyle. Number two. I called SAS software as a service solution. So here's the description. Our Cloud based project management software streamlines collaboration, boosts productivity, and simplifies project workflows. With intuitive task management, real time updates and seamless communication, our SAS solution empowers teams to work together efficiently, meet deadlines, and deliver exceptional results. From small businesses to large enterprises, our software adapts to your needs and scales with your growth, ensuring a smooth and organized project management experience. This description highlights the benefits of project management software, such as streamlining collaboration, boosting efficiency, and simplifying workflows. It also emphasizes the features that enable these benefits, including intuitive task management, real time updates, and seamless communication. The description also addresses different customer segments, mentioning small businesses to large enterprises, and highlights the scalability of the software. In our last example, a natural skin care product. So here's the description. Experience the rejuvenating power of our natural skin care line, crafted with the finest botanical ingredients. Our luxurious moisturizer deeply hydrates your skin, leaving it soft, radiant, and nourished. Enriched with organic oils and antioxidants, it fights signs of aging, reduces the appearance of fine lines, and restores your skin's natural glow. Pamper yourself with the indulgent, scent, and silky texture of our skin care product, and embrace a healthier, more radiant complexion. In this description, we emphasize the use of natural and botanical ingredients in the product. We also highlight the benefits of the moisturizer, such as deep hydration, softness, and a radiant complexion. The description also focuses on the anti aging properties of the product, including reducing fine lines and restoring the skin's natural glow. Here, we appeal to the senses such as the indulgent scent and the silky texture and generally create an enticing experience for our would be customer. 3. A/B Testing: Welcome to this lesson on AB testing. Sometimes AB testing is called split testing, and it's a method used in marketing product development to compare and evaluate two or more variations of something, whether it's a web page, an advert, an e mail or basically any other marketing content. What we do here we create two or more versions of the same element with small differences, then we measure their performance and determine which one gives the best results. As with many things here, A B is an iterative process, something we repeatedly do, and it helps businesses optimize their strategies and improve their conversion rates. Here's an overview of how AB testing works. We have to define a goal. We have to vary some element. We have randomization. We have text execution, we collect the data and analyze it. We look for statistical significance. We determine a winner, and then we iterate and continue testing. Look at the goal definition. We need to identify a specific goal that we wish to achieve of AB testing. This could be to increase CTR, so called click through rates. It could be to improve conversion rates, to enhance engagement, or any other measurable objective related to your marketing efforts. We then need to choose what we're going to, which specific element we're going to test. This could be any part of it. It could be a headline, it could be the call to action button, it could be the layout, the color scheme, pricing structure, What you do is you create usually two. That's why it's called A B, but you can do more. Variations of that element, and each element only varies in this one aspect through only changing one thing here. For example, you may test two different headlines or two different button colors, but not both. We're only varying one thing, that's really important. Then we have some element of randomization. We randomly assign the variations to different segments of our audience. This ensures that any differences in the results are due to the variations themselves and are not influenced by external factors. We randomly show one person version A another person version B, it's all nice and random. Then we have the test execution. We'll implement the variations at the same time, so having both up and running and track their performance over a defined period of time. This could maybe have different versions of a web page. We run different ads with different creatives, we maybe send out e mails or different subject lines. But this is what we're testing. This is how we do it. We need to collect the data and analyze it. We need to check the performance of each variation, and this could include click through rates, conversion rates, balance rates, or any other engagement metrics. Then we analyze the data and we determine which variation performed the best in achieving our defined goals. We need to make sure that the results are so called statistically significant and not the results of random chance. By making something statistically significant, this means we can really determine the reliability of the test and then say whether these changes could be upscale to a larger audience. We need to determine the winner. Based on the analysis results and our statistical significance, we identify the winning variation. This would be the one that performed the best in achieving our predetermined goals. Then this variation can be implemented as a new default version or used as a basis for further testing and optimization. And it's again, not a one done, and AB testing is an ongoing process of optimization. So once you have determined a winning variation and then set it up, you then further refine and test other elements and you continuously improve your marketing efforts. So obviously, AB testing sounds a bit weird, sounds a bit complicated, but there are several benefits, and we'll look at four of them here. So we're actually making data driven decisions. We're not relying on intuition, gut feeling or personal preference. We are genuinely optimizing our marketing efforts, and we're improving customer experience. Then the long term cost efficiency. Look at data driven decision making. By doing AB testing, businesses can make decisions based on concrete data rather than maybe assumptions or subjective opinions. It provides genuine insights into what resonates with a target audience, and I can help identify effective strategies for driving even better results in the future. We improve or optimize our marketing efforts. By testing different variations, we can identify and implement improvements that lead to higher conversion rates or engagement levels or any other desired outcome that we've defined as our target outcome. It then helps us to fine tune our marketing campaigns and optimize the elements to achieve the maximum effectiveness. And it improves customer experience. Allows a business to understand the customer preferences. What do they like more. Then we give them more of that by tailoring our offerings to meet their demands. By testing different variations, we can identify the elements that enhance the user experience and ultimately improve customer satisfaction. And it has cost benefits. AB testing will help a business to allocate the resources more efficiently by investing in strategies and elements that have been proven to deliver better results. Then it minimizes the risk of investing in ineffective marketing efforts and maximizes the return on investment, or the ROI. Of course, we have to look at an example. Here's an example. That an e commerce company wants to test the effectiveness of two different CTA buttons on their product page. They create two versions. One has a green button, and the other has a blue button. And you may think, well, that's silly, but this is really what it boils down to. The color of the button can make a difference. And both versions with the green button or the blue button are shown randomly and equally to their website visitors. Then we track the click through rates on each button, and we find that the version with the blue button has a significantly higher click through rate than the green button. So based on this data, you would then implement the blue button as the default version, which will lead to more conversions and revenue. Then once you've done that, you then look at another aspect and see if you can test and optimize this and iterate on other parts of the form. 4. Product Lifecycle and Development Stages: We'll now take a short look at product life cycle and development stages. A product life cycle refers to the various stages that a product goes through from its initial introduction to the market to its eventual decline and discontinuation. We need to understand the product life cycle so that businesses can effectively manage the products and make informed decisions at each stage in this cycle. Here's a brief overview of the typical product stages. We have the introduction. Then we have growth, hopefully, then we have maturity and finally decline. And we should note that the duration of each stage can vary wdly depending on all sorts of factors such as the industry, the market dynamics, the type of product, and consumer behavior. Also, not all products follow a linear life cycle, and there may be some cycles of say, rejuvenation or extension rebranding or repositioning or modifications to the product. When we look at the introduction, This is when a new product is initially launched into the market. During this stage, the business focuses on creating awareness and generating interest among potential customers. So the marketing efforts are geared towards educating the target audience about this product features, benefits, and the value proposition. The sales may start slowly as customers become aware of the new offering. It's also common for a business to heavily invest in research and development during this stage to refine and improve the product, obviously based on the feedback from the early adopters. We'll look at an example of introduction. A technology company launches a new smart phone with advanced features and a sleek design. During the introduction phase, they invest in marketing campaigns to create awareness. They highlight the unique features of the phone and generate some interest or buzz among the consumers. They may also offer limited time promotions or they do collaborations with influencers in order to or build more excitement and buzz and to drive those initial sales. The next phase is growth. In the growth stage, the product gains traction in the market, and generally, you will see an increased sales and a market acceptance. The customers become more familiar with the product, and word of mouth referrals may also contribute to the growth. Businesses typically expand their marketing efforts here to reach an even larger customer base. And they may also introduce product variations or enhancements to meet the customer needs and stay competitive. As sales and profits increase, competitors might start entering the market, which will intensify the competition. I look an example of the growth phase. After a successful introduction, the SmartPhone experiences the growth phase. The company expands its distribution channels, increases production capacity, and invests in marketing to reach a broader customer base. As the product gains positive reviews and word of mouth recommendations, you see a rapid increase in sales. They might also introduce new models with extra features, such as maybe an improved camera or longer battery life to cater to the customer's changing preferences. We have the maturity phase. This stage is characterized by a peak in the sales and market saturation. The product has reached its maximum level of market penetration, and the competition is becoming strong. During this stage, the business will focus on defending their market share, and they will try and differentiate their product from the competition and also try and foster customer loyalty. Through pricing strategies, promotion campaigns, and hopefully good customer support. These can become important to keep the sales going. Also, they might explore product diversification or extension to extend the product's life cycle. As you mentioned earlier, with improved cameras or something like this or battery life. Here's the example for the maturity phase. When the smartphone reaches the maturity stage, this is where sales stabilize and the market saturation is evident. So multiple competitors are offering similar products, and the price competition is more intense. And so to maintain market share, the company focuses on differentiation through brand loyalty, hopefully es stellla customer service and software updates. They also introduce limited addition versions. They might collaborate with well known designers or have targeted marketing campaigns to maintain customer interests and or extend the products lifespan. Then we have the decline. The decline stage is when sales are going down and the demand for the product is going down. This may occur due to market saturation. In other words, everyone who's going to buy one has one, could be changes in customer preferences, could be technological advancements, or maybe even the emergence of alternative substitute products. Whatever it is during this stage, business may choose to discontinue the product and minimize investments in marketing and production. However, some businesses may opt to continue selling the product into a niche market or a very loyal customer base. This will then involve strategies like price reduction or cost cutting measures to prolong the product's lifespan in this now declining market. Back to our Smartphone example. Over time, the SmartPhone phases declining sales due to market saturation and the emergence of new technological advancements. As customers shift their preferences to newer models or different brands, the company experiences a decline in demand. In response to this, they could reduce their marketing investments. They could adjust the price to maybe target budget conscious consumers or specific niche markets. Alternatively, they might just decide to discontinue the product and then focus their efforts on new product development or diversification in an attempt to stay relevant in the market. 5. Developing a Brand Identity: Welcome to this lesson on developing a brand identity. A good strong brand identity is important for almost every business. It helps establish a unique and recognizable image in the minds of the consumers. But before we look at how to develop a brand identity, we'll have a closer look at the importance of it, why we need it. A good brand identity is important for several reasons. This would include differentiation, brand recognition, consumer trust, emotional connection, brand cohesion, competitive advantage, and long term brand equity. We'll look at each of these now. In a very crowded marketplace, a strong brand identity helps you stand out from the competition. It can enable consumers and customers to differentiate your brand from others and understand what makes it unique. A well defined brand identity sets your business apart from the others. It makes it easier for the customers to recognize and choose your products and services over the other ones. What's have brand recognition. So this identity creates visual and verbal clues that customers can easily recognize and associate with your business. So when customers see your logo or your coloring, or your messaging, it triggers instant recognition and recall. And this familiarity bes trust and loyalty and of a sense of connection with your brand. Which leads to consumer trust. A well crafted brand identity will build trust and credibility with consumers. It will convey professionalism and reliability, and consistency and give customers of confidence in your brand. When customers trust your brand, they are much more likely to choose your products and services and recommend them to others. A strong identity, it goes beyond functional attributes and really taps into emotions. It can create an emotional connection with your target audience by invoking feelings and attitudes and values that align with their own aspirations and desires. And when they resonate with your brand on an emotional level, they develop a deep sense of loyalty and can then in turn become brand advocates free advertising. We have brand cohesion. A clear brand identity provides a framework for consistent and cohesive brand communications. It will ensure that all the marketing materials, the messaging, the visual elements, and everything aligns with your brands essence and values. This cohesiveness will enhance the brand, will strengthen the brand equity and create a unified experience across all the various touchpoints with your consumers. Which will give us a competitive edge. It is what a well defined brand identity can also give you. It will establish your unique position in the market and communicate why customers should choose your brand over your competition. And a strong brand identity can be a really valuable asset, and it can create barriers to entry for new competition while fostering customer loyalty and preference for you. And investing in a strong brand identity has long term benefits. A well established brand identity builds brand equity, which is an intangible value associated with the brand. This equity translates into customer loyalty. You can have premium pricing, you can increase your market share and extend the brand into new products or markets. Anyway, that was the y. Now look at the how. Developing a strong brand identity takes time and requires a deep understanding of your own values and that of your target audience. It's an ongoing process that evolves alongside your business. By effectively and managing your brand identity, you create a strong brand presence, to establish customer loyalty, and you differentiate your brand in the marketplace. So here's an overview of the process of developing a brand identity. We have to define a brand strategy. We also have to understand our target audience. We need to create a name and a logo. We need to create some visual identity, craft our own messaging, build our own personality. We need to implement and consistently reinforce this and maintain a brand consistency. We'll look at each of these in turn. So we start by defining our brand strategy, which includes our mission, our values, our target audience, and our USP. We need to understand what sets us apart from the competition, and we need to identify the key messages that we want to convey to the audience. We need again, to research our target audience. We need to understand their preferences, their needs and motivations. We need to understand their demographics, their psychographics, and behaviors. This research will help us to shape our brand identity in a way that it resonates effectively with our target audience. And also we need a brand name that aligns with our strategy and appeals to the target audience. The brand name should be memorable, easy to pronounce, and in some way reflect our personality. And we need a logo that visually represents our essence and values. And the logo should be unique, so be visually appealing and capable of creating a strong brand association and recognition. In addition to this, we need a consistent visual design in terms of colors, typography, image, and the overall design asthetic. This visual identity should be cohesive across all our brand touchpoints, and this includes our website, the packaging, the marketing materials, and social media profiles. This consistency will then help create a brand recognition and will reinforce your brands personality. We also need to develop a clear and compelling brand message strategy that again reflects the values, the voice and the tone. We need to create messages that communicate of our unique attributes, the benefits, and our value proposition. These messages should resonate with the target audience and differentiate your brand from the competition. We need to also define how the brand's personality is in terms of innovation, friendliness, and trustworthiness. We need to establish a consistent tone of voice and communication style that aligns with the brand's personality. This consistency will build emotional connections with the audience and foster brand loyalty. And our identity across all the touchpoints needs to be the same from website to social media to packaging and customer interactions. And this consistency will reinforce our visual and verbal elements and create a cohesive brand experience. And we need to regularly check this and refine the identity based on consumer feedback and market trends. We need to continuously monitor and enforce our own brand guidelines to ensure consistency in all the communications and experiences. This consistency is required to build up trust and recognition over time. And we'll look at a lot of examples here. Five. Number one is Apple. Apple has a distinct brand identity which is characterized by simplicity, elegance, and innovation, and their brand name and logo are instantly recognizable worldwide. The sleek design, the minimalist aesthetic, and user friendly intervas of their products reflect their brand identity. And their messaging emphasizes creativity. They push boundaries and challenge the status quo. The consistent use of white space with clean typography and minimalist visuals across all brand touchpoints reinforce this brand identity. Let's look at Coca cola. This has an identity that revolves a rounds of happiness, joined togetherness, and their brand name and the local and signature red color are now iconic. Their messaging will emphasize sharing moments, celebrating happiness, and creating memories. This branding consistently uses images of people enjoying coca cola together in all their marketing campaigns and their adverts. Whether it's their classic logo or the tag line or distinctive glass bottle shape, Coca cola has successfully built a brand identity that evokes positive emotions and also creates a sense of nostalgia. Number three, Nike or Nike, depends how you want to pronounce it. Their brand identity has been built on inspiration, determination, and athletic performance. Their iconic swish logo and the just do it tag line are instantly recognizable. Their branding focuses on empowering athletes and encourage them to really push their limits. And their visual identity often features high energy sports imagery, professional athletes, which reinforces their brands association with athleticism and excellence. And they consistently deliver powerful messages that resonate with their target audience and thereby reinforces their brand identity. Before we look at Air B and B. AirBNB has developed a brand identity centered around community, belonging, and unique travel experiences. Their brand is synonymous with finding accommodations that feel like home. Their logo is a symbol of connection and belonging, resembling a combination of a heart, a location pin, and the letter A. AB and B's messaging emphasizes the idea of belonging anywhere and celebrating diversity. They showcase diverse properties and promote authentic local experiences, which aligns with their brand identity of fostering connections and creating memorable travel experiences. And the last example we'll look at is Lego. So Lego has a strong identity built around creativity, imagination, and playfulness. And their brand name is synonymous with interlocking building blocks. We use the same word. And their logo is simple yet distinctive. And the branding consistently uses bright primary colors in their identity or their visual identity. And then messaging emphasizes the power of imagination, of learning through play, and just the joy of creating something. They've built a brand identity that appeals to both children and adults, promoting creativity and encouraging endless possibilities. 6. Creating a Product Roadmap: Welcome to this lesson on creating a product roadmap. Creating a product roadmap is an essential strategic planning tool for product development and management. It provides a visual overview of the future direction. It tells us the key goals and the features and timelines. And creating a product roadmap requires collaboration input from many different departments and teams. It can align stakeholders, guide decision making, and provide a clear vision for the product development. And by following a structured approach, a business can effectively plan and communicate the product strategic direction, which will foster successful product development and launch. It's a rough overview of the process of creating a product roadmap. We start with defining the vision and objectives. We gather and prioritize requirements. We set the goals and the themes. We define timelines and milestones. We visualize the roadmap, we communicate and iterate, and we monitor and adapt. We'll look at each of these in turn. We start by defining the vision for the product. In other words, what problem does it solve? What value does it bring to customers? We clarify the objectives we wish to achieve so that we can increase our market share, improved customer satisfaction, and maybe even expand into new markets. And the vision and the objectives will guide the rest of the roadmap creation process. We need to collect input from stakeholders. Stakeholders could be customers, could be internal teams, market research. We gather and identify the products requirements. We need to think about the customer needs, the industry trends, the competitive analysis, and the business goals. We need to prioritize these requirements based on the impact that it will have on the product success and our available resources. We also need to establish clear goals for each phase of the roadmap. These goals, so called smart goals, should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound, or timely. We then take these requirements and we group them into themes or initiatives that are aligned with the goals. The themes then help us to organize and communicate the strategic focus areas of the product. So we determine the timeline for the roadmap, and we consider factors such as market opportunities, development cycles, and dependencies, and we break the roadmap down into meaningful milestones or releases that represent significant deliverables or features. Then we align the milestones with the customer's needs, say the business cycles or any other relevant factors. We need to visualize the roadmap. We need to choose a format such as a gant chart, a timeline or a C band board. The roadmap should clearly communicate the timeline, the milestones, the goals, and the themes. Maybe consider using color coding or labels to tell different types of features, priorities, or dependencies. We need to make sure that the roadmap is easily understand and accessible to all the stakeholders. The timeline is represented graphically and is a series of events or activities that occur over a specific period of time. It provides a chronological order of events and allows us to visually understand the sequence of duration, and relationships between different points in time. The time lines can be represented in various formats such as linear or horizontal bars, vertical lines, or a combination of both. They can range from simple representations of time intervals to more complex visualizations that include additional details and annotations. When we create a timeline, key events or milestones are typically marked along the timeline with a corresponding date or intervals. And depending on the purpose of the timeline, additional information, such as descriptions, images, or data points could also be included to provide more context and make it easier to understand. So here's a timeline example. It just shows different Ignore the text is just there as placeholder text. It doesn't actually mean anything. So we show different things that happen in different points of time and is a very rough timeline of a roadmap. We also use a gant chart. A gant chart is like a sort of a bar chart that illustrates a project schedule, and it provides visual representation of tasks and activities that are involved in the project, and it shows their duration and their dependencies. This chart is named after so called Mr. Henry Gant, who is an American engineer and management consultant, and he developed this technique in the early 20th century. And then a gant chart, each task is represented by a horizontal bar that spans across a time axis. The length of the bar represents the duration of the task, and its position on the chart indicates when it starts and ends. The chart also shows the relationship between tasks such as dependencies and sequencing, and here's a gant chart. Again, the text is not important. But we see different projects or different phases of the project, different activities, and we're starting for a whole year from January to December, and we see which things take how long. We see which order they're done in. This gives us a very good overview of the expected way that the project will run. And lastly we have a so called ban board. A Caban board is a visual project management tool that helps teams track and manage their work. And its name comes from a Japanese word Kanban, which means signboard or visual card. A ban board provides a clear visualization of work items and their progress through various stages of the workflow. Typically, the board represents a series of columns and these columns represent the various stages of work. These columns are often labeled to reflect specific steps in the team's workflow, such as to do, in progress, and done. For each work item, we represent it with a card or a sticky note, and we place it in a corresponding column based on its current status. This board allows team members to quickly see the status of each task or work item. They can identify bottlenecks or work overload, and then collaborate effectively to solve it. These boards, they can be physical boards with sticky notes or white boards, or they can also be like digital tools and software that offer virtual boards. This is what one would look like. In this particular board, we have four columns to do in progress testing and done, and we see the different pieces of paper or sticky things that would be individual tasks, and we move it from one column to the next depending on our progress. Then we can see at a glance where lots of things are or where few things are. We need to communicate and iterate. So we need to share the roadmap with the relevant stakeholders. This could be the product team, executive, development team, sales and marketing, even be customers. We need to ensure that everybody understands the direction and the timelines. So we'll collect feedback, we'll incorporate insights and iterate the roadmap as needed. So it's a dynamic thing. And regular communication updates and progress to stakeholders is also required after changes have been made. We need to monitor and adapt. So we continuously monitor the progress of the roadmap against the predefined goals and milestones, we need to adjust the roadmap as necessary based on things like marketing changes, customer feedback, maybe resource constraints or new opportunities. And regular reviews and updates keep it aligned with the product evolution strategy and business priorities. 7. Product Pricing: Welcome to this lesson on product pricing. By product pricing, we refer here to the process of determining the monetary value or the price at which a product or service will be sold to customers. And these pricing decisions involve several factors, which include production costs, the competition, the market demand, perceived value, and profit margins. And there are quite a few different strategies that companies can use. The ones we'll look at in this lesson is cost based pricing, value added pricing, market based pricing, value based pricing, skimming pricing, and penetration pricing. Obviously, we'll look at all of them in the next slides, but would like to point out that the pricing strategy that you use can depend on quite a lot of factors, such as the products positioning, the competition, the market, and the business objectives. The first one I want to look at is cost based pricing. This is a pricing strategy where you take the price of a product based on the calculation of the product costs, and then you add a markup to it. So you need to identify and aggregate or sum up all of the costs associated with manufacturing, distributing, and selling a product. This will include direct costs, such as materials and labor, and also indirect costs such as overheads and administrative expenses. The desired profit margin is then added to the total cost, and this gives you the final price. And this strategy ensures that the price covers the expenses incurred and actually provides a profit. But it does not take into account market demand or competitor prices, and it focuses really just on covering costs and ensuring profitability. Now, the downside with this as well as it could be rather complicated to set up, because you need to determine sort of individually hourly rates per machine, if you would say in a factory based situation, and this would be based on the purchase cost, the depreciation time and running costs. And just to give you a very genuinely real silly example of this, I was setting up a system at a printer, and they had one color printer, and from this with a few aggregates and things that you could optionally add on to the end, And from this one printer, they generated 22 different costs for it, depending on what it was doing and which combinations of aggregates were being used. So it can get silly. In contrast to this, we have value added pricing. And value added is a completely different strategy, which is based on covering costs and achieving profits. But the way we do it is we add up, say for the year, all of the company costs we have, the fixed cost, the wages, everything, and we divide them by the available working hours for that year. And this thing gives us a target hourly rate that we need to cover the costs. And the good thing about this, it doesn't matter what you do or on what machine. The hourly rate is kind of the same. And then what you would then do is you would work out the profits or the income you want to generate for that year. Divide that by the available working hours, you add that on and this higher hourly rate then is used for producing your goods. So if you say, take the a printing example again, we had before with 22 different cost base, everything has the same price. It doesn't matter what you're doing, doesn't matter what machine, you just want this much per hour, and we're happy. We have market based pricing. This is also known as competitive pricing. And what we do here is we determine the price of a product or service based on prevailing market conditions, and this will include the competitor prices, the customer demand, and the industry dynamics. And when we do this, we assess the price set by the competitors for similar products and services and adjust our own pricing accordingly. Of course, it could be up or down as we'll see in future slides. A market based pricing strategy aims to position the product competitively within the market. And this takes into account factors such as market, share, perceived value, and differentiation. And it ensures that the price that we set on the market, it stays aligned with what customers expect and are willing to pay based on the market dynamics. We have value based pricing, which is not to be confused with value added pricing and we looked at before. So value based pricing is a strategy where the price is determined on the perceived value that it provides to customers. And when we do this, we look at the customer's perception of the products and the benefits and the features and the overall value proposition. And then we identify the things that are most valuable and most important to the customers. When we do this, we set the prices that reflect this higher perceived value. So it's nothing to do with what it costs us to make. And value based pricing relies on market research, customer insights, and really understanding the unique value proposition of your product or service. It also enables businesses to capture a premium price for products that offers very distinct benefits or solve specific customer problems. Another quick example of this from the printing world. As a printer, it might cost you the same amount of money to produce sort of glossy marketing brochures or internal note pads. But the customer perceives the marketing brochures as being more valuable, and so I'm prepared to pay more for them than just stuff they use internally. We have skimming prices. What we do here is we set a relatively high price for a new product when it's initially launched onto the market. And this is often used for new products or innovations that have unique features that is not available anywhere else and which gives you a competitive advantage. By setting a higher price, the business can target early adopters and people who are prepared to pay the premium to have the the prestige of being among the first to own this new product, and skimming pricing allows companies to really maximize their profits at the early stage when demand is strong and competition is limited. Now, over time, as the product's lifestyle progresses and the competition intensifies, we could gradually reduce the price to then attract a broader customer base. And the last example we have or the last strategy we have is penetration pricing. And this is typically where you would offer a product at a lower price to gain quick market share and capture sort of, you know, a large customer base. And the approach here is to attract customers who are maybe we call them price sensitive and create then a strong market position and position ourselves among our competition better. And so we set a lower price. We then can stimulate demand. This will encourage the initial purchases, and then the product will be established on the market as something that is viable to the existing market products. By penetration pricing, we often do this when we're entering a new market or launching a new product, but where the market is already having lots of competition. So if we're using in contrast to value based price, where you're the only ones with this new thing, use penetration pricing when there's existing competition. Anyway, once we have our market share and we have some loyal customers, we can then gradually increase the price to make our profitability what we anticipated. So it's only an initially sometimes called dumping price if they're being unfair. Anyway, let's look a few examples. So the Apple iPhone pricing strategy. This is obviously value based pricing for its iPhones, and they're priced higher than the competition. And this should then reflect the premium positioning of the brand. And they take into account of innovative features, cool design, brand reputation, and all these come together to justify the higher price points that you would typically pay for Apple products. Look at Coca cola. They use a market based pricing strategy for their soft drinks. So the price is based on production costs, competition, the competitor prices, and of course, consumer demand. And the goal here is to maintain competitive prices while at the same time, maximizing profitabilities. As a difficult juggling act if to think about it. And the last example we want to look at is ICA, and IKA is a classic cost based pricing strategy for all its furniture and home products. The company they focus on offering affordable value for money products over the wide range for many different types of consumers. And they achieve this through a very efficient supply chain management. So they have flat packed furniture with self assembly, and this reduces production, and of course, transportation costs because everything takes up less space. 8. Product Positioning: Welcome to this lesson on product positioning. The product positioning, what we mean here is the perception and image that the product holds in the minds of consumers when compared to competing products. We define how a product stands out, it's unique value proposition, and we look at the specific target market that it aims to serve. An effective product positioning involves identifying the target market, assessing the competitive advantage, crafting our unique value proposition, having consistent branding and messaging and monitoring and adapting continuously. And product positioning helps create a distinct identity for the product. It establishes its relevance and appeal to the target market, and it guides our marketing and communication strategies to reach and engage with the attended audience more effectively. Now you may see some of this lesson and think, we've done this somewhere else. And there's a bit of overlap between product positioning and other aspects of sales and marketing. So this isn't copy paste. This is specifically for product positioning. Firstly, we need to identify the target market. Here we look our specific segment of customers who are to be the most likely to be interested in and benefit from our particular product or service. We would do market research, we would gather data and insights about our potential customers. We would include certain data like demographics, which would be age, gender, location, et cetera. So psychographics, their so called lifestyle, their values, their interests, could be behavioral patterns and needs. And the idea here, the aim of this is to understand the characteristics and the preferences, and indeed the buying behaviors of our target audience, which will then enable us to target our marketing strategies and messages accordingly. We also need to look at what the competition is doing. So we need to assess the competitive advantage, and we need to then understand and analyze the strengths and other the unique aspects of this product or service when we compare it to the competition. And this will then help us to identify what sets the product apart from the competition and how it can deliver more value to the customers. So we would look at quite a lot of factors and evaluate features, quality, pricing, distribution channels, the general brand reputation, customer service, and innovation. And by understanding sort of what the competition is doing, we can compare with them and identify our strengths and weaknesses, and we can leverage this advantage to position ourselves effectively in the market. We also have to create a unique value proposition. So a UVP, as it's usually called, is a sort of clear and compelling statement that communicates the unique benefits and value of our product or service for the target audience. In crafting a UVP, we need to identify those key attributes or the special features, or the advantages that differentiate our products from the competition, and that also resonates with the target market. And the UVP should address customer needs. It should solve a problem or fulfill a desire more effectively or distinctly than alternatives in the market. This is important because we don't want to create a solution in search of a problem. And our UVP should also be concise and memorable and should really communicate this proposition clearly to the target audience, thereby making our brand stand out and be more attractive. We also need consistent branding and messaging. We do this to establish a cohesive and immediately recognizable brand image. And all sorts of things associated with this. There's visual clues like logo, colors, typography. There's a tone of voice we use. There's the tone of messaging and the customer experience. And this consistency really makes sure that customers can easily identify our brand and connect with it no matter where they see it. In turn, this helps to build brand recognition, which results in extra trust and loyalty. Maintaining consistent branding and messaging requires clear brand guidelines. We need communication strategies, and we need to constantly monitor this to make sure that all our brand elements are in sync and convey a unified brand image. As you may have seen before, it's an iterative process. So we monitor and adapt continuously. We assess the market trends, we get customer feedback, we check what the competition is doing, and we adapt and refine the products positioning and marketing strategies accordingly. To do this, we would monitor, say consumer preferences. We check the competition. What are they doing? We analyze industry developments and market dynamics. And with this, we can sort of maybe even identify emerging opportunities or on the negative side, upcoming challenges. We collect and analyze data. And because of this, we can gain insights into customer satisfaction, market demand, and changing needs. And this information enables companies to make informed decisions based on data, not feelings or emotions, enables them to adjust strategies, refine their value proposition, and stay relevant in a dynamic market environment. Let's look at some examples iPhone. How do they position their product? They position the iPhone or Apple doo, as a high quality innovative and user friendly smartphone. They target tech savvy individuals who place a high value on cutting age modern technology and a seamless user experience. The brand then emphasizes these unique products, the sleek design, and ecosystem integration to differentiate itself from competition, and then establish the iPhone as sort of a premium option in the market. What about Coca cola? What do they do? Well they position their products as sort of refreshing, enjoyable, and a symbol of happiness. The brand focuses on creating sort of emotional connections with consumers, and its marketing campaigns always show Coke being in parties when people are when they're together, when they're celebrating something. And this emphasizes the brand sort of heritage, It helps the global reach and its iconic status. And it has made it quite a popular choice among consumers worldwide. And lastly, we look at ICA, how do they position their products? They position themselves as someone who provides functional and stylish furniture and home goods at affordable prices. So they cater to customers who are looking for sort of modern well designed products, but also practical for every day. And their positioning is centered around its Swedish heritage. They offer a wide range of products, and they really promote this, do it yourself, sort of home furnishing concept, where you buy a flat packed box and build it up yourself. S. 9. Creating Impactful Marketing Campaigns: Welcome to this lesson on creating impactful marketing campaigns. To create impactful marketing campaigns involve designing and executing strategies and effectively engage with our target audience, deliver the key messages, and thereby drive the desired actions. So here are some of the main points that you need to consider when doing this. We need to clearly define our campaign objectives. We need to understand our target audience. We need to develop a compelling value proposition. We need to create engaging content. We have a multi channel approach. We also have personalization and targeting. We need a clear call to action, and we need to measure and optimize. And by incorporating all of these elements into the marketing campaigns, we can create impactful and memorable experiences that resonate with the target audience. It will then drive engagement and ultimately achieve our marketing objectives. I would point out this is the lesson in product development and brand management, where these marketing campaigns are important. So what we have here is a brief overview of it, because in other lessons, we go into this in a lot more detail. Anyway, let's have a look at each of these in turn as they relate to product development and brand management. We need clear campaign objectives. It doesn't matter what it is, whether we're increasing brand awareness, driving sales, promoting new products, increasing customer loyalty, we need well defined goals that will then guide our strategy and make sure that all our campaign elements aligned with the desired outcomes. When defining campaign objectives, we need so called smart objectives, and Smart here stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound or timely. So for example, if our objective is to increase brand awareness, we need to set a specific goal, such as increased brand awareness by 20% among the target audience within six months. And this sort of clarity will help us to guide the marketing campaign and allow us to sort of measure our success accurately. You know, what you don't measure, you can't improve. We also need to understand the target audience. So we do market research, we look at demographics, psychographics, and behavior patterns. And this, in turn, will help us to tailor our messaging, our creative elements and the channels to resonate with the target audience and address their needs and preferences. So we would conduct market research, we'd analyze the data, we'd use customer surveys or interviews, and then gather our data that way. We also develop a so called buying persona that represents our typical customer. And this will include all of the things we mentioned, their demographics, their interests, their challenges, and their aspirations. For example, if you're targeting millennials who were interested in sustainable fashion, your campaigning messaging and visuals should align with their values and preferences on eco and sustainability. We also need a compelling value proposition. We need a compelling statement that highlights the unique benefits and value of the product or services that we offer. You need to clearly communicate why the audience should choose our brand over the competition and how this will solve their problems and make their lives better. That a strong value proposition really forms the foundation of the messaging and positioning. For example, if you're promoting a fitness app, your value proposition could be achieve your fitness goals with personalized workout plans, expert guidance, and real time progress tracking, all in one app. So this conveys specific benefits and also shows which features differentiate our products from those currently on the market. We also need creative and engaging content. We need to make it appealing, informative and really engaging content that will align with the brand identity and the campaign objectives. We would use compelling headlines. We have engaging story telling, and we would also have visually appealing graphics or videos. As an example, a skin care brand could create a video campaign that shows before and after transformations, could have testimonials and expert tips to engage and educate the audience. And also, infographics can really effectively communicate complex information in a visually appealing way. By multi channel approach, we mean here that we reach our audience through various marketing channels to maximize our reach and impact. So we'd use a combination of digital channels such as social media, e mail marketing, search engine optimization, content marketing, and traditional channels such as print TV, radio, and outdoor advertising as in posters and poster boards. We would ensure that the messaging and these creative elements are specifically tailored to each channel. And this will optimize the engagement and the response rates. For example, if you're targeting a younger demographic, you could focus on social media platforms such as Instagram or TikTok. We would use e mail marketing to nurture lets and drive conversions. We also optimize the website for search engines and use this as a way to increase our organic traffic. We would also do personalization and targeting. So we'd use the data that we have to personalize our marketing message and target specific segments of our audience. Now Very often use so called CRM systems or customer relationship management systems, and then we'd have automated marketing tools and data analytics, and we deliver personalized content based on the customers behaviors, their preferences, and any previous interactions they've had with our brand. And this personalization really increases the effectiveness of the campaigns because it makes it seem more relevant to the people receiving it. So A e commerce company, they might send or personalized product recommendations based on the customer's browsing or purchase history, and this will then increase the likelihood of conversions. And personalization creates a more tailored engaging experience for your audience. We also need a clear call to action or C to A, as it's usually abbreviated. So every single marketing campaign should have a clear C to A that tells the audience what they should do next. So it's all very well just showing them a nice advert and they say, Hey, cool, but you've got to tell them what to do. You have to really hold their hand and ad them. That doesn't matter what it is, whether it's making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, downloading some documentation, or even visiting a physical store. You need a compelling and easily understandable CTA that guides the audience towards your desired outcome. And you need to make sure your CTA stands out and clearly communicates what you want them to do. For example, shop now, sign up today, download the free guide, and we use contrasting colors and compelling copy and prominent placement to draw attention to the CTA, and we make as easy as possible for the users to do what we want them to do. As you heard before, measurement and optimization. So we will set up tracking mechanisms, we check KPIs and really measure the effectiveness of the campaign. We monitor and analyze the data of repeatedly to understand which aspects are performing well and which require optimization. As an example here, you would conduct AB testing and compare different campaign elements such as headlines, visual, CTA buttons, landing pages, et cetera. Check the lesson on AB testing for more information. And then we make data driven adjustments to the campaign elements and the messaging and the targeting to continuously improve the performance and achieve the desired results. So as you've heard before, it is not a one and done, it's a cycle of measuring and optimization. 10. Launching New Products and Services: Welcome to this lesson on launching new products and services. So the launch of a new product or service is the exciting part, and it's important for any business. What we have here is a series of strategic steps that we do to introduce a product or service to the market in a successful way. Now, in previous lessons, we've covered the market research, the product development, target audience identification, branding and positioning, marketing and promotion, the pricing strategy, and customer feedback in iteration. And here's an overview of the remaining things we need to do when launching a new product or service. So we have the launch event or campaign. We have sales and distribution support, monitoring and evaluation, the post launch marketing, we have competitive analysis and customer feedback and support. We'll look at each of these in turn. So we should really have a launch event or some sort of campaign that will create buzz and excitement around this new product or service. This could involve some event, could have product demonstrations, we could offer exclusive promotions, we could collaborate with influence or media outlets, and have broad media coverage. And we would use this as a opportunity to showcase the key features of our product, the benefits, the unique selling points, and to our target audience. Unfortunately, the days of build it, and they will come are no longer true. We do need these launch campaigns. Look at an example. T a technology company launches a new smartphone with a sort of a high profile launch event. They invite industry influencers or tech journalists, existing customers who are very loyal, and give them a chance to experience the product firsthand. And this event includes live demonstrations of interactive displays, and you can do exclusive pre order offers, which generates excitement and media coverage. Then need to look at sales and distribution support. So we need to make sure that our sales team is well equipped with all the training and resources to effectively sell this new product or service. We need to provide them with product information, sales materials, and a clear understanding of the target audiences pain points and motivations. What we do, we identify the pain point, stick our finger on it and make it hurt more, and then we provide them with a plaster. And we also collaborate closely with distribution partners to make sure the seamless and efficient distribution process. There was no point in selling the stuff. Marketing it effectively if there's none to buy. They'll get an example. So a beverage company will launch a new line of healthy energy drinks. They provide comprehensive training to their sales team on this the unique ingredients, the benefits of these drinks to their target audience, and then make sure they work together with their distributors to make sure that the product is available in retail stores and maybe even gyms and health food outlets in a way of reaching their target market effectively. We need to monitor and evaluate, again, not a one and done. We need to continuously monitor the performance of the new product or service after the launch. We would look at KPIs, such as sales figures, customer feedback, market share, and generals or satisfaction levels. Then we would assess the success of our launch by comparing the actual results to our predefined objectives, and if necessary, make adjustments or refinements to our marketing sales strategies. As an example, the software company launches a new product management tool. They attract KPIs, such as the number of signups, the number of active users, any user feedback rating, and any conversion rates from say, free trials to paid subscriptions. And based on this data, they would then identify areas for improvement, such as maybe an improved user onboarding process, or they could add new features and functionality to meet the customer's demands. We have post launch marketing. So we've gained some momentum from our launch event. And now we need to maintain this momentum and keep up the interest in our new product through ongoing marketing efforts. So we would need a post launch strategy and marketing campaign that will provide updates and offer incentives or maybe loyalty programs to encourage repeat purchases and then to build our customer loyalty. As an example. A fashion brand launches a new collection of sustainable clothing. They develop post launch marketing campaigns, which features social media content, which highlights their unique environmentally friendly materials and ethical production practices. They also offer incentives such as free shipping or discounts for customers who share their fashion journey on social media. Then we have our competitive analysis. We need to see what our competitors are doing. We need to see what the market is doing. We need to see any price changes or product enhancements of our competition. And based on this, we would potentially adjust our marketing and sales strategies to maintain our competitive advantage and really respond to any market changes. As an example, a cosmetic company launches a new skin care line that targetings or mature skin or for the older person. They would closely look at what the competition is doing. And when they do this, they notice that a competitor is launching a similar product with a lower price points they're being undercut. And so in response to this, they their marketing strategy to emphasize the advanced anti aging ingredients and their reputation for sort of high quality, which then justifies the higher price. So what they don't do is just undercut them because all that does is causes a race to the bottom. And lastly, we look at customer support and feedback. So we want to provide exceptional customer support in case there's any questions or concerns or problems that customers may have after purchasing this product or service. And we really want to actively seek customer feedback. So we need to identify what we can do better and how we can make the customer experience better. Then, of course, we would use this feedback in an iterative loop to refine the product and service offering over time. A software as a service or SAS company, they launch a new project management software. They provide 247 customer support through live chat and e mail, and this way, they can address any technical issues or questions that the users might have. They would also actively seek feedback through surveys and customer reviews. They would incorporate any suggestions they give and put all this together to make the software's usability and functionality better.