Product Classifications

• Product is essential to satisfying consumer needs and wants for any business
• Key product related decisions impact the success of a business's strategy

The Tangible Product

• Encompasses physically touchable and holdable aspects
• Affects the characteristic influencing buyer decisions

Intangible products

• Digital licenses and software are examples of non-physical goods
• They are valuable, but their valuation is less straightforward

Four Classifications of Products

Convenience Goods

• These are purchased repeatedly without much thought
• Consumers stay with particular brands due to advertising or placement

Shopping Goods

• Shoppers research and compare before purchasing shopping goods
• Typically not impulse buys; these include clothes and home decor

Specialty Goods

• Their unique characteristics and brand identification means buyers will make a special effort to purchase them
• Luxury cars and high-fashion clothing are examples

Unsought Goods

• Goods and services consumers do not often purchase due to lack of consumer need or awareness

Product Line

• Related products are marketed under a single brand and sold by the same company
• Multiple product lines are used by Companies with distinct brand names to improve usability

Product Mix

• The total number of product lines and individual offerings by a company
• Also known as product assortment or portfolio, it varies in breadth across companies

Product Mix Strategies

• Product mix width indicates the number of different product lines a company offers
• Wide product mix equals a diverse product range
• Narrow product mix means focus on a specific category
• Length is the total number of products in a product line
• Long product mix equals many products
• Short product mix equals limited products
• Depth is the number of variations available for each product
• Deep product mix equals many options
• Shallow product mix equals few options

Consistency

• It is the degree of similarity among product lines
• Consistent product mix is closely related products
• Inconsistent product mix means unrelated products

Output product

• Product marketing including branding, advertising, and product launches
• Launch plans, messaging, sales tools, marketing programs, and market analysis are responsibilities

Roles in product management

• The roles include chief product officer, product manager, product owner, and product marketing manager

Chief Product Officer

• Leads product organization, also known as VP or head of product, and supervises product creation
• Key skills include communication, data analysis, leadership, customer sensitivity, and decision making

Product Manager

• Sets product vision
• Communicates vision across departments

Project manager

• Breaks vision into tasks
• Plans project timelines

Product Manager responsibilities

• Setting product vision duties

• Project Manager handles breaking down initiatives into tasks

• One person or a whole team can manage product management depending on company size

• One person has to function as CEO, product manager, and product marketing manager

• An effective product manager leads the team from strategy to execution and ensures that all the members are working towards a common goal

• Without product management, a product team lacks leadership

• Product manager responsibilities are setting a strategic plan for product creation and ensuring its execution

• Includes market research, setting product vision, creating a product roadmap, and coordinating teams

• Main responsibilities include setting the strategy, sharing this strategy, and overseeing its execution

• Product managers use software tools that streamline their work and centralize information

• Software features include user tracking/analysis, customer survey tools, prototyping, road mapping, task management, data management/sharing, and instant messaging

• The Marketing Plan describes market conditions and strategy on how to distribute, price and promote products

• Advertising strategy is outlined to reach the intended market

• The marketing plan is based on the overall marketing strategy

Differences Between Business and Marketing Plans

The marketing plan

• Focuses on marketing activities of a venture for 1 year+
• Varies for a firm in the industry
• Serves as a standalone document to assess if the venture is meeting its goals

The business plan

• A road map for the entire organization
• Focuses on marketing, R&D, operations, manufacturing, projections, and growth
• Updated regularly to provide management goals
• Marketing research for a new venture can mean conducting some market research
• It includes who will buy, market size, which price to charge, distribution channel, and best effective promotion strategy
• Focus groups are inexpensive
• It can be conducted by an entrepreneur or external supplier/consultant
• Entrepreneurs should focus on preparing the marketing plan annually while assessing goals and objectives for the next year
• It establishes how to compete in the marketplace
• It can assign costs to each strategy

Understanding the Marketing Plan

• Marketing plan serves as a road map
• It involves understanding where the business has been
• It involves understanding where the business wants to go
• It involves understanding how to get there

Steps involved in market research

• Define purpose
• Gather secondary source
• Gather primary sources
• Analyze and interpret the results

Characteristics of Marketing Plan

• Offers a strategy for accomplishing the company's mission
• Based on facts and valid assumptions
• Provides continuity to meet longer term goals
• Should be short and simple
• Succeeds based on flexibility
• Specifies performance to be monitored and controlled

Steps for preparing market plan

• Define business situations with an understanding of the past and present achievements
• Provides insight into scenarios in the market and customer acceptance

Defining Target Market

• Target market includes understanding potential customers- helps determine appropriate market action

• It includes market segmentation, that divides into groups to target.

• Considering strength and weakness refers to the core as areas specialization and weakness in production capabilities

• Establishment of goals

• Clear and specific marketing goals indicate target customers and sales promotion

• Defines market strategy by outlining specific activities to meet goals

• Product description, pricing, distribution and promotion refers to entrepreneurs advertising to customers

• Marketing strategy involves understanding the nature of the product

• Expense budgeting

• Implementation of informed workforce,

• Understanding marketing progress

• Product management is the process of planning, creating, launching, and managing a product or service throughout its lifecycle

• It ensures the product meets customer needs and aligns with the company's goals

Role of Product Managers

• They Guide the product through its entire lifecycle
• Act as the bridge between departments
• Define direction for product success

Importance of Product Management

• Acts as the link between departments
• It ensures products meet customer needs and business objectives
• Involves market research
• Involves consumer preference analysis
• Involves product strategy and development planning
• Helps maintain competitiveness and adapt to market changes
• The Innovation Stage is Idea generation, prioritization, and validation
• Analysis phase involved is market demand validation and business case preparation
• Development Stage deals with design, building, and testing the product
• Going to the market involves launch preparation, trials, and sales readiness
• In-life is sales, performance tracking, and resolving issues
• End-of-life means phasing out obsolete products
• A product manager oversees the entire product lifecycle, from idea to end-of-life
• They are focused on market research, product strategy, and customer needs
• A project manager manages specific projects, focusing on scope, tasks, and execution
• A key difference is that Product Managers focus on the "what" and "why," while project managers focus on the "how" and "when"

Role and Characteristics of a Product Manager

• Key skills are Vision, design, and user experience expertise

• Includes Customer advocacy through interviews, testing, and social media engagement

• Responsibilities include conducting market research

• It includes communicating product insights to design and production teams

• Includes driving product innovation and sales

• Ideal workflow workflow of a product manager: Consumer Research; Defines buyer personas and market trends

• Identifies the problem by uncovering customer pain points

• Brainstorming; Collaborate with teams for innovative solutions

• Concept Building means creating a detailed product specification document

• Set milestones, KPIs, and assign responsibilities when establishing a Product Roadmap

• Prioritizing Features; Focusing on high-impact features.

• Implementation involves using Agile or Waterfall models

• Rapid Prototyping and Testing; Iterate based on user feedback

• Digital Product Manager oversees web-based products like UX

• A Product Marketing Manager is someone who crafts product narratives and market strategies

• A Growth Product Manager is someone who uses product features to drive business expansion

• A Technical Product Manager is someone who focuses on niche, technical products

• The Al Product Manager manages AI Expertise with product strategy

• The product Analyst enhances products strategies by using data

• The Product Owner manages daily tasks within a Scrum framework

• The Platform Product manager ensures seamless user experience across products

• Product Operations Manager supports product teams with processes and systems

• Experimentation involves using prototyping and testing for continuous improvement

Difference from Product Thinking:

• Design Thinking focuses user needs and creative solutions

• Product Thinking focuses on business objectives and strategy

• User Persona is a fictional character that represents the target customer

• User Story describes what the persona wants from the product

• User Journey describes the steps a customer takes to achieve a goal

• It helping map and refine the user experience

• Prevents designer bias by prioritizing user needs

• Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a basic version of the product with essential features

• The MVP aim is to gather customer feedback quickly and validate the concept before full development

Product REquirements planning

• It defines key features, functions, and scope of the product

• It ensures all team members have a clear, unified understanding of the product requirements

• Plan and visually outline a product's development stages in a Roadmap

• The includes Timelines

• Also Features

• Also includes Goals and milestones

• Keeps the project on track and adaptable to changes

• With the Agile Philosophy, goals are broken down into small, manageable tasks

• Benefits are Faster adaptability to changes

• Also Reduced inefficiencies and costs

• Agile = iterative product releases with customer feedback

• The Waterfall is a Linear process with final release after approval