Learn All About Product Life Cycle in Marketing

No company or brand wants its item to become "obsolete" and reach its end of the life cycle. Regardless, knowing what stage your product is at can help you make better marketing and commercial decisions. You may expand and grow in the marketplace by responding quickly to changing client requirements, introducing new products to your range, and implementing cutting-edge technology.

The product life cycle is the progression of stages that a product goes through during its life, beginning with development and ending with decline. It's usually divided into six stages. The product life cycle is used by business owners and marketers to make key decisions and tactics about advertising expenditures, product prices, and packaging. If you're already familiar with the word, you might find this illustration a little strange.?

The traditional representation of the product life cycle in the marketing business only includes four key stages: introduction, growth, maturation, and decline. Marketers must understand how their techniques and plans alter based on the stage of their product. Let's take a look at each of the product life cycle's six stages.

• Development

Before a product is released to the market, it goes through the development stage of the product life cycle. This is the time when businesses attract investors, create prototypes, evaluate product efficacy, and plan their launch. Because of the nature of this stage, businesses spend a lot of money without generating any income because the product hasn't yet been sold. Depending on the intricacy of the product, how fresh it is, and the competition, this stage might take a long period. The development stage of a completely new product is difficult since the initial version of a product is rarely as successful as subsequent revisions.

Using Development in Marketing: While marketing usually starts with the launch, you may start to generate "buzz" about your product by gaining the endorsement of well-known industry figures. You may also share early (and positive) customer feedback or testimonials. During this stage of marketing, you aim to increase brand recognition and position yourself as a forward-thinking firm.

• Introduction

When a product is initially introduced to the market, it is called the introduction stage. This is when marketing teams start promoting their products and reaching out to potential buyers. When a product is first released, sales are often modest, and demand grows slowly. This phase is usually devoted to advertising and marketing initiatives. Companies examine distribution channels and attempt to educate prospective buyers about the product.

Using Introduction in Marketing: This is where the good times begin. Now that the product has been released, you may use inbound marketing and content marketing to promote it. In this period, education is quite crucial. Before they buy something, your target customer needs to know exactly what they're getting. If your marketing techniques are effective, your product will go to the next stage: growth.

• Growth

Consumers have accepted the product on the market throughout the growth stage, and customers are starting to fully buy-in. This indicates that demand and earnings are increasing, ideally at a steady rate. When a product's market expands and competition emerges, it is said to be in the growth stage. Your success will entice potential competitors to join you.

Using Growth in Marketing: During this stage, marketing campaigns frequently move from gaining customer buy-in to building a brand presence so that consumers prefer them to emerging competitors. Furthermore, when businesses expand, they will continue to establish new distribution channels and offer additional features and support services. You can include these in your marketing plan as well.

• Maturity

When sales begin to level off after a period of fast development, it is said to be at the maturity stage. Companies begin to lower their prices at this time to remain competitive in the face of increasing competition. This is the stage in which a business starts to become more efficient and learns from the errors made during the startup and expansion stages. Differentiation is usually prioritized above awareness in marketing initiatives. This might imply that product features are improved, prices are reduced, and distribution is increased. Products begin to enter the most profitable stage during the mature stage. While sales are growing, the cost of production is decreasing.

Using Maturity in Marketing: When your product has matured, you may feel as if you're "sailing by" since sales are consistent and the product is well-known. However, this is where you must position yourself as a leader and distinguish your brand. As the product's acceptance rises, continue to enhance it, and let customers know through your marketing approach that the product they love is now even better. This will shield you from the following step, which is saturation.

• Saturation

During the product saturation stage, rivals have begun to take a share of the market, and sales will neither increase nor decrease. Typically, this is the stage at which the majority of customers are utilizing a product, yet there are several competitors. You want your product to become the brand choice at this time to avoid entering the decline stage.

Using Saturation in Marketing: When the market is saturated, you'll need to focus on features, brand awareness, pricing, and customer service to stand out. At this point, the competition is fiercest, therefore it's important to leave no mistake about your product's superiority. If product innovation isn't possible (since the product simply requires minor changes at this stage), focus on customer service and include client testimonials into your marketing.

• Decline

Unfortunately, if your product does not become the preferred brand in a market, you will most likely see a drop in sales. Sales will drop as a result of the increased competition, which will be difficult to overcome.

Using Decline in Marketing: In addition, as time passes, new patterns arise. If a firm reaches this point, it will either stop its product, sell itself, or innovate and iterate on it in some way. While firms would like to avoid the decline stage, there are instances when it is unavoidable — especially if the whole market, not just your product, is in decline. You may use nostalgia or stress the quality of your solution in your marketing plan to effectively climb out of this rut.

Successful firms may also apply new advertising techniques, lower pricing, add new features to improve their value proposition, explore new markets, or alter brand packaging to lengthen the product life cycle. At any one time, the top firms will have goods at various stages of the product life cycle. Some businesses are looking to other nations to restart the cycle. Let's explore some real-life instances of phases now that we've gone through them.

• Typewriter

1. The typewriter was the first mechanical writing instrument, and it proved to be a fitting replacement to the pen and paper. Other technologies, on the other hand, eventually acquired traction and supplanted it.
2. Development: The general concept had been developed for centuries, beginning in 1575, before the first commercial typewriter was presented to the market.
3. Introduction: The first commercial typewriters were launched in the late 1800s.
4. Growth: The typewriter rapidly became a necessary instrument for all types of writing, and it was extensively utilized in offices, enterprises, and private residences.
5. Maturity: Typewriters have been at the maturity stage for over 80 years since they were the favoured product for typing messages until the 1980s.
6. Saturation: In the 1990s, typewriters began to face severe competition from computers during the saturation period.
7. Decline: Overall, the typewriter was unable to compete with other developing technology, and the device was finally phased out.

• Vine

Moving forward to the twenty-first century, we witness the birth and collapse of Vine, a short-form video-sharing software that was once the source of many memes before succumbing to other platforms.

1. Development: Vine was launched in June 2012 and competes mostly with Instagram.
2. Introduction: The software was first made available to the general public in 2013. It stood out because of its short-form video style, which required users to record something amusing, ridiculous, or a combination of the two in under seven seconds.
3. Growth: Vine has over 200 million active users just two years after its launch. Because of its popularity, the expression "Do it for the Vine" was coined.
4. Maturity: Vine never reached the mature stage because it was only on the market for a few years. Even while it had a significant level of popularity, it was still a relatively new app.
5. Saturation Vine competed in a market that was already saturated. In its category, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube were the most well-known names, and Vine's popularity waned quickly.
6. Decline: Vine declined when Musical.ly was launched, losing a major portion of its user base and eventually shutting down. Byte, a similar short-form video sharing site, replaced Vine, but none of them has been able to match Tik Tok, which began months after Vine's demise in 2016.

You may use the product life cycle stages as a roadmap for your marketing efforts whether you're producing a brand new product or working with an established brand. Each step will determine how you tell your audience about the product, position your brand in the marketplace, and decide how to proceed after the decline stage. You can invest in better marketing efforts that result in a greater ROI if you keep your product's life cycle in mind.