The Product Strategy Roadmap

Keeping the Customer In Mind

Product strategy roadmaps are an essential part of new product development and strategic planning. A roadmap is an integrated plan for bringing a new product to market and for development goals over the projected life of the product. As the product itself evolves, so does the product’s target market and the marketing strategy. The roadmap keeps marketing, sales, manufacturing, and research and development aligned to common product development plans and schedules.

Roadmap Example

A product roadmap is a written and/or visual guide to future improvements for a specific product. Let’s suppose the product is a new smartphone. A roadmap might look like this:

• Month 1: Introduce the phone to the market at a relatively low retail price.
• Month 12: Introduce new features and capabilities that allow for a small increase in the price of the phone.
• Month 24: Improve the phone’s processor speed and memory, allowing for a larger price increase.
• Month 36: Dramatically improve the camera system in the phone, allowing for a big jump in price.
• Month 48: Introduce a tablet-sized smartphone into the product line under the same brand name.

Keys to Building an Effective Product Roadmap

For the product?roadmap?to be viable, it must be based on a deep understanding of consumer needs and motivations. That is, the roadmap must be informed by an in-depth analysis of the target audience’s preferences, perceptions, needs, and hopes.

An analysis of competitive products and the technologies they are built upon is another important part of the roadmap. It helps define what is possible and helps us appreciate what new capabilities major competitors might be planning to unleash.

The roadmap should also be developed with an understanding of marketing variables that might influence or affect the product in the future. Who are the major competitors? What type of distribution is most important (both online and brick and mortar)? How do consumers go about buying this product category, the so-called path to purchase? What role does media advertising play in the product category? These and other marketing variables must help inform the product roadmap and marketing plan, including:

• Design
• Features
• Functionality
• Product Durability
• Pricing
• Positioning
• Branding
• Ad Spending Levels.

There are many other factors that could be included in a product roadmap that are unique to specific industries. In our smartphone example, technology and technology trends relating to the smartphone must be analyzed and forecast so that we fully understand the strategic options that might become available during the product’s lifecycle. Or if the product is in the health and beauty category, advancements in scientific research on possible new ingredients, manufacturing methods, etc., might be part of the product roadmap.

Finally, the faster the rate of change in a product category, the shorter the roadmap planning horizon becomes. In many cases no one will be able to plan 5 years into the future. This means that the product roadmap must be updated each year as new information, new insights, and/or new technologies become available.

Roadmap Research Methods

Qualitative Research. To gather the basic information (bullet-pointed above) for the roadmap, we recommend starting with qualitative research (shop-alongs, ethnography, focus groups, depth interviews, etc.). You can use these qualitative insights to inform your quantitative research.

Quantitative Research. Shelfsets and choice modeling are ideal research methods to explore an array of features, technologies, and pricing tradeoffs, so that the initial product conforms to what potential buyers want and need now, and any future iterations are informed by what consumers may be excited about in the future.

iHUTs (In-Home Usage Testing). Companies committed to rigorous iHUTs and continuous product improvement can, in most instances, achieve product superiority over their competitors. This superiority, in turn, helps build brand share, magnifies the positive effects of all marketing activities (advertising, promotion, publicity, etc.), and often allows the superior product to command a premium price.

Volumetric Forecasting. Actual sales-volume potential (retail depletions) is estimated through our Conceptor? forecasting models to predict trial-and-repeat purchase rates during the new product’s introductory year. Conceptor? is based on inputs from our ConceptTest?, Optima? iHUTS and CopyTest? standardized surveys, as well as marketing-plan variables supplied by the client (such as distribution build, media advertising weights, and consumer- and trade-promotion plans). The volumetric forecasting models are calibrated to each company’s history and business patterns to ensure maximum accuracy.

A Roadmap for Success

The product-strategy roadmap ensures that the product is setting the agenda and aggressively pursuing product upgrades and improvements to keep the product viable and growing. As product improvements are made, the product can command higher and higher prices. Continual consumer research is necessary to monitor consumer motives and needs over time, and to tweak the product roadmap as consumer attitudes, motivations, and available technologies change.

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