4 Stages Of Product Life Cycle Marketing – If you’re a product manager looking for a framework to structure your product development lifecycle, focus on these four key phases:

With over a decade of product management experience at early stage and growth stage startups, I’ve been through this process more times than I can count!

4 Stages Of Product Life Cycle Marketing

Finding a problem worth solving is all about understanding what your customer wants your help with. It’s about finding out if there really is a problem, how often it happens, and if it’s important enough that they use your product to solve it.

The Digital Product Life Cycle

When defining a solution worth building, you should be developing multiple solutions, as the first one you come across probably won’t be that great. Do not overcook these solutions; a rough structure, explanation or prototype is sufficient.

When evaluating each solution, a useful framework to use from design thinking is what I call “DVF”. It is a collection of three dimensions to evaluate your solutions:

In this phase, prioritize the solutions worth building and define a roadmap. Your solution should be evaluated and prioritized above your product strategy. For example, if you have OKRs, your solution should directly address your key result.

A good roadmap will be well balanced and will not be weighted unintentionally towards anything, for example, being easy projects.

Ultimate Guide To Product Lifecycle Management

This is where the product is built. See Agile scrum and kanban for guidance here. Make sure you take the time to create well-defined specifications (related to: Why I don’t write user stories… and instead I write job stories). Invest in QA. Keep your work in progress to a minimum to increase productivity and reduce stress on yourself and your team. Try to work on one thing at a time. If your company is large enough, avoid projects with only one engineer working on them. Be careful when measuring speed (instead, aim for the speed you can feel).

What was the impact of the solution? How is it measured? How does this compare to the goal set at the beginning? The term product life cycle refers to the time that elapses from the time a product is introduced to the market to consumers until it is removed from the shelves. This concept is used by management and marketing professionals as a factor in deciding when it is appropriate to increase advertising, reduce prices, expand into new markets, or redesign packaging. The process of strategizing ways to continuously support and maintain a product is called product life cycle management.

Products, like people, have life cycles. The life cycle of a product is divided into four stages: introduction, growth, maturity and decline.

A product starts with an idea and, within the confines of modern business, is not likely to go further until it undergoes research and development (R&D) and is found to be feasible and potentially profitable. At this point, the product is produced, marketed and distributed. Some product life cycle models include product development as a stage, even though at this point, the product has not yet been delivered to customers.

The Product Life Cycle Powerpoint Template

As mentioned above, there are four generally accepted stages in a product’s life cycle. Here are the details of each.

The introduction phase is the first time customers are introduced to the new product. In general, a company must include a substantial investment in advertising and a marketing campaign focused on making consumers aware of the product and its benefits, especially if it is not widely known what the item will do.

During the introduction stage, there is often little or no competition for a product, as competitors may be getting a first look at the new offering. However, companies still often experience negative financial results at this stage, as sales tend to be lower, promotional prices may be low to drive customer engagement, and the sales strategy is still being evaluated.

If the product is successful, it moves to the growth stage. This is characterized by a growing demand, an increase in production and an expansion of its availability. The amount of time spent in the introduction phase before a company’s product experiences strong growth will vary between industries and products.

Business And Marketing Concepts, 4 Stage Of Product Life Cycle Chart On Green Chalkboard. Royalty Free Svg, Cliparts, Vectors, And Stock Illustration. Image 68631155

During the growth phase, the product becomes more popular and recognizable. A company may still choose to invest heavily in advertising if the product faces heavy competition. However, marketing campaigns will likely be aimed at differentiating your product from others rather than bringing the products to market. A company can also refine its product by improving functionality based on customer feedback.

Financially, the growth period of the product life cycle results in increased sales and higher income. As competition begins to offer rival products, competition increases, which could force the company to lower prices and experience lower margins.

The maturity stage of the product life cycle is the most profitable stage, the time when production and marketing costs decrease. With the market saturated with the product, competition now higher than at other stages, and profit margins beginning to narrow, some analysts refer to the maturity stage as when sales volume is “maximized.”

Depending on the good, a company can begin to decide how to innovate its product or introduce new ways to capture a larger presence in the market. This includes getting more customer feedback and researching their demographics and needs.

Product Development [explainer] Definition And Examples

During the maturity stage, competition is at its highest level. Rival companies have had enough time to introduce competing and improved products, and the competition for customers is usually the highest. Sales levels stabilize and a company strives for its product to exist in this stage of maturity for as long as possible.

As the product faces increased competition as other companies emulate its success, the product may lose market share and begin its decline. Product sales begin to decline due to market saturation and alternative products, and the company may choose not to pursue additional marketing efforts as customers may have already determined whether they are loyal to the products of the company or not.

In the event that a product is completely withdrawn, the company will stop supporting it and eliminate marketing efforts entirely. Alternatively, the company may decide to revamp the product or introduce a completely revised next-generation model. If the upgrade is substantial enough, the company may choose to re-enter the product life cycle by bringing the new version to market.

The stage of a product’s life cycle affects how it is marketed to consumers. A new product needs to be explained, while a mature product needs to differentiate itself from its competitors.

Product Life Cycle Explained: Stage And Examples

The product life cycle allows marketers and business developers to better understand how each product or brand fits into a company’s portfolio. This allows the company to internally shift resources to specific products based on the positioning of those products within the product life cycle.

For example, a company may decide to reallocate market staff time to products entering the introduction or growth stages. Alternatively, you may need to invest more labor cost in engineers or customer service technicians as the product matures.

The product life cycle naturally tends to have a positive impact on economic growth as it promotes innovation and discourages supporting obsolete products. As products move through the life cycle stages, companies using the product life cycle may realize the need to make their products more effective, safer, more efficient, faster, more cheap or better suited to the customer’s needs.

Despite its usefulness for planning and analysis, the product life cycle does not pertain to all industries and does not work consistently across all products. Consider popular beverage lines whose primary products have been maturing for decades, while spin-offs or variations of those beverages from the same company have failed.

Business And Marketing Concepts, 4 Stage Of Product Life Cycle. Product Life Cycle Graph 4 Stage Stock Vector

The product life cycle can also be artificial in industries with legal or trademark restrictions. Consider the new 20-year patent term from which the US patent application was filed. Although a drug may be entering its growth stage, it can be adversely affected by competition when its patent expires, regardless of what stage it is at.

Another unfortunate side effect of the product life cycle is prospective planned obsolescence. When a product enters the maturity stage, a company may be tempted to start planning for its replacement. This may be the case even if the existing product still has many benefits for customers and still has a long useful life. For manufacturers who tend to introduce new products every few years, this can lead to product waste and inefficient use of product development resources.

Notification messages, such as Microsoft’s warning that Windows 8.1 will be retired in January 2023, is an example of decline. Due to the obsolescence of the operating system, Microsoft chooses to stop supporting the product and focus resources on newer technologies.

A similar analytical tool for determining a product’s market positioning is the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix. This four-square table defines products based on their growth and market share:

What Is Product Development? The 6 Stage Process [2023] • Asana

Although there is no direct relationship between the matrix and the product life cycle concept, both analyze the growth and saturation of a product’s market. However, the BCG matrix does not traditionally communicate the direction in which a product will move. For example, a product that has

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