I believe the global economic recovery will take longer than is forecast and longer than any normal person desires. Politically, we are witnessing acts that resemble the presumptive choreography of circus clowns, but nothing that indicates leadership for creation and implementation of a “righting arm.” Sustainable economic recovery is possible, but it will require large amounts of new business innovation and viable market demand.
For the design and development of new lines of business, fundamentally the aim is to stimulate and move the market demand curve for the new product. This entails assuring that the three key “buyer questions” associated with any purchase decision are resolved satisfactorily:
- Awareness of need: Why buy?
- Awareness of solution: Why by from you?
- Motivation to take action: Why buy now?
The demand [curve] for anything is based on buyers’ perception, and action to shape the relevant perception is framed in the three buyer questions, above. The most powerful way to amplify perception that moves market demand is with voluntary, glowing and robust referrals from happy customers.
The referral is the prospect or customer’s testimony about the distinction perceived in the purchase experience, the product experience, and the related service experience.
The most savvy product innovation and design begins with this “end” in mind, and works to merit and motivate those generative, robust referrals. Optimally, innovative product design and marketing planning occur simultaneously. This is fun, energetic, creative work, with a generative process and outcome. In fact, if we aren’t having fun when we visualize, characterize and act out the robust referrals we wish to create, the result may miss the mark, and we will fail to create a marketing plan with the sufficiency of insight and lift needed to shift market demand. Here, insight, empathy and persistence are essential for the achievement of truly great products.
Are you limited by the naivety of quick rewards and superficial means? Has disproportional income made you lazy? Or, are you prepared to persist to the point of empathic understanding and insight necessary to design a great new product and successfully introduce it to the marketplace?
We will continue to examine what it takes to increase the probability of success with new product innovation and design.