Product management 101

By: Alec Wells

Market Segmentation & Needs based Segmentation

• Process of dividing a broad market into groups of customers with similar needs. Also called Needs-based segmentation.

• You would use it to, evaluate it, compare and select market segments to enter, target specific customers, Design Products specifically for the customers needs, Focus your marketing and sales effort.

• Needs based would be for Identifying the segments, Cluster customers into groups with very similar needs, use market research, customer data, key opinion, leaders and deep market understanding.

Profiling market segments

• Customer Characteristics, needs, motivations, issues to solve, Application/usage behavior, location, geography, purchase process, customer example, key trends.

• You use this for a lot of different research for different types of customers, and companies.

Customers

• Their needs are one of your main priorities if you’re a successful company, or any company. They help you get direction for where you and your company should go next.

• When you get data for customers You want to choose different types of customers, like urban, city, older, younger, Parents.

• Understanding their needs is a fundamental element of product management.

Qualitative research

• This is a very common approach for product managers, goal is a deep understanding of articulated and unarticulated needs: Like what problem are they trying to solve?, Why is it important to them?, How are they solving this today?, What works/ doesn’t work today, What would they like to see?.

Ethnographic Research

• Clarify your research objectives. Screening and recruiting. Customers in your target market segment, Develop screening criteria (not to strict), and Market research firms can help recruit, sales reps/channel partners can also help.

Quantitative research

• Allows you to quantitatively describe your target customers and their needs. Qualitative research is directional, Quantitative research can give you numbers and percent's.

Big data

• Increase of cheap data allows new types of analysis, huge breadth (with data messiness): Data from Google search, Facebook, Twitter, retail purchases, ecommerce, software usage, customer supports, etc. Correlation not causation – the “what not the “why”.

Competitors/competitive analysis

• Why analyze Competitors?: Anticipate market shifts, Improve your product or service, spot the emergence of new competitors, craft counter-attack strategies, optimize pricing, change your strategy.

• What to analyze: Market share & trends, strategy & investments, Target market, Strengths/weaknesses, Technology position, pricing, Channel strategy, reaction pattern.

• It is continuous, analyzes the most critical competitors, Key disruptive technologies can second tier competitors, you want to do it every 3-6 months.

Disruptive technology

• Innovations of product, service and business models that fundamentally alter market demand.

• Long-established companies can lose their market competencies. Risk factors: Management denial, resistance to change

Roadmaps

• Time based charts showing the planned evolution of a product or a service.

• Used to plan resources, and start new product development.

The End