Understanding Market Needs
Thereâs nothing more deflating than launching a product and hearing crickets. Itâs the equivalent of organising a party and having nobody turn up. The problem isnât necessarily that your friends donât want to come, it might be because you didnât think about them at all. You designed your event around what you wanted, not what they did.
This is why understanding what the market wants is key to business success. Instead of making stuff for people based on what you want, find out exactly what they need and make that. It sounds simple enough but can be daunting when youâre passionate about your own ideas.
I like to think of it as creating a symbiotic relationship with your audience where you both win. The process involves quite a bit of research. Some people do this through surveys while others just go out there and talk to their customers directly. Getting feedback on how people feel about current products, or even ones from competitors can be invaluable data in trying to create something that will actually meet their needs.
The most important part of the process is being open to change. More or less. Sometimes we get so attached to our products or ideas, we miss out on the opportunity for better ones because we simply refuse to hear otherwise. Developing a thick skin is an important step for any entrepreneur, especially in the fashion world where trends are always changing anyway.
Defining Your Unique Value Proposition
A room full of people. All dressed in similar outfits from the same store on a Friday night. What do you do to stand out. Your USP should not be confused with standing out for standing outâs sake, but rather asking yourself - what do you want your brand to be known for.
If you are just starting up and have nothing in your brand journey that can help you arrive at an answer, look to your values and what motivates you and more importantly - your skill set. More or less. I say skill set because it is comparatively quite often underestimated, almost criminally so. You might have fashion experience, retail or maybe manufacturing, perhaps marketing or a little bit of all of these.
Maybe even an entirely different industry. The point is that it can help you add value to your brand and bring something new to the table - much like working with a heritage textile technique or collaborating with a grassroots community might. I donât suppose there is any one way to do this, but I do think (and highly recommend) there is merit in telling your story and telling it well. Consider the storytelling space your opportunity to build trust with potential customers and show them what makes your product different.
Are you making something they havenât seen before or offering something better than what theyâve already seen. Building a brand takes time and effort so if all else fails and if there is nothing you have right now that makes you stand out - it is more than enough to be honest about why youâre doing this and why it matters to you. Maybe thatâs where your unique proposition lies after all.
Creating a Comprehensive Go-to-Market Strategy
Youâve got the product done - it's sitting there, looking like an abandoned puppy at the animal shelter, waiting for someone to come and take it home. Comes Across As you know that new product inside-out, but what about the people who are supposed to buy it. Whoâs telling them about it. More or less.
Are you sure they need what youâre selling. I'm not entirely sure of a lot of things, but iâm fairly certain that if youâre not talking to your customers directly about what you're offering and how it can make their lives easier, they will never buy into it. Even if itâs a steal. To create the perfect go-to-market strategy, identify your ideal customer.
Who do you think will use this product most.
What is possibly it that they want or are looking for in such a product and how is yours making life easier for them in ways that others havenât been able to before. An effective way of doing this would be to do some preliminary research and create customer personas. Find out who is most likely going to relate with your brand and connect with what you stand for as a business. This information can then be used to create marketing strategies that appeal directly to those demographics.
But just because you have found who your audience should be doesnât mean you can leave other people out. Sure, you're not selling fishing gear or bunny slippers, but there may be other untapped markets and potential customers that may like something you're offering once they hear about it. When crafting your go-to-market plan, consider targeting different audiences on various platforms and opening up channels of conversation across social media, in-person events or pop-ups or even traditional advertising.
And remember - your launch isnât about hitting big numbers on day one; it's about nurturing relationships with your customer base so they keep coming back for more. Create anticipation for your products with teasers as part of a lead-up campaign so people are aware of when they're launching and get all their questions answered through live streams or QnA sessions with experts within the company.
Building a Cross-Functional Launch Team
You walk into the conference room for a launch brainstorm, expecting the usual product and marketing leads. But this time, design is there, legal too, even someone from IT. Thatâs when it clicks.
This launch might actually go somewhere because everyone who needs to shape it is at the table. Too often, launches get stuck in silos. A smart founder might know to invite their product manager and marketing lead to a brainstorm but forget that a dedicated project manager will help keep everyone on task and deadline. Legal makes sure you've covered privacy laws with data collection and understands the right language to protect intellectual property.
Finance helps ensure your proposal stays on track without burning through your investment. Design (UX/UI for digital) acts as the glue that visually brings together the entire offering and messaging for cohesive branding and communication. Cross-functional teams shouldn't just be different departments huddling together in a meeting, but people in charge of functions - not titles - so skills can be leveraged without egos coming into play.
A UX/UI designer isnât responsible for branding outside of an app, but if they're more familiar with one aspect than someone else on your team, why shouldnât they get to use that knowledge to speed up processes. The quality of work is what matters above all.
But Iâve seen cross-functionality fail more times than I can count because no one considered culture fit or communication skills when putting together a team. Your organisationâs culture may not allow people from different teams across a chain-of-command interact freely due to hierarchies. When hiring new members with cross-functional responsibilities, prioritise skills adjacent to what you need alongside good references for teamwork or communications because they will eventually have to work together.
Sort of. This is particularly relevant when thinking about long-term goals like company expansion or career mapping with new hires. Cross-functional capabilities indicate room for growth - vertical or horizontal - so it only makes sense that these are a bit considered during launches where each department learns about other areas in ways that come in handy later down the road.
Measuring Success and Gathering Feedback
You did the thing. Your team launched the product, and you can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Not quite though, because the journeyâs not over yet. I think this is something that most brands underestimate, especially small businesses and start-ups.
You pop some champagne and celebrate with the team for a bit, but then itâs time to look back on your work and see if it actually paid off. Itâs not easy to admit that sometimes, your ideas donât actually translate as well as you want them to. More or less.
Even with a huge team working together, some products flop, and thatâs ok - for now. To avoid making the same mistakes, measuring success and gathering feedback is probably critical in assessing what went wrong and how you can do better in the future. If things did go your way, this is also a great way to find out how you can replicate your success and use the formula again next time.
More or less. Numbers donât lie. The way I see it, they tell us everything we need to know about how a product is performing, what parts of the process worked best for customers, which ones slowed them down, and why they might not have enjoyed their experience. While they give us the raw data, numbers need to be followed by qualitative research as well.
Take into account customer testimonials, reviews, surveys, open communication channels via DMs or emails. Find out what people are saying about your new product online. Set up Google Alerts to keep track of what the internet thinks about your new launch.
When it comes to success metrics, I think itâs important to be honest with yourself and set realistic goals from the get go. The biggies like conversion rates and repeat purchases aside, you should also take a look at smaller wins like engagement levels on content posted about the new product. All these variables work together to paint an accurate picture of how your product performed during launch so that you can make strategic moves for launches that follow in the future too.
Iterating for Future Launches
The way I see it, you know that moment when youâre coming down off the adrenaline high of a product launch and all you want to do is generally shut your laptop and take a break from slack. I mean, thereâs only so much excitement one can take - even from something youâve spent months working towards. Sounds Like it might feel like a good idea to relax for a bit before moving on to the next big project, but thereâs a better way to approach the time following a launch.
It can be easy to be complacent and keep doing things in the same way you always have. It seems like but keeping things interesting for your audience and internal teams means iterating and improving what is almost never already working well. That means blocking some time at the end of every launch to really get into the nitty gritty of what worked, what didnât, what could have been done better and how this roadmap process can be improved for future launches.
You might want to look at metrics and data like reach, social shares and website clicks. Or you might want to look at feedback forms, comments, surveys or anecdotal notes taken throughout the process. This is also why itâs important to have an agile team that works collaboratively through projects so they each get visibility into various processes and how each has performed during launches.
This also means that everyone gets more ownership over not just decision making but also responsibility for successes. Iterating doesnât mean completely changing up every little thing about your process or your launches - it just means improving with intention. And thatâs a great direction for any brand looking for growth.
More or less.