Commentary

Let Customers Create New Ideas For You

With the increasing focus on innovation and speed to market comes a need for efficiency, discipline and creativity in the new product development process. New product teams are being pressed to think differently, do differently and find more reliable ways to evaluate in-market potential. Whether you subscribe to the classical, stage-gate approach to product development found in most B2B or B2C enterprises or you take a more entrepreneurial, throw-it-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks attitude, there are steps along the product development path that can help reduce the risk of wasting time and resources on ideas that won't survive in market.

1. Gather insights where the problem is relevant

Take research out of the focus group facility and to the issue. Whether it is where the product is used or the service is performed, the best learnings come from a combination of conversation and observation with customers on their own turf. Interacting with people in real-world environments allows you to use the surroundings as stimuli to spark meaningful discussion and develop context for how your offer might be used. The richer your understanding of your customers' world, the more closely aligned your product will be with their needs.

2. Create relationships with customers to generate new ideas

Consumers are far more creative than we give them credit for and in that creativity, you will find smart ideas. Accelerate your innovation and product development efforts by creating a "voice of the customer" system that allows you to collaborate on new products and get instantaneous feedback on new ideas. For example, create a panel of pre-screened respondents who are on-call to participate in brainstorm sessions, react to concepts and share thoughts on a problem or idea. You get immediate results, respondents might get a chance to earn an incentive or bragging rights that they've helped shaped the next breakthrough product in the marketplace.

3. Show versus tell

One of the biggest missed opportunities I see is limiting new ideas to paper during the development phase. The earlier you can bring your idea to life and put it in the hands of customers for feedback, the better. It's okay if your product isn't perfect; in fact, the rougher the mock-up the better. When you hand customers a rough prototype and explain that you want them to help you evolve the idea, you'll be amazed at how much more you'll learn than when asking them to react to words on paper. For the visual learner, in particular, being able to touch or point to something and show what would make it better is far easier than having to explain any desired improvements.

4. Know your frame of reference

Put your product in the hands of 10 different customers and they'll find 10 different uses for it. Before you commit to the marketing that will drive your launch, make sure you've fully explored how consumers will use your product and what they see it as a substitute for. Nailing the frame of reference can make or break your in-market success, and your job is to make sure that it's clear how your solution is an improvement over the alternative. But you have to know what the right alternative is in order to make a case for why your product is better.

5. Make consumers vote with their wallets

The best way to evaluate interest in your product is to simulate a purchasing opportunity where consumers can put their money where their mouths are. Try renting a booth at a busy mall, flea market, trade show or street fair or set up a kiosk at an office park. You don't actually have to sell anything, just act like you are and observe reactions to a prototype. Very quickly you'll learn whether you have a hit or a flop and you have a live consumer in front of you to find out why.

Following these steps will help you keep the consumer front and center throughout the product development process and avoid unwanted surprises along the way. They'll help you make smarter decisions about how to evolve your ideas and, most importantly, give you a greater sense of confidence when it comes time to launch.

3 comments about "Let Customers Create New Ideas For You".
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  1. Traci Kloos from Masco Retail Cabinet Group, June 1, 2010 at 11:36 a.m.

    Great article!!

  2. Gregory Yankelovich from Amplified Analytics Inc, June 1, 2010 at 3:29 p.m.

    Excellent article! Traditional market research techniques are very poor tools for discovery of new ideas, they were designed to validate hypothesis.

    Social Media is full of customer descriptions of their experience with your products and, even more importantly, with the products you compete against. It is amazing that so many product managers and product marketing specialists largely ignore them.

  3. Chad Plass from Social Chadder, June 4, 2010 at 3:49 p.m.

    Great article Jillian! Very insightful. I appreciated reading it much and will certainly keep these great points in mind for future use.

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