Product Development Strategy or How to Improve an Existing Product

You may have a niche marketing website or business that just isn’t producing sales for you at the rate at which you had hoped it would…..or maybe it isn’t producing any income for you at all or it could be that you haven’t actually figured out that what you are selling is, in fact, a niche market product.

You might need to do a little ‘tweaking’ and modify your strategies somewhat to get the site or product performing better.

There really are some things that you can do to improve your existing product.




Tony Robbins is of course 100% correct. What you can also do is improve on an existing market.

A few years ago (about 25!) there was a burger bar in Bath in the UK that had been open for a few years that was privately owned by a husband and wife team.

It had average steady trade and was a normal nuts and bolts business. Nothing special and it did decent enough cafe food and burgers.

The McDonalds chain opened about 350 yards down the road and that was the end of them. No way could they compete with the 99c or 99p burger style menus and the footfall was about 10 times more as well.

Another business that was gone. Bust. Destroyed by a Mammoth. Or was it?

After about 2 months and young couple of guys took over the lease and re-opened the burger shop (much to everyone who knew them and had advised them it was a bad idea as "No way can you compete with McDonalds)

"We don't want to compete with them.....they will need to compete with us!" was the reply.
The guys opened the store and made a pledge in the window.
"We Are Schwarz Brothers. We Make The Best Burgers In Bath. Bigger, Tastier With A Range Of Sauces And Toppings You Can't Get Anywhere Else In The Town"

http://www.schwartzbros.co.uk/

They were as good as their word. The burgers were huge with real quality meat...topped with sauces like garlic mayo, blue cheese, dangerously hot chilli.....they were and still are amazing burgers.

They charged around 3 times as much as the McDonalds cheapest burger and guess what?
They had customers queueing out of the door. And they still do today.

They knew that burgers sold well because McDonalds knew the market....and they don't go anywhere without huge research.

They knew people wanted burgers...all they had to do to be successful was improve on an existing market.....and they did.

Step #1:  A famous entertainer, once said, "I don’t know what the secret of success is, but I know the secret of failure and that was trying to please everybody."
He was right.

You can'’t please everybody and you can'’t sell to everybody either.

It'’s possible that you may simply need to narrow you market, identify you product as a niche marketing product and advertise it accordingly.

Step #2: To improve your existing product you have likely overlooked the most obvious solution of all.
You could simply ask your customers what they think.

They are, after all, the end users of the product or service that you are selling.
There is nobody that knows how a product can be improved better than the people who are using the product.

Step #3: Analyze the competition.

Take the time and put forth the effort to look at the product or service that your competitors are offering.

Identify their strengths and weaknesses.
Find out what your competition can'’t, won'’t or doesn'’t really like to do and set about doing those very things yourself.

Step #4: Are you selling your product at the right price?

Pricing a product too low makes people think it won’t be any good, pricing too high will discourage them from buying it.

Remember...business rules are pretty much the same for what ever business you are in:

You need Interested people...a hungry crowd.
You need a product or service
You need traffic!



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