How To Win Attention for Your New Idea or Project

It’s hard to start a new initiative — to convince people to listen to your idea, understand it, and take action. But being able to get new initiatives off the ground is critical to your career. You want to stand out and get noticed as a leader.

 

One way to jumpstart your idea is to propose a trial run. This reduces the risk of implementing something big and new.

 

Try saying, “Let’s not worry about making this change wholesale — let’s try a pilot.” Pilots give people a chance to test out the idea, and they can create data that changes minds. Basically, they’re a cost-effective way to sell your idea. If you don’t have the power to allocate budget to a pilot, you need to sell harder to those who do. Your proposal should explain how you’ll measure the pilot’s success and the impact it will have on the company.

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Importance of New Product Development Process in the Mobile Phone Market

As in most sectors of the economy, new product development and innovation in the mobile phone market are critical drivers of firm value, sales and profitability. In the case of the mobile phone market, a highly competitive sector where several providers vie for customer preference and loyalty, the visibility provided by new devices and services is an especially important component of brand success, a fact which can easily be seen in the relentless introduction of new models and service packages by mobile phone manufacturers and cellphone service providers.

Innovation and Firm Value

Innovation and product development yield a series of patents that protect the intellectual property of developers and, ideally, ensure a return on research and development investments. These patents, of course, are valuable in themselves and can even be bought and sold by companies, meaning that the innovation process creates company value through patent ownership. Market research from UC Berkeley, moreover, indicates that investors are more likely to buy shares in companies they perceive as technological leaders in the field, creating an appreciable effect on the market value of firms with aggressive innovation strategies. The report even distinguishes between truly innovative new products and imitative product development, where manufacturers copy the advances of their competitors. While both processes create value, truly innovative product development has the most pronounced positive effect on firm value.

Innovation and Consumer Preference

Although stock values are important to companies, sales are ultimately the key driver of profitability. With sales, however, new product development is also decisive. Particularly in affluent markets like the Unites States, consumer research by the TNS Global Technology Index shows the importance of innovation to consumer preference, with consumers demanding new technology in the devices they buy and formerly cutting-edge innovations like touch screens becoming part of consumers' standard expectations when they buy a new mobile phone. Simply put, companies that fail to keep up with consumer expectations quickly lose consumer attention and loyalty.

 

Innovation in All Areas

Innovation isn't only about the newest bells and whistles on your cellphone. In fact, some of the most successful innovations involve holistic improvements to the entire mobile phone experience. The sales success of the iPhone, for instance, shows the importance of the innovative software support that accompanies the product. Early iPods barely made a dent in the market until the iTunes system provided consumers with an easy way to manage and obtain music. That same interface has been critical to iPhone success, with downloadable content and apps, both free and paid, contributing both to the user experience and Apple's bottom line.

Innovation in Emerging Markets

Although affluent markets drive the trade in the most cutting edge smartphones, emerging markets are the main growth sector for the mobile phone industry, with consumption growing by over 15 percent every year, according to research from Ovum cited in a 2011 eWeek Europe article. These markets have few consumers that can access the most expensive and sophisticated new products but have a huge number of consumers that demand more practical features like reliability and affordability. These consumers, along with companies' desires to establish leadership positions in their explosive markets, are also driving innovations for a very different consumer group, particularly as broadband Internet access through a cellphone is rapidly becoming the least expensive way of accessing the Internet in emerging countries.





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Effects of New Product Development in the Banking Industry

New product development in the retail banking industry has changed traditional banking practices. Banks now act as retail operations, with branch staff responsible for meeting sales targets as well as providing customer service. Banks have opened new channels to market, delivering a range of services via telephone or the Internet. However, customer preference for the convenience of new channels has also opened the market to new competitors. Retailers and other non-traditional competitors now offer banking services without incurring the costs of a branch infrastructure.

Share

The objective of new product development is to gain a greater share of customers' expenditure on financial services, according to The Wharton Financial Institutions Center. By developing services such as insurance, investment advice, credit cards, mortgages and pension products, banks can capture a greater share of revenue from their customer base. The aim is to become a single source for financial services and to meet customers' financial needs throughout their lifetime.

Selling

The emphasis on cross-selling to customers gives new responsibilities to bank staff. By automating many basic transaction services such as cash dispensing and deposits, banks free staff to spend more time with customers. However, the emphasis on selling changes the relationship with the customer. Bank staff, who traditionally offered customers objective advice, may now be under pressure to reach sales targets.

 

Retailing

Traditional bank branches featured a counter service where staff dealt with customers from behind secure screens. The transition to banks as retail outlets made this traditional environment impractical. However, banks faced a dilemma -- they had to reassure customers that they were secure, reliable organizations. A Harvard Business School paper reported a program by Bank of America's Innovation & Development Team, which monitored customer responses to changes in the branch environment. The team created a series of different branch styles, but evaluated each on customer response.

Channels

In parallel with developing new products, banks opened new channels to deliver new products while increasing customer convenience. Services such as online banking or online application for loans or mortgages also reduced the banks' costs of doing business with customers. Some established banks set up alternative online banks that offered a full range of banking and related financial services, but without branch facilities.

Competitors

Although the online banks proved attractive to customers, they also helped to indirectly create new forms of competition. The online business model represented a low barrier of entry to competitors such as retailers who did not have to invest in building a network of physical branches. New competitors were able to utilize their customer databases to identify prospects for services such as personal loans, insurance, credit cards and savings. The new entrants partnered with existing financial service providers to develop their own range of branded products.

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Advertising Strategies for the Promotion of New Products

Advertising plays an important role in the launch of a new product. To build momentum at the launch, the advertising strategy should focus on raising awareness of the product and creating leads for the sales force and marketing team to follow up. Research into consumer response to product concepts and messages provides a basis for developing advertising creative themes. The advertising strategy should also indicate how advertising will integrate with other elements of the launch program.

Suggestions

1. Set objectives for the launch advertising campaign. Important launch objectives include raising awareness of the new product among existing customers and new prospects, generating a specified number of leads for the sales force, encouraging retailers to stock the product and generating a specified number of inquiries or orders for the new product.
2. Identify the target audience for the new product. For business-to-business products, ask the sales force to provide details of purchasing, technical and business executives responsible for buying decisions in existing customer and prospect companies. For consumer products, carry out market research to identify prospects by factors such as age, location, income and lifestyle. Include advertising aimed at distributors and retailers to ensure that products are available in retail outlets in time for the launch.
3. Select advertising media to reach your chosen target market cost effectively. Evaluate online advertising, as well as conventional media such as newspapers, magazines and trade journals. Ensure that publication dates coincide with your product launch schedule.
4. Develop creative themes for the launch campaign. Use concept research to assess consumer response to different creative approaches. According to research firm Power Decisions Group, "concept testing is both a research, and a creative concept development activity." During concept research, a panel of consumers views different products and advertisement concepts, and the researcher monitors their responses. Use the creative theme that gets the best response to develop launch advertisements.
5. Integrate advertising with other launch activities to improve campaign effectiveness. Use telemarketing and direct mail to increase contact with customers and prospects who respond to an advertisement. Include a link that takes respondents directly to a special website that features the new product and encourages visitors to place an order.
6. Include a mechanism for measuring the effectiveness of the launch advertising campaign. Relate the metrics to the launch objectives by measuring factors such as number of inquiries, value of sales to existing customers and new accounts, or number of sales leads.

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How to Develop a New Product Idea

Chances are if you stroll down the aisle of your local supermarket, you will see new products on the shelves you did not see the last time you shopped. Super Market Guru estimates 15,000 new food products are developed each year by companies in the fiercely competitive food processing industry, but less than 20 percent will be successful. Food processors, as well as other industries, need to be ahead of the game in new product development, and it takes a clear product development process for that to happen.

Things You'll Need

• Market research data pertaining to customer needs
• An agreed upon structure for product development

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Suggestions

1. Develop a flexible product development process. Every new product development project has different needs. Rigid processes encourage management to "go by the book," thus discouraging new ideas from coming to the fore. Development processes can be simple or complex and need to be tailored to fit the industry or product under consideration. It is imperative that each person in the organization involved with new product development understand the process and his role in it.
2. Make sure your product development team includes cross-functional groups. New product development is not the sole purview of your Research and Development department. If you include only designers, you may realize that the product is too difficult to manufacture only after much time and money has been spent.
3. Develop a set of metrics to let every team member know how well the development process works. Metrics allow everyone to see what progress has been made and whether the process is over or under budget and can also serve as a rallying point to spur on the development team. Metrics need to be easily explained and accessible to all.
4. Review the process post-launch. If you were late getting to market, or the product development was well over budget, make an effort to learn from the experience so you can carry your knowledge to the next new product. To do a proper review, you must make an honest assessment of every step of the process.

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How to Launch a New Product

Developing and launching a new product takes time and capital. You believe in it and, when it's ready, you want to show the world what it can do and convince those in your target market that they can't live without it. Your goal is to sell enough to pay you back for its development and then to make a steady and increasing income in the future. However, if you aren't methodical about the development and launch, you may be cheating yourself out of sales.

Product Development

• Provide the proper manufacturing process. Once your development is streamlined for mass production, you will know the exact amount of capital necessary to produce your first batch.
• Set the retail price of the product based on your manufacturing costs and what the market will bear for something of similar performance
• Test the finished product to ensure quality control. Pull samples from different batches to check for uniformity of brand and consistency of performance.
• Distribute the finished product to a designated test market. Have a list of questions to be completed by each tester accompany the product. Have group discussions with testers to ensure that no issues go uncovered.

• Evaluate the feedback from your test market and implement changes that you deem necessary to respond to defects or upgrades that will improve your new product.

Product Launch

• Find your target market. Analyze your product and figure out what type of person would benefit most from it. Decide on such criteria as the age range, location, lifestyle, educational level and occupation.
• Research your competition. Buy all products that are most similar to yours to become familiar with them and are able to differentiate your new product from those already on the market.
• Develop a marketing strategy. Start by budgeting enough to give away your new product to members of the press or other key individuals or businesses in your target market. If your item is outstanding, it may create buzz by those who are using it. Add online marketing to include a website, blog and social networking. Ensure that the advertising you plan will give you the most impact for your money.
• Hire the right individuals to sell your new product to stores and members of your target market. They should believe in what the product delivers and convey that to prospects. Train your staff fully so they will be prepared to answer any questions about your new product and that of the competition.
• Create brochures and other handouts that explain the product features. Have your sales force leave them behind after meetings with potential customers. This will give the prospect an opportunity to read information that was forgotten or not covered in the meeting.

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