Introduction
Product/service companies are finding it increasingly difficult to build a strong pipeline of new offerings for a variety of reasons including:
• The useful life of the product/service is being reduced
• Time to market reduction restrictions
• Higher cost of developing new products/services
• Stronger competition, especially in a globalized environment
In this scenario, social networks could provide a strong strategic lever to offer successful new offers.
Social networking has become an integral part of GenX and GenY. People take advantage of this platform to endorse opinions or experiences about various products/services or life events like politics, culture, economy, lifestyle, habits, etc. proactively. This generates a tremendous amount of data that, if harnessed, can provide businesses with actionable insights to realign their offerings with market demands.
Opinions and real-life experiences of social media users could be leveraged in every product/service development and improvement process, such as idea generation, concept evaluation, business case, product development, etc. market tests, etc.
social media trends
• (1) According to a Gartner study, the consumer market is increasingly turning to social media for news and information and is disconnecting from mainstream media news sources. Increasingly, consumers are turning to social media to get their daily dose of news and information about the rest of the world, as well as share their views and post comments.
• (2) Forrester expects Enterprise Social Software (ESS) products to grow at a CAGR of 61% over the next five years, with the market exceeding $6.4 billion by 2016.
• (3) IDC states that with the advent of integrated access to social networks, more organizations will start exploring social platforms for collaboration in 2013.
• (4) According to an eMarketer report, nearly one in four people worldwide will use social media in 2013. The number of social media users worldwide will increase from 1.47 billion in 2012 to 1.73 billion this year, an increase of 18%. By 2017, the global social media audience will reach 2.55 billion.
Product/service development challenges
globalization
Globalization has created opportunities and challenges for global companies. Although globalization has allowed organizations to expand their business into various markets to generate additional revenue, companies often lack the intelligence about the new market. Companies need to keep track of competitive offerings and customer needs before investing in new offerings. For the success of new offerings in a foreign market, it is very important to understand the culture, the customer’s needs and the deficiencies of the products already present. Also due to globalization, companies are forced to introduce new products/services in quick succession because if they don’t, the competition will eat up their market share.
unmet customer needs
Unsatisfied customer needs are key inputs in the first step of the new product development process, that is, idea generation. Since product success in a target market depends on how well the new product meets customer expectations, assessing customer needs realistically becomes critical. Understanding how features of new offerings would be desirable, how the customer will use them, and how it would provide a better customer experience helps companies develop new offerings to meet market needs, thereby ensuring success in the marketplace.
Entry time
Before starting product development, companies need to assess what is the right time to introduce the product/service to a specific target market. For success and product adoption in a designated target market, companies must understand the new product development programs of competitors who are developing products/services to meet the same market needs. This helps companies better understand the barriers to entry, thereby reducing the risk of product failure.
market potential
Traditionally, companies conduct market research to understand the market potential of certain products/services in the target market. Many times companies outsource this activity to companies that are experts in market research. The result of such survey is based on a sample of audience selected from the customer data pool. The authenticity of the inputs provided by the population sample cannot be validated as the companies have no control over the behavior of the survey participants and the findings may be misleading.
Strategies to take advantage of social networks for the development of products/services
The consumers who buy and use the products/services of the companies decide their success or failure. But in most cases, the customer’s involvement in the product/service development process is negligible or limited. Since the success of the products/services depends primarily on their acceptance by the customer, it is very logical to involve them in each development process when creating offers for them.
Social media has made it easy to access loyal customers/leads and it is imperative that businesses take advantage of this platform while developing offers. The following are some strategies that can help businesses develop offers using social media.
Build a community of loyal customers/prospects
Building a strong community of social media users from target demographics could help organizations continuously generate market intelligence. This could help the organization build the base of loyal customers and prospects to brainstorm ideas and test market… To build trust and a sense of belonging among group members and encourage them to proactively participate in the development process of products, companies must provide continuous feedback and recognition for the contribution made by each member of the community.
Idea generation and screening
Users of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Goolge+, Pinterest, etc. take full advantage of these platforms to discuss their experiences with the products or services of the companies they use or consume. Companies can use this data to conduct sentiment analysis to learn about positive, negative, or neutral sentiments about products/services to get an idea of how current offerings are performing in the marketplace. Consumers also discuss the features of pleasure that they expect in offers on social networks, such as discussion forums, blogs, etc. They contribute in terms of product reviews with good and bad things about the market offerings. Such customer discussions and feedback can be further analyzed using natural language processing to extract the desired features that the customer wants to see in the offering.
Survey and survey tools of social media platforms can be used effectively to conduct market research. Companies can develop a specific questionnaire aimed at understanding customer wants and obtaining information on desirable characteristics, expected purpose, expectations and affordability directly.
Business case
The new offering development program must be supported by a strong business case. Social media user profile information could be a good source to understand details about loyal or prospective customers, such as region, age, gender, profession, etc. Natural language processing can help to dig deeper to get information about users, such as what their lifestyle is, what their purchasing behavior and usage pattern is, personal traits, such as whether they are a leader/influencer, etc. This information could be used as a basis for understanding the size of the opportunities in the target market.
market tests
Companies can select members of the community who have contributed significantly during the idea generation process to test the product. They can send the product to members for testing and ask them to fill out an online feedback form with predefined test parameters.
Marketing
Companies can run targeted promotional campaigns on social media platforms to raise awareness of their products/services. Community members could also act as brand ambassadors for the companies to promote the company’s offerings in other communities of which they are a part, sharing their expertise and the company’s promotional campaigns.
our take
Social analytics tools, such as the sentiment analysis platform, can perform semantic analysis of social media content to identify necessary sentiments related to domain and problem statement. This platform can be customized to generate vertical-specific market intelligence on target customers and competitors.
The addition of program management capabilities to manage surveys, surveys, product/service testing, team collaboration could make it easier for the product development team to function in a more streamlined and organized manner.
Additionally, a unified platform with community management functions could facilitate the organization’s ability to build and manage communities. Therefore, loyal and potential customers can be governed from a central point independent of the social media platform where content is posted or market research such as polls and surveys are conducted.