Ultimately, the success of a business relies heavily on quality, profitable products. You can do everything right—promote ads on social media, gather qualified leads, strengthen marketing tactics, improve conversion rate, offer promos, and more. Still, without a profitable product to begin with, you won’t have the foundation to lean on.

The goal, after all, is to sell. And without a sustainable product, any initial success you get from brilliant marketing would be short lived. Worse still, you might find yourself with a product you’ve invested time and capital in only to find that it’s subpar. If not carefully analyzed before and during conceptualization, the outcome might not even be something customers would be interested in.

The Value of Product Development

What does it take to create a profitable product? It’s the most critical question to ask. The right product could make everything so much easier. When the product is good, relevant, and needed, then you barely need to promote it. It will increase sales and improve the conversion rate with little difficulty, as the demand would support the selling and marketing process.

Good product development matters for a few excellent reasons:

• It gives a better customer experience – If customers are happy with the product, you won’t need to attract them or even go that hard on marketing; they’ll become return customers on their own.
• Customers will showcase the value – Great customer experience leads to good reviews and word of mouth promotion. By far, these are the most powerful ways to market a product as customers place a heavy weight on the reviews and opinions of other customers who have made the purchase.
• You improve the conversion rate – When the rest of the audience see the positive reviews from the customers and gain word-of-mouth recommendations from them, they will head over to your site to see for themselves and make a purchase as well. It raises your conversion rate and continues the cycle of positive responses to your product.

All of this can only happen if quality product development takes place. Your first profitable product needs to make an impact, as the first product creates a lasting impression for a brand or a company. Furthermore, it’s a prime opportunity to capture the attention of your target audience and showcase what you have to offer.

Centering product development on the customer is another excellent way to achieve outstanding benefits. What are customers interested in? Do they want convenience? Eco-friendly packaging? Portability? Understanding your customer gives your precious insight into what will make them positively respond to your product and profit.

Building the Better Mousetrap: How to Create a Profitable Product

The process, however, may be more straightforward than you think. Creating a profitable product is all about knowing and understanding the audience well. And with the proper steps, you could be well on your way to producing the best product for your brand.

• Determine your #1 Skill. Is it something you can teach?

What is a skill or an ability that you have and truly excel at? What is something that you feel your company excels at the most? Is it something marketable or something that could help you boost demand and increase the conversion rate? 

Part of determining what your product should be comes from within—you need to determine what you or your company can give before you sell it.

Furthermore, it has to answer the question: what problem does it solve? Ultimately, a product or a service is supposed to fill a need or answer a demand. Customers won’t buy your product without reason. As such, you need to conceptualize a product that a customer would not only want, but need. 

• Understand what makes a good product

As mentioned earlier, a good product answers customer demand, improves the conversion rate, and creates an excellent customer experience. Now that you know what your customer might want, you need to consider what would make a product “good” in the first place.

You need to understand that you don’t have to get it perfect right away. By crumpling to the pressure of creating that ideal product, you won’t make a good one in the first place. There are always challenges during the development phase. 

Next, you don’t need to go with what’s “trendy” all the time. The goal is to find a way to set yourself apart from what everyone is trying to sell. And most importantly, you need to not look at the “now” and look at what the future might hold. Sure, a product may be trendy now, but what about in the future?

The product should deliver its promise. It must also understand current market trends without ultimately duplicating what someone else has already done. And most of all, it has to be adaptable and future-proof—it mustn’t just be needed now but continue to be required down the line.

• Start brainstorming and researching products.

What kind of products do similar companies or your direct competitors feature? What should be your main value proposition? Have you considered come-ons such as sustainable materials or eco-friendly packaging?

Brainstorming ideas comes next in product development. Think of your audience’s pain points, their aspirations, goals, and interests. All of these things could factor into the kinds of products and services you could potentially develop. 

There are many ways to do this. One of the best ways is to go online and do a great deal of research into these factors. Looking into the present products and services in the market, what people are looking for, and what the competition is selling will give you great insight into what your potential products could be.

Finally, you also might want to have a look at how the competition is marketing their product. Check out their launches and how they present their service.

• Explore your branding potential and how to implement it.

Branding is another critical factor during product development. So once you have a short list of potential products, consider how you can present both the company and the product in a brand that would appeal to the buyer persona and the target audience. After all, the branding will be the face of the product and the company put together.

At this phase, you should begin considering signature features and design elements (ideal colors, logo placement, exceptional functionality, etc.). Look into packaging and presentation options (sustainable materials, eco-friendly packaging, heavy-duty materials, functional/specialized packaging, etc.). 

Remember that your product has to address a customer pain point that the market isn’t fully serving. Highlight a feature that addresses this and sets it apart from the rest of the pack. 

The great thing about having a well-branded product is that it helps you attract more customers. They will immediately recognize and understand what your company and brand are all about, and new customers will get drawn to it as they feel it speaks to their needs.

• Price it attractively. Start at under $100.

People can’t help but be drawn to a product with a great price. Whenever possible, make every effort to price your product under three digits. Though it might initially feel like you’re underselling your product, think of it as providing a unique “introductory” price. It becomes the first level of a ladder that you’ll be providing to your consumers.

According to experts, most introductory products start below $100 because the price is low enough where new buyers wouldn’t get too intimidated by it. Yet, it’s high enough that you’ll still gain meaningful profits back to keep your business going. It strikes that much-needed balance for a starting business’ first product, which leads to more profitable products down the line.

• Choose sustainable, eco-friendly packaging.

You might have noticed that startups and small businesses have made a definite shift towards sustainability. In recent years, consumers have invariably shifted towards environmentally-friendly products. Biodegradable, eco-friendly, and other similar forms of packaging and shipping have given companies a favorable view to audiences of all ages and demographics.

The EPA has stated that packaging represents 77.9 tons of municipal solid waste every year, amounting to up to 30% of the total amount of waste. And out of all that, the packaging stands at 65% of total household trash. 

Earth-conscious consumers actively appreciate and look towards eco-friendliness. And if a product or a brand offers earth-friendly materials, consumers tend to share their finds on social media and actively compel others towards those brands. 

• Make the sales process faster and more efficient with automation.

Ask any mid-to-large-sized company: efficiency is key. If time is money, streamlining the sales process and making it as efficient as possible increases your profits. Now that you’ve created a great product that appeals to the consumers, it’s now just a matter of making the buying and selling process more straightforward. Many startup companies turn to automated processes and software to speed this up.

Through automation, companies can provide better customer experiences. The last thing you want to do is to be unable to answer customer queries or respond to their concerns.

 Automation doesn’t just simplify the process—it makes it more efficient and can even gather precious customer data for you. High-end software can handle product shipping, customer information, fulfillment, and more. 

And while automation software can be pricey, you can consider this an investment—one that helps your business grow faster in the long run.

• Put your product front, center, and above the rest of the pack.

This is where knowledge of marketing techniques such as SEO comes into play. SEO specializes in putting your site and your product right in front of your target audience, when they search for anything related to what you have to offer. You put your flagship prize product out front and center on search engine results pages (SERPs) through SEO and ads and funnel your valuable leads to it.

Eventually, once customers see that one product they need and buy it, it starts the relationship between the company and the customer. If you provide a good enough experience, they won’t just need that one “gateway” product—they’ll see other products or services you provide. 

Your first product, now placed right in front of everyone as the one thing they must get, acts as the starting point for your customers to explore the rest of your company and your brand and make further purchases from there.

• Bring in some help with strategic launch partners.

Think of this step as “sweetening the deal” for your consumers. It generates hype and interest, which draws the attention of an online crowd because anything that gets launched with that much pomp would have a high value attached to it. When you have strategic launch partners to help you release the product, it turns your flagship product’s launch into a more significant event, drawing in more interest from your target audience and even other onlookers. Thus, they get attracted by the energy and interest, make the initial purchase, and improve the conversion rate.

If you can, involve other influencers in your launch, particularly if they are well known in the field related to your product. Perhaps you can make a launch in conjunction with them giving a lecture or a showcase. Whatever the case, if you tie up with launch partners who not only reinforce the value of your product but also add to it, you’ll generate interest with more seamlessly.

• Bring them back with fresh, related material.

Gaining new customers is always great, but the long-term money comes from repeat buyers and subscribers. They are the consumers who repeatedly come back for your product and content. The best tactic to take at this point is to continue to keep them interested through related products or services from your flagship product that could re-engage them.

For example, suppose your product is an online workbook, lecture, or seminar. In that case, you can re-engage people who have previously purchased by offering new training sessions, new informative videos, and more. The material is still related to the product they know and love; the latest products will bring them back for more.

Final words 

The first step is always the hardest. The first product, therefore, is in many ways the most critical among your line of products. It’s the one that will capture the attention of your target audience and launch both your company and your brand. You’ve got to make sure you’re invested in making it successful and making it profitable, as it starts the path for your business to grow and gain profit.

Author Bio:

Vincent Sevilla 

I am a professional web designer and inbound strategist for Grit PH. My goal? Come up with innovative ideas, create good art, and to travel all the best places in the Philippines. You can follow me on Twitter @easyvince.