Product strategy: Tips for success

Catherine Constantinides

14 years ago

4 tips to enhance your “social” product strategy

The social web has had a huge impact on the way we communicate, connect and share information. The widespread changes are affecting interpersonal relationships, the dynamics between businesses and customers, and product development.

These four product strategy tips can help organizations incorporate social elements into their product strategy:

1. Reach customers “where they live”: The recent article I wrote for the PDMA briefly explored the relationship between the social web and how it has dramatically transformed the dynamic between customer and company. The availability of a multitude of different methods and channels for customers to communicate makes it imperative communication for organizations to join the conversations about their products and services by reaching “customers where they live”…in the social web.

2. Make good use of valuable customer insight: To be effective and achieve desired results, every product strategy needs to have a strong customer feedback management component. Solicited and unsolicited customer insights must be incorporated into every stage of the product development process. The result is the ability for your organization to build the right products or services, faster and more in line with the needs of the marketplace.

3. Promote a culture of collaboration across the organization: Collaboration plays a big part in the implementation of a social product strategy. Connecting customers, business partners, employees and other external and internal stakeholders improves productivity, increases project visibility and helps align various teams with corporate goals. Ultimately this ensures the development of more customer centric- products.

4. Leverage the right social technologies to get the job done: To implement all of the above tips, you need tools like Social Media Monitoring, Customer feedback and Idea Management. In addition, requirements management and project portfolio tools help you create a more focused product strategy that links customer insight to results. Social collaboration tools like wikis, email, chat and discussion forums increase collaboration by keeping all team members on the same page and working together towards a common goal.