First Stage of the Product Life Cycle

The first stage of the product life cycle is generally not thought of as such. And as a result many products are created which shouldn't be. Many products are created that fail in the sales cycle.

So what is this first stage?

It is frequently referred to as Strategic or Niche Planning. It is called this because you are planning out who will purchase your book and so on. You are planning out how to write the book for your audience, and that's why it's called Strategic Planning.

This first stage revolves around figuring out three things:

1. Who you will sell this to.

You are figuring out your potential customer. What drives them, what are their problems, what solutions are they looking for, what do they enjoy, etc. This will give you the necessary information to market your product to the proper audience.

2. Why they will buy it.

This is extremely important. If you know why your customers will buy your book, more than just "They like it," you will be able to have advertising and marketing that is tailored to precisely these reasons. This will lead to more sales, and even less advertising so you save money!

3. What they demand from it.

If you pick up a book on new recipes for barbecuing you expect to be given new recipes, not how to build a TV. The same thing with your customer. They demand that you solve a specific problem that they will be reminded of, and want to solve, by seeing your book or video or listening to your podcast. Look at who you'll be marketing to; what problems do most of them have? Once you discover a common problem for your market, you can tailor your book to solving that problem.

Strategic Planning is primarily a marketing decision. You need to know there is a market for your product, otherwise what's the point of trying to sell it? If you know there's no demand for solid gold Hummers, don't try and build them. If you know there's a good market for weight-loss books, and you know a fairly good amount about weight-loss, maybe that's a good product for you to get into. Even if you have to research your solution. Even if you have to start from base one to learn about your solution yourself!

You have to make certain that you will make sales in your market. That's how you can justify spending the time to research and create your learning content or information product.

Do you want to learn how to create information products (learning content)? Check out my new free eBook "7 Myths and Seven Tricks in Nine Steps": http://www.learningcreators.com/myths.htm

Do you want to read more free information like this? Go to my blog: http://www.learningcreators.com/blog/

Glen Ford is an accomplished consultant, trainer and writer. He has far too many years experience as a trainer and facilitator to willingly admit.