Whenever you want to create a new physical product the first question should always be about what the problems are that you want to solve. When you focus on solutions to problems first, the rest of the development process is a lot easier, and it’s also easier to market solutions than products. When you are developing product development ideas, think about how your product solves problems for your customers and then find people with that problem and everything is right with the world, right? Maybe.
First, come up with a list of problems for the market you want to create a solution for. Even if you already have a product, think of related items. You can do this by talking to customers, doing surveys with them, and participating in Facebook groups or other areas where they might hang out.
Then, once you know what the solution is, see who else has created a solution. Use what is out there to figure out where the gaps are in the ideas so that you can make yourself that much better. You can find the gaps for your product development ideas by researching related or similar products on Amazon and reading the reviews and questions.
Research your audience, your competitors, and any industry-specific authorities that you can find. Always take the time to plan your product development, as this will pay off in spades once you are in the launching phase. Once you have found other people’s solutions, you can start asking the right questions to figure out the direction of your product development or private label product.
Questions to Answer to Get Ideas For Private Label Products
Some questions to address when you are creating products and you need to come up with ideas are:
- What substitutes can you create for that? – For example, if you teach people how to eat a vegan diet, you can offer substitutes like plant milk and cheese to help. You can think about other ways to do the same thing, like what can you use to make a dog bed instead of the regular product? Or other types of the same type of product – like wet vs dry dog foods. These make easy options and great product development ideas.
- What solutions can you combine to make it more valuable? – If you already have some solutions you offer, how can you repackage and combine them to make them more valuable? Does your customer automatically combine a couple of things to make it a complete set and how can you make it into a kit or new type of product?
- How can this solution be adapted to work for more things? – For example, if you created an eBook with a text-based course with it, can you adapt it to work in another way, such as by turning the book into a video and the course into a quiz? You can also think about other media – if it’s a book, think about audio or video for example. If it’s a physical product, can you make a teaching or training product that would sell too?
- How can this solution be used for other reasons? – Sometimes you create a solution for one thing, but it can be used for other things too. For example, if you have a product about How to Start a Virtual Assistant Business, you can change it to How to Start a Web Design Business with just a few additions and changes of keywords. Try to think of more ways that people can use your product by looking at other related or similar products and their reviews.
- How can this solution be reformatted, repurposed, rearranged, or reversed? – Whenever you can change how the solution (yours or someone else’s) is presented, it can appear as if it’s an entirely new product. As your product sells and gets feedback, what does version 1.5 or 2.0 look like? Are there related topics that you could add to your product to improve it?
- Who is the customer who wants and needs this product? – You need to be able to describe who needs the solution and why. There could be multiple niches that need it too. Think about this deeply and really seek to understand your consumer. You should understand demographics as well as psychographics to really have a complete picture of the person using your product.
Once you’ve brainstormed and come up with product development ideas for some new and improved solutions to the problems you’ve discovered, don’t jump right into product creation. Instead, start testing out the ideas with your audience first. Do this by asking them questions, getting feedback on early designs and prototypes. If you don’t have an audience (who does at first?) then go into groups that have your customers (not other sellers) and ask for some feedback. You should be in these groups anyway to understand the problems your buyers are having and you can develop relationships with some very active members to get some beta testers that will really promote your product if they like it.
When you are creating new products, you can create products that are innovative and brand new, but you can also create ones that simply build on the design and ideas of someone else or that solve problems in an incremental way. When you take the time to plan it out, you never know; you could create the next killer product that disrupts the market in ways you never considered. Think about how much cell phones have changed in a few years – and realize that incremental changes can make a big difference over time.
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