Identifying new product opportunities

Product need to evolve continuously in order to compete with other product and be relevant with time.Right product changes can help companies to grow and increase its market share and wrong changes can not only deter growth but also wipe it off the market.
                           Identifying right opportunities is critical in order to improve the product. There are several ways in which new product opportunities can be identified.I would discuss them in blog .

User feedback

There cannot be anything better than user feedback in identifying new opportunities. People who have used the product can give valuable information regarding your product.The feedback may not be something out of box but it will help in identifying user pain points which the product if addresses can help it to become more popular among the users.The way one can get user feedback are

1.Online survey:Certain set of question can be asked to the user through mailer or online feedback form.The question should be such that it helps in identifying the user pain points.Some of good feedback tools are survey monkey,web engage etc..

2.User interviews:These are basically one to one interaction with the user.It help in understanding user requirement in detail.User interview can also help in getting opinion about new product and features to be launched

Competitive analysis

Keeping track of competition is very important to understand how competitors are changing with time.Competitors may launch new product based on their product strategy but still these feature may help in identifying new opportunities.Every product which competitor launches should be evaluated based on your product target segment and check if that adds any value to your target segment.

Analytics

 Data analytics can give you valuable insights on what people are buying on your site or what features they are using.For eg..in an e-commerce platform you find people uses ratings and reviews feature the most to understand more about the product.This means that uses values real time reviews of the product so many feature can be around improving this product.

User navigation on the site/APP can be a valuable information regarding how user moves through your site.This can help in identifying whether user is moving where you want him to go.In case not then product change can be launched to improve the navigation

Technology

The latest trend in technology can help you identify how the features on your APP/site can be improved.Technology trend may not give new product idea but it can help in improving existing features.For eg..you have chat feature on your site in which manual interaction is required to answer to user query.New technology can help in reducing manual interaction and make this process automated.

Innate needs

Innovation comes from identifying innate needs of the user.Innate needs are the one which user  cannot express.These needs can be identified by deeply understanding the user behavior.Innate needs can bring in differentiation in your product and make it better than competition.

In case you have any query,please leave your comments .I will reply back ..