Define Your Product’s Features, Benefits and Distribution: Describe what the product or service does, how it works, what features it offers and most importantly what problem it solves - people buy solutions. Describe the product’s physical characteristics such as size, weight and color. Define its benefits in emotional as well as functional terms. Know which features and benefits of your product or service will appeal to different market segments What stage of the product life cycle is your product/service in, explain.
Sample Product Description This is a starting point in creating a marketing mix. It is everything, both favorable and unfavorable that a person receives in an exchange.
Athletic Boots are a tangible product because they can be seen, touched and worn. They can be classified as a consumer product because they are bought to satisfy an individual’s personal needs. As mentioned earlier, the Athletic boots are a shopping product because they are a bit more expensive than convenient goods and found are in fewer stores. When shopping for them, the consumer spends limited time looking around; comparing with other brands to find the best alternative with sought after benefits and desired features.
Product Items, Lines and Mixes
Athletic Boots are a single item on our productline. Our product mix is quite narrow because we’re a new company. Our productlinedepth includes the following: athletic boots, detachable boot extendor (or extension), foot pads designed only for athletic boots, athletic boots cleaner and washing detergent formulated only for the athletic boots.
So far we are very pleased with the athletic boots, but product modification may be required to cater to the markets’ ever changing preferences. That will include modifying the athletic boots style, because at the moment we are focusing on producing warm athletic shoes, which are worn in cold weather conditions, but maybe we need to have athletic boots for all seasons and that will grow our current target market and product mix as a whole.
Improvement: The improved athletic boots will have a music “slip in” compartment. This is a little pocket on the side to slip in your iPod (Nano/Touch), MP3 player or phone. It is designed to make the athletes experience more convenient, allowing them to performance at their best. People love listening to music when they work out, so why not take their music with them, everywhere they go.
Brand: Athletic Boots (A-B), important for brand identification, repeat sales and building brand equity; which is the value of company and brand names.
Packaging and Labeling: Once the athletic boots have been purchased they’ll be packed in a box for easy carriage and the box will be made from recycled material. On the box there will be the brand name (A-B) and product information-product item, size, colour and style.
New Product Development
The athletic boots are a new product, in a well known product category of sporting shoes. The following steps were taken in developing the athletic boots new product:
An opportunity was recognised in the market and we came up with a lot of ideas to capitalise on this opportunity. We had to filter all those ideas and evaluate which will be the best one. We had to analyze our business in terms of idea viability, impact on sales, profits, market share and return on investments; the budget availability and compare the risks against the benefits.
Product Characteristics and the rate of diffusion
Complexity: the degree of difficulty involved in understanding and using a new product-The athletic boots are a new product, however they are in a well known product category of shoes or sporting shoes. It is not difficult to put on the athletic boots because you just slip your feet into the boots as you would with any other shoes and go on. The detachable part has a zipper which makes it really easy to fasten up the boot.
Compatibility: the degree to which the new product is consistent with existing values and product knowledge, past experiences and current needs. The athletic boots will fit well with the markets’ existing values because we have carefully segmented it, selecting those that already have active lifestyles and those that need boots that will provide warmth whilst still giving them a competitive edge, as opposed to slowing them down on the field/gym.
RelativeAdvantage: the degree to which a product is perceived as superior to existing substitutes. The athletic boots are better than any other sporting shoe because they are ideal in cold weather conditions. They have a detachable boot extension that gives warmth to the athletes’ legs, whilst performing at their best because the boot extension is made from light material, which does not exert any weight on their body.
Observability: the degree to which the benefits or other results of using the product can be observed by others and communicated to target consumers. The athletic boots are a tangible product, meaning they can be seen and touched. They are visible for others to see and their benefits can be both felt by the person wearing them and observed by the next person.
Trialability: the degree to which a product can be tried on a limited basis. The athletic boots can be tried on in store like any other shoe. This is how the customer will be able to decide if they want to buy them or not.
Product Life Cycle
The athletic boots are in the introduction stage because they are new to the market. During this stage the product is not known, hence there are almost no profits seen. We have used competitive pricing because we don’t want consumers to think that the brand is inferior compared to our competitors. There are a lot of promotional activities involved; costs of production and distribution are very high owing to the newness of the brand.
During the introduction stage, the athletic boots will be purchased by innovators; these purchase products as soon as they come out in the market. They do not wait to see if it’s going to work or not, but they like experiencing first hand as early as possible before everybody else, they are also brand loyalists. They are followed by the early adopters who are quick to purchase but not as quickly as innovators.