In the sixth instalment of the series (eleven market research related questions that a new business owner and founder should be asking), this month I will be covering the question "How will I evolve my product as the market moves on?"
To answer this question, you need to be continuously monitoring how the needs of your target customers are evolving, how the market in which you are operating is trending and the activities of your competitors.
In a previous post, I listed three approaches and frameworks that you can use in putting yourself into the perspective of customers. In this month's post I will be covering the third of the frameworks: Customer Journey Mapping. A customer journey map is where you look at the buying process and how your target customers approach the buying process. The maps aids you in designing your customer experience. In terms of your current product offering, you can use the map to examine how and where you will improve your product and service offering beyond the first purchase decisions through to delivering the product and/or service and to identifying how to promote retention and loyalty among your customers.
In the Customer Journey Map (CJM) there are usually five main stages - there could be more if you would like to cover your customer touchpoint areas in greater detail. Usually there are the stages of Awareness, Consideration, Acquisition, Service and Loyalty.
In terms of future product evolution, you can use the CJM to assess future needs of customers and to plan how the features of your product will need to evolve over time in response to those future needs. Consider what you will need to modify or adapt in each stage of the journey and the touchpoint areas that will be involved. Will you need to offer additional product features? Over what timeframe do you need to get there in order to stay competitive and relevant to your target customers? Questions covered in previous series posts also come into play such as "What value does my solution add versus the existing solutions in the market?" and "Does my product have a feature that responds to a unique pain point or frustration of a specific group of people?". How will you need to adapt or modify your product to continue to add value versus other solutions in the market over time? How will you ensure that the features of the product are relevant and that they continue to respond to a unique pain point or frustration of your target customers?
Below is a retail example focusing on the Consideration stage.
Here is a real-life example of Customer Journey Mapping by Spotify - courtesy of UX/UI Designer, Meghana Bowen, who was hired by Spotify to develop the journey map.
For Spotify, the goal of the customer journey map was to determine the best fit for their customer experience in terms of music sharing features.
In terms of monitoring the trends of the market in which you are operating and the activities of your competitors, we will cover these two topics in future posts.
If you would like to hear more how market research can support you and your small business with understanding your customers better and validating any assumptions you may have about them, please reach out via the Contact Form for a free consult call. I help owners of small businesses to be clear in communicating the scope of their offers and in identifying their ideal clients or customers.
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