It can be nerve-wracking to introduce a brand-new product or product variant. It’s impossible to tell if a product will be successful until it’s released to the public. But if you constantly experiment, learn, and improve, you can build your self-assurance and make products that customers adore. But how do you get there? How can you move toward a point where you use insights to guide your decision-making? A place where you know you’re making things that people actually want to buy? Where you regularly introduce new ideas that help companies achieve their goals?

Here are some pointers to help you:

Successfully communicating your thoughts and ideas


In order to make sure you’re on the right track with your innovations, it’s important to solicit feedback from customers at various points. There is a tendency to underestimate how difficult it is to put one’s thoughts into words in a way that the general public can readily grasp and react to. Customers who don’t grasp the concept won’t provide useful criticism, but neither will they read through multiple pages of explanation.

To help keep things simple, implement these dos and don’ts when writing for concept tests: 

Do’s

  • The shorter, the better.
  • To connect with your target market, you must speak their language.
  • Make sure the images are plausible.
  • Provide evidence that is pertinent to your argument.
  • Call attention to what makes your company unique.


Don’t

  • Oversell.
  • Use marketing jargon.
  • Exaggerate the importance of every little thing.
  • Deviate from the core point.
  • Mislead.

Make use of determinable qualities


You should have two goals in mind when conducting research on innovation::

  • Assist you in making your idea as marketable as possible.
  • Figure out what consumers value most so that you can market the idea by emphasizing the right aspects of it.


Both of these are essential to the development of your new idea, and they can be determined by analyzing the characteristics of your product or service. Attributes can be thought of as short, descriptive statements that you want people to associate with your product concept. How strongly people link each characteristic to your concept is something you can gauge with some background research. Your attributes should be useful enough that you can use them to inform decisions about the direction of your work. You can use attributes to get specific, actionable feedback on how to make your innovation better, so be as detailed as you can.

Learn from your data


When conducting studies, businesses are really trying to find the answer to the question, “How do I make products that people will buy?” One tool that will help you achieve this goal is calculating the trial potential of your idea. In any case, why else would you pursue your innovation?

You can do this by analyzing your key performance indicators and seeing how well your trial is doing and, more importantly, where you can make changes for the better. Is there room for improvement if you’re missing the mark on the first try? Is it possible to optimize the most obvious areas?

After analyzing the data, you can divide your ideas into three groups: those that are ready to launch, those that need tweaking, and those that have little chance of success. As a result, you’ll have a better idea of which ideas, based on the available data, merit investment and presentation to your stakeholders. After all, what’s the point of conducting research if you’re not going to pay attention to the results?

Investing in a system that provides insights into new ideas


You probably already have a set of go-to resources and service providers for your innovation process, but now might be a good time to take a more systemic approach. Due to the lengthy nature of the conventional innovation development process, it is essential to conduct regular consumer feedback surveys to ensure that the right ideas have been uncovered and that the right course of action is being taken with each. After working on a concept for a year, the last thing you want to do is put it to the test only to find out that nobody wants to buy it.

To better incorporate insights into the innovation process, it is helpful to have a central hub where research can be conducted and the results accessed. Having all your data in one place allows you to act swiftly, analyze and filter diagnostic data, share results with business partners, and simplify your work. Concept performance over time allows you to reflect on your work thus far and identify patterns that can guide your planning going forward. Since data is your most valuable resource, it stands to reason that you would want to implement a system that facilitates steady growth.

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