Discuss the below in detail:
1 Measuring Success and Contingency Planning
It will be important once we launch our new product, MM Global Buds, to measure the degree of success. We can do this in a variety of ways. I would first look back at our original goals for the product. We launched this product to accomplish the vision, and our tagline, "Connecting the world, two ears at a time." We must first measure the success in sales both nationally and globally. Also part of the success of our new product lies in reviews. It will be critical for the success to get high reviews from both influencers and customers. Another area of success will lie in our customer service team to resolve any issues before they are escalated on social media and blown out of proportion. Finally, the last big area of success will be satisfaction NPS surveys, this will tell us how likely our customers would recommend our product to a friend or a family member. We should measure these based on our main competition Google, and their Pixel Buds. CNET (2017), reviewed these at 6.8 out of 10 score. I would expect no less than an 8 out 10 for our superior product.
Although we have the upmost faith in our product, we must prepare for the worst. This is either an underperformance based on our key metrics or, at the very worst, complete failure. If we find ourselves not selling to our expectations we could have a couple different strategies. The first recommendation would be to slightly lower the price to entice our target market to use this fairly new technology. This would cut into our profits but we agree that we have left enough profit margin to still earn a good profit if sales picked up their pace. Another strategy would be to give a 50% discount if the customer bought one of our newer mobile devices. Which would aim to increase the sales of both our new mobile phones and tablets, along with our new line of MM Global Buds. Also on the table is a two-pronged approach if needed. Now if these strategies have failed and we know we will not make a profit we can explore selling our technology used to create MM Global Buds to a competitor with a bigger brand, like Apple. This will ensure you keep your job Michelle, you are welcome!
2 There are many different key performance indicators that the company could use to help determine the success of the product launch. I would suggest that MM use a couple of these common marketing key performance indicators. The first key performance indicator is sales growth. Sales growth is the easiest way for a company to judge the success of their marketing plan. Measuring the result of the marketing strategy has on sales is critical to the long-term health of the company. This metric helps to identify growth trends and aids in strategic planning. (McMahon, n.d.)
Another key performance indicator to factor in is the website traffic to website lead ratio. Tracking this metric gives the company the ability to actually measure two things at once. The first being the quality of the website traffic. The second metric is the conversion rate of the website. Here is a great example of how this may look in real life. The website may produce 100,000 visitors. Of these visitors, this may lead to only 5,000 leads. These may produce only 300 MQLs and 150 SQLs. Of these, there may only be 67 quotes given which, if you have a good sales team, leads to 33 customers. Together, these two Key Performance Indicators can provide a solid basis to evaluate the success of the product launch. (McMahon, n.d.)
No matter how solid the marketing plan is, a business cannot foresee every future event. As a result of this fact, a company must have a contingency plan. This is a plan of action just in case there are problems that arise from deviations from the original plan. The risk must be identified, analyzed, and a plan made to be executed in the event that the risk comes to pass. The impact of the risk must also be weighed. This is accomplished by conducting an impact analysis. If the impact of the risk is small, there may not be a necessity for a contingency plan. (Markgraf, n.d.)
There should absolutely be a plan in place should the product launch be less than successful. The first recommendation that I would recommend is to open both internal and external dialogs. Talk to the potential customers who chose not to purchase our product. Once you have enough data collected, talk about the results amongst the rest of the team. My next recommendation is to dig into the numbers. Numbers do not lie. This will help to identify where the breakdown or breakdowns may have occurred. The next recommendation I have would to be upfront with the customers. They need to know that the company acknowledges that they made a mistake and that they are willing to do what it takes to make things right. Finally, the company will need to redefine, recalibrate, and then relaunch. (Daniels, 2016)