The decisions in building and marketing of individual product & services which are about packaging, product attributes labeling, branding and product support services are considered as individual product decisions.
Strategies should be built by the business organizations for the items of their product line. Every product require individual product decisions which should be considered by the marketers and these are as follow
Stages of Individual Product Decisions
Product Attributes
Benefits are specified that the product will offer during building of a product. Product attributes, like features, quality, design and style, communicate and deliver these benefits. Product attributes further classified into the following categories.
Product Quality
Quality is regarded as one of the powerful instrument for positioning by the marketer. Levels and consistency are two aspects of product quality.
In building a product, the marketer should first select quality level that will assist the position of product in the target market.
Read More: Levels of Product
In such situation product quality referred to as quality performance which means capacity of a product to do its operations in addition to quality level.
Increased quality also is considered as increased levels of consistency. In such situation, the quality of product refers to conformance quality which means exemption from faults and consistency in providing determined level of performance.
Increased levels of conformance quality should be attempted by all the business organizations.
Product Features
A product can be offered with different characteristics. The beginning point is the stripped-down model, one with not any excessive.
More features are added by the business organizations in order to create higher-level models. The business organization’s products are differentiated from products of its competitors with competitive tool known as features.
One of the most potential manners to compete is to present needed and valued new feature by the first producer.
How the business organization finds new characteristics and determines about which one to add to its product? Periodic surveys with purchasers should be conducted by the business organization who has utilized the products and the business organization should enquire about these questions.
Which particular characteristics of product do you wish most? How do you wish the product? Which characteristics the business organization could add to enhance its product?
An effective list of characteristics ideas are obtained from the answers of these questions. Every value of characteristic to the customers is compared with its cost to the business organization, is measured by the business organization.
Those characteristics which are value little in comparison with higher cost will be released. Similarly those should be added which the customers rank higher value as compared to their low cost to the business organization.
Product Style & Design
Distinctive product style and design is another manner to add customer value. Some business organizations have reputation for effective style and design.
Design is big concept as compared to style. The just appearance of product is described by style. The styles can be yawn generating or eye catching.
Attention may be grabbed by an interesting style which further generate pleasing look, but it does not essentially means that the product can perform in efficient manner. Unlike style, design is deeper concept and it move to inside the heart of a product.
See Also: Stages of Buyer Decision Making Process
The usefulness and look of a product is shown by its good design. Effective style and design can appeal attention, reduce costs of production, enhance performance of product and provide the product a competitive gain in the target market.
Branding
The most unique skill of professional marketers is to produce, keep, prevent and increase brands of their products and services.
A brand is a name, sign, term, design, symbol or combination of these, that that specifies the seller or producer of a product or service.
Consumers consider brand as significant component of product and value can be added to the product through branding.
For example, a bottle of White Linen perfume is regarded as high quality and expensive by the most consumers.
But if similar perfume is present in simple & unmarked bottle, then the customers would consider that perfume less quality oriented even if its fragrance is same.
Branding can become important part in the recent era and mostly nothing is served as unbranded. Purchasers are assisted by branding in many manners.
Products are identified by the purchasers that can benefit them through branding. The picture of product quality is also shown to the consumers through brands.
The consumers get surety about the product’s characteristics, quality and benefits every time when they purchase the products of same brand.
There are several advantages associated with branding which are obtained by the sellers. The whole story of the product’s particular qualities is shown on the basis of brand name.
Legal protection is provided by the seller’s trade mark and brand name for preventing the competitors to copy the unique product characteristics.
The market segmentation is also assisted with the help of branding. Branding includes the following.
01 – Brand: A name, symbol, design, sign or combination of these that recognize the seller or producer of a product or service is known as brand.
02 – Brand Equity: Brand equity is the worth of a brand, based on the degree to which it has increased name knowingness, brand loyalty, potential brand links, perceived quality and other assets like trademarks, patents and channel relationships.
Potential brand names dictate strict consumer preference and are potential assets. It is difficult to evaluate the actual equity of the brand name.
However following are the advantages associated with brand equity.
- Increased consumer loyalty and recognition
- Because of increased brand credibility, it is easier to introduce brand extensions.
- A better protection against strict price competition
- It is considered as the most everlasting asset of the business organization. By confirming loyal customer lifetime value, marketing planning is supported by customer equity.
03 – Selecting the Brand Name: Choosing the brand name is significant step. As a better name can add potentially to the success of a product, so brand name must be carefully selected.
Following are some of required qualities of a better brand name.
- It must propose something about the qualities and benefits about product.
- It must be simple to recognize, pronounce and remember.
- It must be unique.
- It must be easy to interpret it into foreign languages.
- It must be able of legal security and registration. Once selected, the brand name should be protected.
04 – Sponsorship Options for Branding: There are four sponsorship options for a producer which are as follow.
- A manufacturer Brand is the brand that is produced and possessed by manufacturer of the product or service.
- A private brand is a brand manufactured and possessed by reseller of the product or service.
- A licensed brand is a brand when a business organization sells its products under another brand name.
- Co-branding happens when two business organizations work together and produce one product.
- Widened customer attractiveness and higher brand equity is produced in case of combined brands.
05 – Branding Strategy: When a business organization starts brand strategy then it has the following four choices.
- Launch line extension in which new brand names are widen to a new sizes, forms and flavors of current product type.
- Launch brand extension in which current brand names are widen to modified or new product type.
- Launch multi brands in which new brand names are launched in the similar product type.
- Launch new brands in which new brand names in new types are launched.
Packaging
The designing and generating the wrapper or container for a product is involved in packaging activity. The primary container of the product may be included in the package.
When the product is utilized than the secondary package is thrown away. Similarly product is identified, stored and shipped with the shipping package.
Packaging also includes labeling which refers to printing information on the or with the package that shows appearance.
To keep and protect the product was the primary function of package, traditionally. But recently packaging becomes an important marketing tool due to many factors.
Many sales tasks can be performed with the packaging due to clutter on the retail store shelves and enhanced competition, like appealing attraction, depicting the product and making sale.
A better package of a product is powerful and it has been realized by the business organizations that it produces flash consumer recognition of the business organization or brand.
There are many decisions associated with the building a better package for a new product. First the business organization should develop the packaging concept which refers to as what the package should perform for product or should be.
Should the package launch the distributing method, propose particular qualities about product, offer product perfection or something else? After that decisions should be made on the factors of package like shape, size, text, color and brand mark.
The position of product and marketing strategy is assisted by these factors that work together. The package should be in accordance with the pricing, advertising and distribution of product.
Labeling
Labels may reach from simple marks linked to the products to the complicated graphics that are component of the package. Many functions are performed by labeling. The product brand is specified by the labels.
Many things about the product are specified by the labels like where it is made, who made it, when it was made, how it is utilized safely and how it is to be used. Finally through graphics, the label may encourage the product.
Product Support Services
Another component of product strategy is the customer service. Ordinarily some services are contained in the business organization’s offering to marketplace which is either minor or major component of the entire offer.
Read More: Types of Product Classification
Product support services are used by many business organizations which serve as an important tool in getting competitive advantage.
Product & support services should be designed by the business organization to profitably fulfill the needs of target customers. Customers are surveyed periodically in the first step in order to find the worth of present services and to get ideas for new ones.
Once the worth of different support services to customers are found by the business organization, then the costs of delivering these services should be assessed.
The business organization then prepares a package of services that will not only return profits to the business organization but also make customers happy.
