So there you are: the merchandise manager for a boring product. How usually have you caught yourself gazing longingly over at one of those iPhones, Kindles, or some other such highly desirable product and though to yourself “Now why couldn’t I function as Product Manager for an awesome product that way?” I have one message for you – overcome it. It turns out there are other product manager that are responsible for products which can be even less cool than yours and they’re doing some pretty amazing things to produce their products successful…
How One Goes About Buying Bullets
I’m sure there are a number of you on the market that have very strong feelings about guns and such 30-30 ammo for sale. Let’s put those feelings aside for a couple minutes and have a closer consider the problem of, what else, bullets. If you are not an enthusiastic survivalist or hunter, you almost certainly haven’t purchased bullets before.
It turns out that individuals really worry about what gun they buy. However, bullets are almost an afterthought purchase. Sorry about this bullet product managers. Rob Walker over at the New York Times got thinking about this product conundrum when he researched a business called Alliant Techsystems (ATK)Building The Better Bullet (Brand)
The next distinct bullets that ATK brought out was called Fusion. With this product line the merchandise managers at ATK were targeting (sorry!) the 25-35-year-old deer hunters. To be able to catch their eye, the company created a fresh “aggressive” box design and even went in terms of to include a foil label. They basically pimped the box.
These two products gave the ATK product managers the ability they needed in order to gain the confidence they needed in order to do their biggest product launch to date. They recently rolled out a fresh distinct bullets for duck hunters called Black Cloud. These times they’re showing they know what must be achieved to turn a commodity product into a must-have product.
ATK has partnered with a favorite TV personality (in duck hunting circles): Phil Robertson who is recognized as the “Duck Commander” ;.They’ve also gone ahead and made several “viral videos” in order to build some buzz around their new ammo. Just to show that bullets also may play a role in the 21st Century, they’ve gone in terms of to generate their very own social networking site called StormChasersNetwork.
Merely to top things off, they’ve also ensure that the box for the Black Cloud product virtually jumps off the shelf. They dressed it up in a brilliant color scheme that is designed to catch a hunter’s attention and remind him of the very first light of day (which is the best time and energy to be hunting ducks).
What All Of This Means For You
I can’t say for several what kind of product you are responsible for managing. However, I could bet that it’s probably slightly more interesting than the usual commodity product just like a bullet. Actually, irrespective of how boring you may find it, it’s probably a whole lot more interesting than the usual bullet.
With only a little luck this story about how exactly the merchandise managers at ATK could actually see beyond the easy proven fact that they were faced with attempting to sell more of a commodity product that the other bullet makers should inspire you. What the ATK product managers did was to step into their customer’s shoes and identify how they begin to see the world. When they knew this, it became clear about what they needed seriously to do.
Spend time contemplating not what your product does, but alternatively what your customers is going to do along with your product. This can point the way in which forward for how you can turn your boring commodity-like product into something that will lose just like a (what else?) bullet.