Question

Select a product you are familiar with. Based on your knowledge of the product life cycle, what types of changes will occur to your selected product as it continues through the product life cycle and how will this affect the marketing of your selected product?

Answer 1

Selected products - Electronics (Smartphones , Tablets, etc)

Product life cycle has four stages through which a product pass before being pushed out of the market

The four stages are 1.Introduction ; 2.Growth ; 3.Maturity ; 4.Decline

Introduction stage - In this stage any new invention made are shown to the market , to encourage the target customers to buy the product. At this stage demand for the product will be lower and hence the company would price the product so high so as to cover its fixed cost. Customers buying a product at this stage are called as "Early adopters"

Marketing strategy - Since the product is new to the market, awareness about the utility of the product has to be created at this stage which entails huge spending for advertising and marketing.

Growth stage - In this stage the product is not new any more and the customers would know about the product, if the product seems to be useful for the customer, demand would increase at a rapid pace. Due to such increase in demand prices would be reduced to some extent to encourage more buying.

Marketing strategy - Lower spend on marketing is required since the product is in existence for some time and the customers would be educated about the product through other sources such as reviews, word of mouth, etc which has no cost attached to it.

Maturity stage - At this stage the there exists demand (demand is the highest for the product at this stage) for the product and the prices are reduced further due to technology obsoloscence.At this stage there would be many "me-too products" that would have copied the selling point of the product (which would be priced similar to this product) which would reduce the market share of this product.(Maturity stage is the saturation point of demand for the product).Huge chunk of customers buy the product at this stage only.

Marketing strategy - At this stage new features could be added to the product via software updates to make the product competitive in the market atleast software wise.This does not entail huge costs

Decline stage - In this stage sales decline subsequently , to encourage sales of the remaining stock the producer would be willing to sell the product at the price that is available from the market (Clearance sales).

Marketing strategy - There is almost no marketing by the producer at this stage. Highly reduced prices act as a catalyst to sell few more units of the product