5 stages of a product lifecycle: Adapt, advance & execute

What are the five stages of the product lifecycle?

Development

Before a product can be released onto the market, it needs to be developed. This stage of the product lifecycle begins with market research. You’ve probably already heard of “R&D”, meaning research and development, but you probably think that’s just reserved for the ultra-high-tech products (an A.I. language-learning tool, perhaps). It’s not. In fact, research is a critical stage of any product development because what’s the point in developing a product that either doesn’t garner interest from consumers, doesn’t hold value in the market or can’t find a position within the market.

This research then goes into product development, with designers considering all the factors, such as consumer desire for the product, competitor pricing and quality, etc. when developing a product. Be it a phone case or the latest iPhone, developing the product takes a lot of time and effort.

Introduction

I hope you were tuned in during all that research & development, because now you – the marketing machine – need to step in, and you’ll need to know what you’re talking about. This stage of the product lifecycle is all about introducing the product to consumers, and that means you need to know:

• What makes the product so great
• What makes the product stand out from competitors

Essentially, you need to know its USP in order to launch an effective marketing campaign introducing the product to the market.

Growth

Ok, so consumers know about your product and you’ve generated plenty of demand. At this stage of the product lifecycle, you’ve already gained attention for your product, but now you need to show consumers why they should choose you over competitors as competitors attempt to steal your market share. They might come in with aggressive pricing strategies, develop new products utilising your innovation (just look at how many A.I. language tools have emerged since ChatGPT came on the scene) or other such tactics.

If your product is finding success from your marketing campaigns in the introduction stage, the growth stage of your product lifecycle is an opportunity to grow your brand. With that said, it also demands adaptation as you grow to meet increasing demand.

Maturity

This product lifecycle stage is all about adapting and overcoming: adjusting your pricing to stay competitive and altering your messaging in order to differentiate your product and your brand to maintain or even increase market share. That means focusing on your strengths (because your weaknesses don’t usually sell too well!) to promote product features, brand identity, pricing, etc. in order to stave off the decline stage of the product lifecycle.

Decline

Finally, we come to the stage no brand wants in their product lifecycle: the inevitable decline. You can delay this by executing the first four stages excellently and becoming a market leader, but ultimately this is an unavoidable stage. With waning interest in a product, competing against newer, better models and an increased number of competitors, it’s impossible to prevent in 99.99% of product lifecycle processes.

Apple’s product lifecycle for all their products – but particularly the iPhone – is fairly notorious, due to a constant stream of improved models and an evil thing called ‘planned obsolescence’, which is essentially the practice of deliberately making a product worsen over time with the purpose of driving sales towards those newer models. My recommendation would be: don’t try this at home! Apple stands alone as one of the most influential brands and a clear market leader, allowing them to drive a faster product lifecycle because they know their product quality and brand reputation is so superior to their competitors that there’s very low risk of losing customer loyalty, so they are increasing customer lifetime value.

KAYBE can help

Are you still unsure how to execute any of these product lifecycle stages? Do you worry you’re not optimising your customer loyalty or customer lifetime value? KAYBE can help. We’re a tight-knit team of people, each with specific sets of skills, who:

• Are passionate about marketing
• Understand how to execute effective marketing

We’d say that stands us in good stead to help elevate your marketing department to new heights.