Facebook Phone Needs New Product Research
You might have already heard the rumors, but Facebook is very likely to release their own smartphone by next year. Why would they make this move? Well, it's no secret Facebook is struggling with its mobile strategy especially after the company went public and the purchase of Instagram -- their advertising revenue is not doing as well as expected. So, does it make sense for Facebook to create their own phone?
Here are the first 3 stages we advise for any company rolling out a new product or service for their business:
1. Opportunity Identification
This is the stage to seek for holes or unmet needs in the market that could be opportunities. During this stage, it is helpful to conduct in-depth interview, focus groups, or short consumer surveys.
2. Concept Screening
Now that there is an understanding of the unmet needs and underserved outcomes in the market, the next stage is product concept generation research to find potential product or feature concepts that could address that need. Internal teams should work to develop whole products or product features to meet these needs. These product and features should then go through product concept screening research for further testing, to determine which concepts have the highest probability of adoption and success. Use qualitative research preliminarily for product concept generation research and product concept screening research. Both in-depth interviews and focus groups are good vehicles for generating new product ideas and concept screening.
3.Concept Testing
New product concept testing is critical before investing in the development. Now you have a great new product idea, but what is the potential market size? And will customers pay more for this product than for existing products addressing the same need? How strong are the individual component features? New product concept testing will help you with these critical questions. Conjoint analysis, MaxDiff analysis and other techniques allow you to segment the market to identify the high-potential target market. Understanding the value of features and benefits that have the highest appeal to your target market through new product concept testing allows you to craft the most effective marketing communications to facilitate adoption of new products.
Read all 7 stages of new product research.
Before Facebook decides to jump the gun into making their own smartphone, they should invest in new product research to determine if the market will be as welcoming as they hope.
Do you think a Facebook phone is a good idea or a really bad one?