Phase 2: Responding to Needs
Now we have the fun part. We know there’s a need and know we have to determine how to fill it. In classic creative development it’s the part where the writer writes and the editor edits. Think of the offering development team as the writer and the marketing department as the editor. Why? True creative feature generation should be inspired by the need initially, not limited by competitive context. Differentiation will be applied by pouring the possible features through the sieve of the competitive analysis. Is the need being met by competitors? How? Is it met well? What isn’t being addressed? Are we covering those areas with our feature sets? What is unique about our offering that is going to change the purchase behavior of the competing products with the offering’s current customer base?
Equally important is relating the offering’s features to specific benefits they produce for each audience segment. A feature could be an amazing feat of technical genius but if it doesn’t provide a real benefit, from the audience’s perspective, it loses its worth. Verification of the features and their associated benefits through testing reduces offering development risk and increases the opportunity to succeed in the market.
Once the feature chaff has been separated from the wheat, a second look at the feature set in the context of the benefits and the marketing team’s Gap Analysis should be undertaken. The Gap Analysis highlights those areas underserved by existing offerings that create distinct opportunities for offering differentiation. Empowered by this hand-in-hand process between marketing and the offering development team, the right offering with the right feature set for the right audiences will emerge. That allows marketing and sales to apply their science to help deliver success.
