Blog 49: Product life cycle stages and what it means for product management
- Idea2Product2Business Team
- Jun 3, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 19
It is hard to imagine a car model from 20 years ago still being marketed successfully. We don’t see that happening. When it was first introduced it created buzz and gained initial users. In the growth stage, the demand and sales grew. Upon reaching the maturity stage, the sales saturated. Newer and better car models entered the market, leading to the product's decline stage.
At this point, we could move our product to the revival stage (fifth stage).
Almost every product goes through the first four product life cycle stages i.e., introduction, growth, maturity and decline. However, not every product goes through the fifth stage (revival).
Understanding our product's stage helps make better decisions, optimise resources, increase profitability, and boost competitiveness.
If we don’t manage our product life cycle well, we will encounter consequences such as, failure of the product to meet its potential, reduced shelf life, excess inventory, loss of profits, early entry into the market decline stage.
Introduction stage
Goal: Getting to product market fit
Focus: Creating awareness. Significant efforts in marketing and promotions. Adapting rapidly to new insights from customers and the market. Initial sales, market positioning, and consumer engagement occurs in this stage (read blog 47 to learn more about product positioning).
Growth stage
Goal: Expand reach, scale, and stay competitive
Focus: Scale production and enhance distribution. Support more users while optimising to accelerate growth. Further the marketing efforts. Monitor customer feedback and make continuous improvements. A journey toward profitability and market dominance.
Maturity stage
Goal: Retention. Sustaining market share
Focus: Explore new market segments, improve product features, and find new use cases. Sustain profitability through cost management and market share retention. Improve customer satisfaction. Battle churn. Plan to maintain product’s relevance.
Decline stage
Goal: Determine the best way ahead
Focus: Think strategically about pivoting, reviving product, or phasing out. Competition becomes intense. Minimize costs. The product is usually priced low to clear inventory. The objective during this stage is to maximize profits while phasing out the product.
Read blog 48 to learn more about product repositioning (in the decline stage).
Jump to blog 100 to refer to the overall product management mind map.
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All the best! 😊