So there you are: the merchandise manager for a boring product. How frequently have you caught yourself gazing longingly at one of those iPhones, Kindles, or some other such highly desirable product and though to yourself “Now why couldn’t I function as the Product Manager for an awesome product like that?” I’ve one message for you personally – get over it. It turns out that there are other product manager who’re accountable for products that are even less cool than yours and they’re doing some pretty amazing things to produce their products successful…
How One Goes About Buying Bullets
I’m sure that there are a few of you on the market which have quite strong feelings about guns and such 30-30 ammo for sale. Let’s put those feelings aside for a couple minutes and have a closer look at the dilemma of, what else, bullets. If you’re not a devoted survivalist or hunter, you most likely haven’t purchased bullets before.
It turns out that people really worry about what gun they buy. However, bullets are almost an afterthought purchase. Sorry about that bullet product managers. Rob Walker at the New York Times got interested in this system conundrum when he researched a business called Alliant Techsystems (ATK)Building The Better Bullet (Brand)
The following line of bullets that ATK presented was called Fusion. With this system line the merchandise managers at ATK were targeting (sorry!) the 25-35-year-old deer hunters. In order to catch their eye, the company created a brand new “aggressive” box design and even went so far as to add a foil label. They basically pimped the box.
Those two products gave the ATK product managers the experience which they needed to be able to gain the confidence which they needed to be able to do their biggest product launch to date. They recently rolled out a brand new line of bullets for duck hunters called Black Cloud. Now they’re showing which they understand what needs to be performed to turn a commodity product in to a must-have product.
ATK has partnered with a well known TV personality (in duck hunting circles): Phil Robertson who is recognized as the “Duck Commander” ;.They’ve also gone ahead and made a few “viral videos” to be able to build some buzz around their new ammo. Just showing that bullets also play a role in the 21st Century, they’ve gone so far as to generate their own social networking site called StormChasersNetwork.
Simply to top things off, they have also ensure that the box for the Black Cloud product virtually jumps off of the shelf. They dressed it up in a bright color scheme that was created to catch a hunter’s attention and remind him of the very first light of day (which is the better time to be hunting ducks).
What All Of This Means For You
I can’t say for several what type of product you are accountable for managing. However, I could bet that it’s probably a bit more interesting when compared to a commodity product such as a bullet. In fact, regardless of how boring you could find it, it’s probably a lot more interesting when compared to a bullet.
With only a little luck this story about how precisely the merchandise managers at ATK were able to see beyond the straightforward proven fact that they certainly were faced with selling more of a commodity product that the other bullet makers should inspire you. What the ATK product managers did was to step into their customer’s shoes and identify how they begin to see the world. If they knew this, it became clear as to what they had a need to do.
Take some time thinking about not what your product does, but alternatively what your customers can do together with your product. This could point the way in which forward for tips on how to turn your boring commodity-like product into something that will remove such as a (what else?) bullet.