Why You Should Innovate Existing Products for Rapid Growth
In most cases, to generate more revenue, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. You’ll often find greater success by improving upon the wheel you already have. Today’s winning brands have realized the value in balancing breakthrough innovation and innovating their existing product offering.
So, what does innovation look like? Find out how you could innovate your existing offering, and explore some examples of how other companies used these tactics to generate revenue.
Updating an existing feature or benefit – Daiya, a dairy-free food company did this when they relaunched their dairy-free cheese slices. The new style of cheese slices provided better taste and texture.
Adding a new feature or benefit – thinkThin improved upon their protein bars by creating an additional offering: bite-sized snacks. This innovation added the benefit of easy snacking.
Highlighting an existing feature or benefit – Between new iPhone launches, Apple doesn’t rest. They continue to promote existing features on their current models, like the campaigns they ran focusing on the outstanding camera features of the iPhone 7.
Rebranding the product – Procter & Gamble already had a strong foundation in the feminine product market when they launched their Always Discreet line, delivering on unmet needs of customers.
Innovating current products can be a profitable endeavor for any company. Discover a few reasons why it’s wise to leverage the products you already have, as you’re pursuing your next breakthrough innovation.
What are the Benefits of Innovating Your Existing Products?
Success is easier to achieve. Everyone is trying to come up with the next category-killing idea. However, these breakthrough innovations are both rare and hard to achieve. In fact, less than 3% of consumer goods companies have been able to launch innovative products achieving more than $50 million in the first year of launch.
So, if new product success is so difficult to achieve, what’s the alternative? Because, let’s face it, you still have growth objectives you’re working toward. Innovating an existing product leverages and optimizes your existing assets, and presents the opportunity to build stronger loyalty among your existing customer base. Logically, as your product matures along the product lifecycle, it is necessary for companies to invest in improvements and modernizations to ensure existing products continue to meet the needs of its customers. You have a big opportunity to increase revenue and profits when you rebrand or innovate your current offering.
A relaunch is a faster process. Breakthrough innovation is often a long-term proposition, due product development, testing, building, etc. Sometimes, you need an immediate solution respond to competitor actions or drive growth while you develop your next breakthrough innovation. If you want to deliver results in the medium term, consider relaunching your current product. The time-consuming development and qualification steps of creating a new product are already completed, which accelerates the critical path of initiatives focused on improving your existing product.
ROI for existing products is maximized. In today’s hyper-competitive markets, companies need to focus both on the next big breakthrough innovation, and also on leveraging their current product lines for growth. With the benefit of in-market results and insights from the customer experience with your current product lines, you can maximize innovation return on investment. You also have the opportunity to generate renewed interest by optimizing the product through rebranding, product feature upgrades, and packaging or label improvements. A rebrand will appeal to both current and new customers, bringing an increase in revenue with it.
Relaunching or upgrading your current offerings should be considered as a critical way to drive growth and maximize the hard work and resources you’ve already invested into building your product lines. Whatever changes you’ve made to your product should be communicated to your target audience, generating excitement and interest in your updated offering.
Does the process of upgrading and relaunching your current products sound daunting? To make the innovation process easier, it’s wise to engage with an expert in innovation and rebranding. When you partner with these experts, you’ll have access to their marketing skills and their experience innovating existing products to grow market share and revenue.
Do you want to learn more about effectively innovating your current products? Contact Vrios for a free consultation.
