An increasing number of companies are beginning to offer several products to consumers with each product maintained and monitored in a very different way.
While some companies have driven multiple product management successfully, others experience difficulty in this type of multiple brand management.
Let’s review some of the important steps that companies can take to better control the sale of their multiple products to consumers.
Top Strategies for Multiple Product Management
Even though managing multiple brands can prove to be particularly difficult, there are some effective strategies that companies can utilize.
Strategy #1 – Craft a Product Vision and Strategy
As a product owner managing multiple products, you should create a clear vision for each one by researching market trends, prioritizing goals, and guiding your team. Effective communication ensures everyone understands the product’s direction and purpose.
The product vision explains the main purpose and direction of your products. To achieve that vision, the product strategy should outline key objectives, initiatives, and metrics. A shared product vision and strategy helps you communicate effectively, align your teams, and identify gaps and opportunities in your product portfolio.
Strategy #2 – Assess Your Product Performance
Keep a regular check on the performance of your products regarding your strategy and market needs. You can diagnose your product portfolio by using BCG matrix, product life cycle, value proposition canvas, or lean canvas.
With these tools, you will get to know the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats associated with your products along with their market share, the potential growth, profitability, and customer satisfaction.
Strategy #3 – Manage Multiple Product Backlogs
As the product owner, you should be responsible for creating and maintaining the product’s backlog. Maintaining multiple product backlogs is indeed a challenge; however, you need to prioritize each based on the goals of the product, the market demand, and what the customer needs.
Provide each item within the backlog a description that is understandable and straightforward enough for proper communication during the development of the product. Also, list all technical requirements understandable by all in order to manage multiple product backlogs.
Strategy # 4 – Distinguish and Prioritize Between Products
Companies need to be very cautious about the products with which they choose to associate their name. Not only are some companies not up to a certain standard of quality, but some might also feel that associating their name with a product greatly confuses consumers. In cases where a company is worried about either of these cases, it often chooses to maintain the products through separate names.
Some companies offer similar products that must be monitored differently. In these cases, it is still important for the company to identify what type of consumer is most likely to be attracted to and use each product.
It is important that a company’s proposed brand not provide any competition against one of its existing items. This type of conflicting relationship can substantially impair a company’s potential profits.
Strategy #5 – Define Acceptance Criteria
One of the key responsibilities of a product owner is to define the acceptance criteria, outlining the conditions that the product must meet to fulfill both functional and non-functional requirements.
This approach provides better insights into user needs, helping to establish more accurate acceptance criteria that align with customer expectations. Testing against these criteria and verifying that the product meets them is crucial for ensuring its quality..
Having various products developed may be challenging; clear acceptance criteria will help in prioritizing and simplifying the development process accordingly.
Strategy # 6 – Be Honest About What Brands Will Work Best
It is important for companies to understand the products with which an association with the company’s name will be most valuable.
For example, the Colgate company benefited from the association of the Colgate name with its line of Total toothpaste. The strong reputation of Colgate helped attract consumers to the line of Total products.
This analysis should be conducted before a company decides to launch a product. By doing so, companies can avoid investing time in establishing a new product line that lacks a strong connection to the brand’s reputation.
Therefore, companies should assess whether they have a strong reputation or are recognized as an authority in their industry. Brands with this level of credibility can leverage their reputation to attract consumers to new products.
On the other hand, if a product falls within a completely different industry, it’s often wise for the company to evaluate whether the gap in brand recognition can realistically be bridged.
Once a company has determined that a brand name is appropriate, it should then decide the name for marketing the product. Deciding on the appropriate brand name is often a very challenging process.
Deciding to create a separate brand and then selecting the brand name is just one of the many hardships that companies face in making this decision. In response, some companies decide to market several products through one brand identity, which poses its own advantages and obstacles.
Strategy # 7 – Ensure Effective and Top-Level Organization
Companies must make sure that they have the resources in place to effectively manage the effort required to oversee multiple lines of products.
To handle several products, many companies decide to establish a structure to control multiple product management. Many others hire a chief marketing officer who performs this task.
Management at the company should encourage employees to promote each of the company’s brands that apply to the department in which the employee works. Failure to properly manage products in this manner results in companies facing a much greater amount of competition.
While larger companies are able to afford the expenses associated with maintaining multiple products, many smaller companies lack the infrastructure to develop products in the necessary manner and find it very difficult to afford these various expenses.
As a result, in achieving successful multiple brand management, a company makes sure to utilize adequate tools to do so including software that helps to streamline multiple sales channels. By condensing efforts among multiple products, companies are able to save time as well as finances.
Strategy # 8 – Create Strong Ad Campaigns for Each Product
Companies introducing a new product line should ensure it is backed by a robust advertising campaign. Instead of redefining the company’s existing image, the company needs to define how consumers should view the fresh product. Statistics show it can be challenging to interest a consumer in a new product.
Consumers might view a nascent product line as a startup effort rather than a new venture by an established company. A company’s relationship with consumers can be negatively impacted by this effect because a large number of consumers find it preferable to buy their products from established companies.
To make sure that a strong reputation is created for a product, many companies decide to hold a launch party or use extensive advertising. Some companies decide to also collect feedback from consumers about how they view a product. This way, companies are able to successfully address any hesitations potential customers might have about a product.
Strategy # 9 – Ensure Consistency with the Brand’s Core Identity
When a company offers several products for different purposes, it’s important that consumers see a consistent brand identity across all items. A great starting point is the company’s mission statement, which helps define this vision.
This consistency matters because 64% of consumers choose to engage with brands that share their values. However, establishing a clear identity for each new product can be challenging, especially when multiple brands are involved. Smaller companies, in particular, often need to work harder to make their brand name known to consumers.
Strategy #10 – Prioritize and Allocate Resources
Prioritize and invest according to the needs and potential of your products; balance your investment between core products, growth products, and exploratory products.
Core products are the significant products providing revenues for you, but at the same time require periodic re-innovation and enhancement. Growth products are those new or expanding products with promising potential and customer demand and require much more innovation. Exploratory products include new or risky products for which outcomes are not well known and therefore require more testing and validation.
Also, consider how your products depend on each other, work together, and the trade-offs involved, as these factors impact your overall portfolio performance.
Strategy #11 – Anticipate Client Needs
One of the key jobs of a product owner is to represent the customer’s interests by predicting their needs. Knowing each of your customers helps manage the development process much better.
Product owners should be able to predict what customers want to make sure their needs are met and the products go beyond their expectations. Good communication with customers, stakeholders, and the development team is vital to gather feedback and suggestions for the product.
Strategy #12 – Act as the Main Contact
ct as the Main Contact As the product owner of multiple products, it’s essential to communicate and collaborate effectively with the development team and Scrum Master. The product owner defines ‘what’ needs to be done, while the ‘how’ is left to the development team. Engaging with various stakeholders ensures that product development aligns with the overall vision and goals.
Strategy #13 – Learn and Improve Continuously
Keep learning and improving from managing your product portfolio. Gather and analyze data and feedback from your products, teams, and stakeholders. Use this information to spot successes, failures, and lessons learned.
Acknowledge the accomplishments of your product teams and provide constructive feedback. Look for best practices and advice from other product leaders and experts, and continue to grow as a product manager.
Conclusion
Managing multiple products in a company can be rewarding but also challenging. It involves balancing resources, aligning teams, and maintaining a consistent brand identity and customer experience. Companies that manage their products well enjoy greater customer loyalty, varied revenue sources, and a stronger market presence. However, issues like poor communication, lack of visibility, and misallocated resources can arise.
Supportbench is a valuable tool that helps with these challenges. It provides workflow automation, multi-channel communication, and AI-driven insights. This allows businesses to manage their products more effectively, keeping teams aligned and customer satisfaction high. With Supportbench, companies can navigate the difficulties of handling diverse product portfolios, achieve their goals, and strengthen customer relationships. Trust Supportbench to help your teams succeed in today’s competitive market.
FAQs
1. What is a multi-product strategy?
A multi-product strategy is when a company offers a range of different products or services. This approach helps the company remain competitive in various markets and appeal to different customer bases.
2. Can there be multiple product managers?
Yes, as a company and its product offerings grow, the responsibilities increase, making it difficult for a single product manager to handle everything. In such cases, multiple product managers may be assigned, each responsible for overseeing specific products and ensuring their success.
3. Can one product owner manage multiple products?
Yes, but it takes strong organization, smart prioritization, and good communication. The owner needs to prioritize tasks based on business goals, market needs, and customer feedback while keeping all stakeholders on the same page. Using tools like product backlogs, clear product visions, and regular performance reviews can make management easier. Managing multiple products can be hard, but it’s possible with the right strategies and support.
