The Art of Product Market Fit
Discovering the ways to find unfulfilled demands and develop authentic products in the market
One of the reasons you struggle to achieve business goals is that you haven’t found the right product market fit.
Let’s discuss the concept of product market fit, why it’s so important, and how you can achieve it for your business.
The Concept of Product Market Fit and Why It is Important
Product-market fit is a term to describe when a company has created a product that meets the needs and desires of its intended customers.
It’s about creating an authentic product people need and selling it in a market with genuine demand.
When a company discovers its product market fit, customers will buy, use, and recommend the product to others.
Finding the right market fit is essential as it can lead to sustainable growth and profitability for the company.
Why Is Product Market Fit Important?
A company may struggle to generate sales or grow its customer base without product-market fit.
On top of that, a company may need to build branding and compete with massive competitors in the industry.
Product market fit is also vital, as venture capitalists often need it before investing in a company.
Without it, there’s a high possibility that a company may not be able to sustain itself or generate profits to justify the investments.
Related: 14 Benefits of Video Marketing to Boost your Company’s Sales
Examples
Here are some brands that have successfully found their product market fit.
- Spotify: It has become one of the most successful music streaming services in the world by offering consumers legal and personalized music streaming services.
- Airbnb: It found a unique opportunity to provide affordable and authentic accommodations to travelers by offering housing options beyond hotels. It also creates a new market for hosts to earn extra income.
How to Find Product Market Fit for Your Business
Finding the right product-market fit for your business can be challenging and time-consuming.
Here are some ways to find the product market fit for your business.
#1. Identify the Customer Segment You are Targeting
Understanding your target customers is vital to walking toward business success.
You must comprehensively segment your target customers by identifying their age, income, and lifestyle.
The most common way to identify your target customers is by demographic and psychographic segmentation.
- Demographic segmentation deals with factors like age, race, gender, income, or education.
- Psychographic segmentation focuses on lifestyle factors, including customers’ attitudes, interests, personalities, and values.
#2. Discover Unmet Demands of the Target Customer
The key to finding the unmet demands of your target customers is to gather as much information as possible from them.
You can gather information in some ways below:
- Market research: You can conduct surveys, interviews, polls, and focus groups with the target customers to understand their pain points, preferences, and needs.
- Social listening: Consider scrolling through social media to know the target audience’s opinions on specific needs. Besides, you can monitor or ask questions on platforms like Quora and Reddit.
- Analyze competitors: Study your competitors to find what they are doing well and where they fall short. Look for gaps in the market that you can fill with your product or service.
- Use data analytics: You can also leverage data analytic tools to analyze target customer behavior, preferences, and patterns. You will discover trends and patterns to help you find out unmet demands.
#3. Formulate Your Unique Selling Proposition
Developing a unique selling proposition (USP) is vital as it will help your product to stand out in the crowded marketplace.
It’s also a way to communicate the values of your product to the target customers and why it can be the best solution for them.
Formulating USP also helps you build strong branding, empowering your marketing strategy to be more effective.
You can determine your unique features and benefits that outshine competitors.
Try answering questions like;
- what makes your product unique?
- What problems does it solve for your target customer?
Also, consider testing and refining your product’s USP to get feedback from the target customers.
This helps you find gaps and improve your product according to customers’ demands.
#4. Determine the Key Features in Your MVP
Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a product development strategy that involves creating the basic version of your product.
You must include the minimum features needed to satisfy customers and test the conversion rates you get.
MVP helps you ensure that your product is the best fit for the target customer and that they satisfy the demands.
You can think of an MVP as a prototype or a test version of your product that you can still improve later for the final version.
Here are some ways to help you determine your MVP key features:
- Defining business goals: Identify your MVP goals. Do you want to validate a product concept, test market demand, or generate revenue? These questions help you determine the vital key features of your MVP.
- Brainstorm feature ideas: Try listing many ideas with your team to list the essential features to satisfy the target audience.
- Prioritize vital features: You can prioritize features based on their urgency, importance, and impact.
#5. Construct Your MVP with the Determined Features
Once you determine your MVP, you can start developing your initial product and creating the marketing strategy.
The role of your marketing team will be essential to expose your MVP to a broader audience to gather their responses.
You can discover whether your MVP is good enough and better than your competitors.
Besides, your marketing strategy needs to be adequate to attract potential customers.
#6. Test Your MVP and Get Feedback
The next step is to attract target customers and make them try your products.
Here are some tips to make your target audience interested in trying your MVP:
- Reach the target customers directly via emails or direct messages.
- Leverage your landing page and social media
- Offer a free trial or video demo
- Collaborate with influencers
- Participate in relevant communities or groups
- Focus on reaching early adopters
The key to finding the product market fit for your business is identifying the fulfilled demands of your target customers.
You must develop a breakthrough to help your product stand out and win customers.
Consider performing video marketing, social media marketing, or influencer marketing to reach more audiences.
