By Owen Fay . Posted on November 30, 2022Research shows that over 30,000 new products are launched yearly, and about 95% fail. To avoid becoming part of this statistic, you need to know if your product is a good fit for your market and the audience.
All too often, in a bid to recoup investment or to beat off the competition, brands rush new products to market to test whether it resonates with consumers or, indeed, whether the product is something that people actually want. But, even the most experienced decision-makers struggle to make the right calls without input from their target audience.
Whether you’re looking for the safest bet or wondering if a risky concept might actually pay off, product testing can help you find a concept that meets your goals and resonates with your audience. With a product concept test, you can gauge customer sentiment and find the proven winners in a pool of different product ideas.
Product testing gives your target audience a range of options and asks them to provide feedback on each one. With product testing, you can compare purchase intent, quality, and value metrics to determine which product concepts customers like best.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at why you should test your product concepts, how to conduct an effective product assessment, and what you can do to get accurate feedback from your respondents.
What is Product Testing?
Product testing, also known as consumer testing or comparison testing, is the practice of evaluating a product’s qualities or anticipated performance with your target market. It is a research approach that enables businesses to get qualitative and quantitative data regarding prospective usage patterns, preferences, and responses from consumers to a product.
It doesn’t matter if your product is software or a consumer good. A fantastic product may bounce back from a mediocre launch, but a product that no one wants to buy can’t be saved by a strong relaunch.
You encourage your audience to adopt or utilize your services while gathering feedback on the way the service is used, how it sounds or feels, etc. You can quickly determine the most effective product concepts by gathering audience input prior to moving forward with a launch. By doing this, you can be sure that you’re supporting and investing in the appropriate projects.
It’s bad for businesses to release a subpar product. The audience won’t interact with or purchase the product if it doesn’t meet their needs. Both issues are resolved through product testing. It provides information on the genuine acceptance of the product for your company.
Is it genuinely practical and usable? Is it really worth the price you’re asking for it? Testing products before launch helps highlight any flaws in your product that need to be fixed.
What are the Goals of Product Testing?
You can use product testing from Poll the People to reach a number of different goals.
1. Determine if a new product is on track
One of the most disastrous things you can do when creating a new product is to hold off on testing the acceptance of a new product until the end of the development process. In order to show proof of concept and ensure that the final result is exactly what the consumer wants, the most profitable brands test early and often during the development process.
2. Understand if the target user will engage with the product
Product marketing is not over when a customer leaves a store or receives a product at their home. Validating the usability of your product for the end user is necessary if you want people to use it repeatedly or to talk about it to potential new consumers. As an added benefit, testing new products on various consumer groups will help you understand how different end-user groups engage with it as well as how the product functions.
3. Introduce your product to the customer
The industry’s failure to receive enough information about the product’s goal is one of the leading causes of product failure. Consumer awareness of what your products will perform for them and which items offer them the most value can be improved through product testing.
4. Find issues with the current product
Too frequently, issues with new items are discovered after they are launched and require a lot of damage control. By letting the target customer interact with the product and provide significant feedback, you can be confident that there aren’t any issues or fix them before you go live.
5. Find the perfect designs for your product
A Product test is the phase of the design process that allows you to assess your new product or service with actual customers and allows you to develop customer-centered solutions. You can actually investigate and analyze how your target market behaves while interacting with your product design. Your design can then be optimized, and changes can be made to create a product that meets user needs.
6. Choose the right price for your product
Calculating a product’s pricing is a challenging task that needs to be done in the right way. It affects consumer demand, company reputation, quality perception, and ultimate business success. Testing products price is a great way to find the best possible price point for your products and services.
Why you Should Test Your Product Concepts Before Launch
Concept testing can assist you in avoiding poor decisions, particularly if you’re revising your product or pricing, introducing new marketing initiatives, or changing how you interact with customers. As a result, you’ll save your business time, avoid financial losses, and maintain goodwill with clients.
When you use Poll the People to test a product, you take on a product launch with 5 major advantages.
1. Get buy-in on your product
Hard numbers cannot be argued against. Testing products demonstrate which ones are most popular with your target market, enabling you to identify the winners and convince other stakeholders to support your selections.
2. Gain confidence that your product will stand out and succeed when you launch
Sometimes a product is popular with your audience, but they prefer a less complicated version. When launching a new product, you need to know about the competition, testing a product before launch will tell you if there are other players that are a threat. Creating a product that stands out from the crowd is important to a new launch.
3. Know which groups will connect with your product
You can examine how different groups (such as age, gender, geography, etc.) feel about a particular product concept by testing with different groups. You can use this information to match the product with the right market.
4. Understand if you need to make changes or optimize before the launch
Your company can make educated decisions without depending on data from third-party insights organizations by regularly gathering data through agile market research. This entails product testing delivered to a selection of your potential customers on a regular basis. You can respond to changes in your industry more quickly as a result.
5. Iterate and quickly collect data
The rapid feedback from a new product test can help a business test multiple ideas, concepts, or designs at a low cost. Not all testing feedback cycles are quick; some moderated studies can take several weeks or months to collect data, even before analysis. But, product testing takes only an hour with Poll the People, and a test with 100 users costs only $100. It lets you quickly test simple assumptions or ideas and iterate quickly.
How to Successfully Test a Product
Now that you know why it’s important to test your product before launch, you’re ready to design and run your test. For accurate and actionable results, follow these steps.
1. Choose a product or concept to test
Although you can test any product or concept you like, it’s best to pick items that you already have some confidence in based on informal research among friends and coworkers. Select items in equal development stages to guarantee your survey results’ validity. The winner is evident when testing a final product against one that is still under development.
2. Create test designs
With Poll the people, you can design a test using two methods:
- Comparative testing Comparative usability testing is a method of usability testing in which two or more products are tested against each other. This is done in order to see which product is more user-friendly and which one user prefer. Comparative usability testing can be used to compare products that are very similar, such as two prices, or products that are quite different, such as a website and a mobile app. In either case, the goal is to see which product is easier and more enjoyable to use.
- An open-ended test is one of the best ways to determine if your product is as good as you think. Using an open-ended test, you can validate any product, idea, or concept. You submit the versions of your product and will start receiving valuable feedback almost immediately. Unlike most platforms, Poll the People’s tests can be created, run, and analyzed in about an hour.
3. Choose your audience
In the next step, you must choose the audience responding to the product test.Â
You should always test with people who are in your target audience. This ensures that you’re getting accurate feedback about your product or service. If you’re not sure who your target audience is, you need to identify them or you can test with a general audience. Once you know who you’re targeting, you can start testing with them.
There are a few different ways to test with your target audience on Poll the People. You can target specific regions, countries, demographics, and groups that will help you get feedback from the most important people. The best way to figure out how many people to test with is to start small and then increase the number of people if you need to. That way, you’re not wasting time and money testing with more people than you need to.
4. Launch and Analyze results
Before launching the test, it is important to decide on the type of test you want to run and the questions you are asking of the panel. Once you’ve made those decisions and zeroed in on your goals, it is time to run the test. Run the test and wait for the responses to roll in to make a great data-backed decision with the highest-quality feedback.
Once you have created, launched, and received your feedback, you’re ready to dive into the results. Poll the People provides an easy-to-digest dashboard that gives you the winner with the quantitative data on the margin of victory. The qualitative feedback will be the most valuable part of our test, each response gives you new insights into how to improve or optimize your product.
Best Practices for Effective Product Testing
You can acquire better responses from your responders by adhering to a list of recommended best practices for product testing. Consider the following five points:
- Test one product or compare two designs
- Choose a statistically significant number of responses
- Ask the right user research question
- Analyze the results and make changes to your product design
- Optimize your product and launch with confidence that your product is something that users love.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What are the Best Practices for Testing a New Product Before Its Official Launch?
Testing a new product before its official launch involves several best practices. These include defining clear testing objectives, identifying your target audience, creating a comprehensive testing plan, using both qualitative and quantitative testing methods, and analyzing the results thoroughly. It’s also crucial to iterate and refine the product based on the feedback received.
- How to Effectively Test a Product Before Launch to Ensure Market Readiness?
To effectively test a product before launch, start by defining what success looks like for your product. Then, identify your target audience and create a prototype or minimum viable product (MVP). Conduct both usability and functionality tests, and gather feedback from your target audience. Make necessary adjustments based on the feedback, and repeat the testing process until you’re confident about the product’s market readiness.
- What are the Essential Steps in the Product Testing Process?
The essential steps in the product testing process include defining your testing objectives, identifying your target audience, creating a testing plan, developing a prototype or MVP, conducting the tests, gathering and analyzing feedback, making necessary adjustments, and repeating the process until the product meets the defined objectives.
- What Strategies are Effective for Testing New Products in a Competitive Market?
In a competitive market, effective strategies for testing new products include conducting thorough market research, identifying your unique selling proposition, testing the product with a diverse group of users, using A/B testing to compare different versions of the product, and leveraging data analytics to understand user behavior and preferences.
- What Factors Should Be Considered When Conducting Tests on Products?
When conducting tests on products, consider factors such as the objectives of the test, the characteristics of your target audience, the testing environment, the type of feedback you’re looking for, and the metrics you’ll use to measure success. It’s also important to consider the product’s functionality, usability, and overall user experience.
Conclusion
Product testing can significantly lessen the risks associated with launching a new product if you are committed to optimization and using the feedback you now have. Because you already know what will work well, it can also save a significant amount of time and money that might be invested in a product that doesn’t work.
You recognize the value of testing your products, know how to conduct your own tests, and have a few testing tips and tricks in your hands. It’s time to start your first product test, we can deliver results in less than an hour for less than the competition.
Poll the People is trusted to provide high-quality responses on any products your business needs feedback on. To begin usability testing, sign up for Poll the People or take a look at the examples page for more resources.
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