Introduction

Product management is all about building the right product for customers constantly, but it can be hard to know where to start. We’ve put together this checklist of key activities you should never miss, and areas to be monitored for an efficient day-to-day product management workflow.

 

The 7-Step Checklist To Ensure Product Success

 

#1 Know Your Measurements 

It’s important for product teams to know what you are measuring, and how. You should be able to answer the following questions:

- How will I measure my KPIs?

- What are the metrics that matter for this KPI?

- How will I know if my metric is good or bad?

It's also important to note that different products will have different metrics for success, and it's up to the product management team to identify the most relevant ones for their product like the ones mentioned below.
 

- User satisfaction: This can be measured through surveys, customer feedback, and other forms of direct communication with users.

- Adoption and usage: This can be measured by tracking the number of users who are actively using the product and the frequency of use.

- Revenue and profitability: The financial performance of the product is a key indicator of its success.

- Market share: Tracking the market share of the product can help to gauge its success relative to competitors.

- Customer acquisition and retention: The ability to attract and retain customers is a key indicator of the product's success.

- Brand perception: Monitoring how customers and the market perceive the product's brand can help to gauge its success.

- Product/market fit: Ensuring that the product meets the needs of the target market is a key factor in its success.

 

#2 Set Up Alerts 

Alerts are a great way to stay on top of your data. They’re one of the easiest ways to get alerted about key metrics and goals, so we recommend setting up alerts for any new users, signups, or trials (and any other relevant events). There are a few key steps to setting up alerts:
 

1. Identify the key metrics that you want to track: This could include user satisfaction, adoption and usage, revenue and profitability, market share, customer acquisition and retention, brand perception, or product/market fit, among others.

2. Decide how you want to be notified of changes in these metrics: This could include email alerts, text messages, or notifications in a project management tool.

3. Set up the alerts: Depending on the tools you are using to track your metrics, there may be different ways to set up alerts. For example, you might be able to set up email alerts through a customer relationship management (CRM) system, or you might use a third-party tool to track key metrics and send alerts when thresholds are met.

4. Test the alerts: Make sure to test your alerts to ensure that they are working properly and that you are receiving notifications in the desired format.

5. Monitor the alerts: Once the alerts are set up, be sure to regularly monitor them and take action when necessary. This might involve analyzing the data to understand what is driving changes in the metrics, or taking steps to address any issues that are identified.

By setting up alerts and monitoring them regularly, product management teams can stay on top of key metrics and take timely action to address any issues that arise.

 

#3 Create And Monitor Trends 

Image source - determ

 

Trends are important because they give you a view of how your product is performing. They can also help you identify problems, and opportunities, and make decisions about what to do next.

Trend analysis is a technique used to examine and predict the movements of an item based on current and historical data. You can use trend analysis to improve your business using trend data to inform your decision-making. As your business becomes more established, you will be able to compare data and identify trends in the:

- financial performance

- competitor movement and growth

- manufacturing efficiency

- new or emerging technologies

- customer complaints

- staff performance reviews and key performance indicators (KPIs).

 

#4 Analyze Retention And Conversion Rates 

Retention rate is a measure of how many users continue to use a product over a given period of time. Conversion rate is a measure of how many users take the desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service.

To analyze retention and conversion rates, you will need to track the number of users who start using your product (the "acquisition cohort") and then measure how many of those users continue to use the product over time. You can then calculate the retention rate by dividing the number of users who continue to use the product by the number of users in the acquisition cohort.

To analyze conversion rates, you will need to define the desired action (e.g., making a purchase, or signing up for a service) and track how many users take that action. You can then calculate the conversion rate by dividing the number of users who take the desired action by the number of users in the acquisition cohort.

To get a more detailed understanding of retention and conversion rates, you may want to segment the data by different criteria, such as user demographics, usage patterns, or location. This can help to identify patterns and trends that may be affecting retention and conversion rates.

By regularly tracking and analyzing retention and conversion rates, product management teams can understand how well the product is performing and identify opportunities for improvement.

Focusing on customer retention has many benefits for your online business. It encourages:

- Cost savings: since customer retention is usually more cost-effective than new customer acquisition. A good customer retention rate also means higher customer lifetime value and lower customer acquisition costs.

- Positive Word-of-Mouth: a loyal customer is more likely to tell their friends and family about your brand.

- A better bottom line: increasing the customer retention rate by just 5 percent can increase sales by 25 to 95 percent.

 

#5 Measure Effectiveness Of Your Efforts 

You should measure the effectiveness of your efforts. To do this, you have to know what an effective measure is and how to get it.A good metric is one that measures something important.

For example: "How many people are signing up for our newsletter?" or "How many of them actually complete their profile?"

Remember: metrics should be relevant and actionable!

 

#6 Analyze The Effect Of New Features On Metrics 

The impact of new features on other metrics is one of the most important things to consider when you're analyzing feedback. It's crucial for you to know how your product is impacting customers, whether it's in terms of acquisition or retention rates so that you can make adjustments as necessary.

One way to measure this is by running an A/B test and comparing two versions of your product side-by-side: one with new functionality and one without it. Then compare the results between both sets of users (for example, by looking at conversion rates or bounce rates). This will give you insight into what changes caused certain effects—and therefore help improve future versions!

When analyzing the effect of new features on other metrics, it's important to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve with the new feature and how it aligns with your overall product strategy. Some key questions to consider when analyzing the impact of new features include:

1. What is the primary goal of the new feature?

For example, is it designed to improve user satisfaction, increase adoption, or drive revenue?

2. What other metrics do you expect the new feature to impact?

For example, will it impact customer acquisition or retention, brand perception, or market share?

3. How will you measure the impact of the new feature on these metrics?

This could include using analytics tools, conducting surveys or user interviews, or tracking financial performance.

4. What is the baseline for these metrics before the new feature is introduced?

This will provide a point of comparison to measure the impact of the new feature.

5. How will you control for other factors that might impact these metrics?

For example, if you are introducing a new feature to improve user satisfaction, you want to control for other factors that might also impact user satisfaction (e.g., changes to the user interface, and customer support).

By carefully analyzing the impact of new features on other metrics, product management teams can make informed decisions about which features to prioritize and how to optimize their development and rollout.

 

#7 Learn From Your Competitors 

You should be paying attention to what your competitors are doing. They may have good ideas for you, and they could help you improve your product.

You can also use this information to improve marketing, customer service, and sales efforts in other ways.

1. Define your market

This is usually ignored when most people within an organization think they have a good idea of who their nearest competitors are. However, it’s essential to see the world from the customer’s point of view and understand what needs or wants they are trying to satisfy. Similarly, if multiple products address different segments in your market, try and understand how they may be grouped and what differentiates the groups. It may be price or different types of functionality.
 

2. Determine who your competitors are

Now that you have your categories, you can start listing direct competitors. Try and limit this to geographic areas or reach- you are still working from your customer’s point of view, so you are looking for alternatives your customers could purchase.
 

3. Think and plan with SWOT and PESTEL 

 

A SWOT analysis will help the product team to understand the organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. SWOT tends to include things from an internal point of view. Whereas, PESTEL analysis covers the political aspect and the other pressures happening, also linking to what’s happening to customers looking at Political Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal factors that can affect the market. PESTEL is an external market analysis.

 

4. Understanding customer experience

In this step, it is encouraged to visit retail outlets and interact with staff by telephone, as well as websites chatbots, and online ordering. It also means trying to respond to promotions, do refunds, start complaints, and the full spectrum of typical customer behavior.

This can be outsourced to a third party or can be done in-house specifically, for smaller companies. You’ll also need access to some idea of what the customers think of the company or product- for this public review data is an excellent source- this could be Amazon, Google, and of course, social media.

This is a vital resource as it is unsolicited, unbiased information about what customers think of a product or service. Collecting and analyzing this data can be a complicated affair, but below we will look in more detail at how it’s done and what the benefits can be.

 

Conclusion 

We hope this checklist helps you get your feedback analytics in order. There are many ways to use these metrics, but one of the most important things you can do is understand how they affect your business and then take action on that knowledge. Start with the basics: know what data you have and where it comes from. Then, set up alerts so you can see trends over time. Finally, analyze retention and conversion rates as well as the effectiveness of new features—and do all this by using our steps above!