What do you Need to Know About Product Vision Boards?
You run a company, and you decided it’s time for a new product. But developing a new product doesn’t happen overnight. So, what should be the first thing you do? The best way to create a successful product is by starting with a comprehensive product vision board. What do you need to know about it? And what should a product vision board comprise?
In fact, a product vision board is a very straightforward tool. You don’t need any complicated software to create a vision board for your new product; even a piece of paper will do. Essentially, it’s just a table where you list all the relevant information about your future product.
There are five basic elements that need to be included in every product vision board and three or four additional ones. In this post, we are going to show you eight of them. In nine out of ten cases, they will be 100% sufficient.
Vision
This section should be just general. What do you want your product to be? What problems should it solve? Who will be using it and why? Why will it be better than competitors or alternative solutions? Don’t go into too much detail at this point; concentrate on your big idea. You will crystallise your idea in the next steps.
Target Audience
At this point, you concentrate on your future users. Who is going to use your product and why? What are the key benefits for your target audience? Additionally, it’s also valid to create a buyer persona – a representation of a typical customer using a specific product. A buyer persona should concentrate on the customers’ problems and needs. Of course, you can add other elements, for example, motivations, challenges, aspirations, or even such details as age, gender or profession.
Needs
Every successful product is purposeful. You can’t just launch a product because you feel like it. That would be a huge waste of time and money. Make sure your product solves real, pressing problems and that there is market demand for your product. In other words, you have to make sure that people will be interested in buying your product.
Product
Here, you concentrate on the product itself. How will it be made? Of what materials? What features will it offer? Do you have a prototype or an MVP version? Do you know how to create it? Do you have everything you need to start the production process?
Business Goals
Of course, the product has to be beneficial to your customers but also to your company. Will it help you achieve your business goals? Is this product profitable? Will it help you get more customers? Will it help you grow your business and establish a positive image of it? All of these questions are immensely important!
Competitors
Think about direct and indirect competitors. Are they better or worse than your product? Are they more or less expensive? Do they have a large target audience? Are people willingly buying and using their products? Or perhaps there’s something wrong with them, and you see a potential to outrun them thanks to a specific feature or function?
Revenue Streams
How will you make money on this product? What communication and marketing channels do you intend to use? What’s the best way of reaching a potential customer? How can you ensure high sales of your product? Where will it be available to buy? Will you concentrate on brick-and-mortar stores or rather on e-commerce? Maybe you should think of social media as well?
Costs and Pricing
In the last part, you have to think about the costs. How much will it cost you to make one product? How many products per day/month will you be able to make? Can you satisfy the market demand with your current production capacity? How much should your product cost to be profitable to your business and attractive to your customers?
As you can see, the product vision board requires a lot of thinking and analysing of your idea. But it’s a good thing; this way, you can mitigate potential risk and start working on your product’s success from day one. If you want to create a product vision board of your own, you have to know something more about this tool. For example, you have to be aware of some of its downsides. And likely, you’d like to see a product vision board template before you start working on your own, correct?
If so, take a look at the full version of this post: How to build a useful product vision board