So there you’re: the product manager for a boring product. How often have you caught yourself gazing longingly at some of those iPhones, Kindles, or some other such highly desirable product and though to yourself “Now why couldn’t I function as the Product Manager for a very good product like that?” I’ve one message for you – get over it. It turns out that there are other product manager who are responsible for products which are even less cool than yours and they are doing some pretty amazing things to make their products successful…
How One Goes About Buying Bullets
I’m sure that there are a number of you on the market that have quite strong feelings about guns and such 30-30 ammo for sale. Let’s put those feelings aside for a few minutes and take a closer consider the issue of, what else, bullets. If you are not a devoted survivalist or hunter, you most likely haven’t purchased bullets before.
It turns out that folks really care about what gun they buy. However, bullets are almost an afterthought purchase. Sorry about this bullet product managers. Rob Walker at the New York Times got interested in this device conundrum when he researched a company called Alliant Techsystems (ATK)Building The Better Bullet (Brand)
The next distinct bullets that ATK brought out was called Fusion. With this device line the product managers at ATK were targeting (sorry!) the 25-35-year-old deer hunters. In order to catch their eye, the company created a brand new “aggressive” box design and even went so far as to include a foil label. They basically pimped the box.
Both of these products gave the ATK product managers the ability which they needed in order to gain the confidence which they needed in order to do their biggest product launch to date. They recently rolled out a brand new distinct bullets for duck hunters called Black Cloud. These times they are showing which they understand what must be achieved to show a commodity product into a must-have product.
ATK has partnered with a well known TV personality (in duck hunting circles): Phil Robertson who is recognized as the “Duck Commander” ;.They’ve also gone ahead and made a couple of “viral videos” in order to build some buzz around their new ammo. Just to exhibit that bullets also may play a role in the 21st Century, they’ve gone so far as to produce their very own social networking site called StormChasersNetwork.
Simply to top things off, they’ve also make sure that the box for the Black Cloud product virtually jumps off the shelf. They dressed it down in a bright color scheme that is made to catch a hunter’s attention and remind him of the very first light of day (which is the greatest time and energy to be hunting ducks).
What All Of This Means For You
I can’t say for many what sort of product you’re responsible for managing. However, I will bet that it’s probably slightly more interesting than the usual commodity product like a bullet. In reality, no matter how boring you could find it, it’s probably a whole lot more interesting than the usual bullet.
With a little luck this story about how precisely the product managers at ATK could actually see beyond the straightforward proven fact that these were charged with selling more of a commodity product that one other bullet makers should inspire you. What the ATK product managers did was to step within their customer’s shoes and identify how they see the world. When they knew this, it became clear as to what they had a need to do.
Spend some time considering not what your product does, but alternatively what your customers is going to do with your product. This will point the way forward for ways to turn your boring commodity-like product into something that’ll lose like a (what else?) bullet.