| Positioning your product as more exciting than others available in the market based on features, design, or efficiency |
| Positioning your product as the most affordable among competitors to build your customer base |
| Highlighting proprietary technology ( and functionality) that sets your product apart in the competitive landscape |
| Developing products for a specific and well-defined customer segment |
| Focusing on the needs of a specific (even narrow) group of users |
| Delivering the highest quality product in terms of , functionality, data, and reliability |
| Providing exceptional service and support to customers as an extension of your offering |
| Prioritizing production efficiency so you can shorten the time from concept to delivery |
| Looking at ways to solve adjacent problems for existing customers in an effort to encourage upgrades or new purchases |
What about differentiation?
If you have worked in product development for a while you might be wondering if we missed the “differentiation strategy.” Keen eye, but no — this is an intentional omission. The strategies above are all ways that you show why your product is different and worthy of a customer’s purchase. You cannot have a differentiation strategy, when the goal of any product strategy is to differentiate in a meaningful way.
What are some tips for setting strategy?
The following 10 tips can serve as a touchstone for any product manager when setting strategy:
Do your research: Take the time to do the analysis needed to inform your product strategy, from persona work to SWOT to evaluating the market landscape .
Know your target audience: Never underestimate the power of knowing and empathizing with your customers and embrace every opportunity to deepen that knowledge.
Avoid comparisons: Do your competitive research but fend off temptations to directly compare your product one-to-one or vet opportunities against what others offer (do not let another company’s product strategy rule yours).
Be aware of weaknesses: Understand the areas where you, your team, and your product could improve.
Limit goals and initiatives: Select only three to five product goals for a given time period to prevent dilution of your efforts.
Communicate effectively with stakeholders: Make sure you can succinctly articulate the value of what you want to achieve and can translate it for different audiences .
Foster a culture of innovation: Encourage the broader product development team to use the product strategy as inspiration for their own creativity.
Embrace an agile mindset: Allow your product strategy to say “yes” or “no” to prospective features, sidestep pet projects or one-off requests that do not align, and move quickly to pursue work that does.
Keep the roadmap updated: Ensure that your roadmap shows the most recent work and reflects how that work supports the product strategy.
Continuously monitor and evaluate: Be diligent about reviewing what you have identified as supporting your product strategy, from the moment you prioritize a feature to how it performs once you release it to market.
Setting your product strategy is just the beginning. Product development is most effective when product strategy is an integral and dynamic part of the process — the lens through which all decisions are viewed.
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Product development teams vary in terms of sophistication, maturity, and needs. (So do products for that matter.) In extremely early-stage companies where there might not be a product yet, you might be able to make do with researching, defining, and documenting your product strategy in Excel or PowerPoint. These tools were not built for strategy or product work though — over time you will begin to get frustrated with the limitation of using spreadsheets and presentations.
As you and your team grow in experience (or if you are already working on a complex product), you will want to choose a purpose-built tool. Integrated product development software offers all of the functionality you need to not only set strategy, but link it to active work in a dynamic way. You can prioritize features, build beautiful product roadmaps, and report on the value you delivered all in one place.
Integrated tools for product strategy
Aha! software includes everything you need to imagine, plan, build, and deliver lovable software.
Aha! templates
Guided templates in Aha! software help you capture your thoughts and collaborate with the team. Some of the most popular that product managers use to set strategy are:
Business model template
Competitive analysis template
Customer interview template
Customer research plan template
Customer journey map template
Lean canvas template
Market requirements document (MRD) template
Mind map template
Persona template
Porter’s 5 forces template
Pros and cons template
Segment profile template
Free Excel and PowerPoint downloads
Business plan templates
Competitor analysis templates
Product positioning templates
SWOT analysis templates
Product strategy is ongoing. Budgets, tools, and the market will change. Each shift can prompt changes in your overall strategy — adjusting plans, removing fruitless efforts, and exploring new opportunities.
- The activities in The Aha! Framework
- What is a business model?
- What is customer experience?
- What is the Complete Product Experience (CPE)?
- What is a customer journey map?
- What is product-led growth?
- What are the types of business transformation?
- What is enterprise transformation?
- What is digital transformation?
- What is the role of product management in enterprise transformation?
- What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?
- What is a Minimum Lovable Product (MLP)?
- What is product vision?
- What is product-market fit?
- What is product differentiation?
- How to position your product
- How to price your product
- What are product goals and initiatives?
- How to set product goals
- How to set product initiatives
- What is product value?
- Introduction to marketing strategy
- Introduction to marketing templates
- What is a marketing strategy?
- How to set marketing goals
- Marketing vs. advertising
- What is a creative brief?
- How to define buyer personas
- Understanding the buyer's journey
- What is competitive differentiation?
- 10Ps marketing matrix
- 2x2 prioritization matrix
- Business model
- Customer journey map
- Decision log
- Decision tree
- Fit gap analysis
- Gap analysis
- Lean canvas
- Marketing strategy
- MoSCoW model
- Opportunity canvas
- Porter's 5 forces
- Pricing and packaging research
- Pricing plan chart
- Pricing strategies (Kotler)
- Product positioning
- Product vision
- SAFe® framework
- Scrum framework
- Segment profile
- SMART goals
- Strategic roadmap
- Strategy mountain
- The Aha! Framework
- Value proposition
- VMOST analysis
- Working backwards
- Collections: Business model
- Collections: SWOT
- Collections: Objectives and key results (OKR)
- Collections: Product positioning
- Collections: Market positioning
- Collections: Marketing strategy
- Collections: Marketing messaging
- What is product discovery?
- How to do market research
- How to define customer personas
- How to research competitors
- How to gather customer feedback
- Asking the right questions to drive innovation
- Approaches table
- Competitive analysis
- Customer empathy map
- Customer interview
- Customer research plan
- PESTLE analysis
- Problem framing
- Product comparison chart
- Pros and cons
- Target audience
- Collections: Customer research
- Collections: Competitor analysis
- Collections: Marketing competitor analysis
- How to brainstorm product ideas
- Brainstorming techniques for product builders
- Why product teams need an internal knowledge hub
- Why product teams need virtual whiteboard software
- How to use an online whiteboard in product management
- What is idea management?
- 4 steps for product ideation
- How to estimate the value of new product ideas
- How to prioritize product ideas
- What is idea management software?
- Introduction to marketing idea management
- How to gather marketing feedback from teammates
- Brainstorming new marketing ideas
- How to estimate the value of new marketing ideas
- Brainstorming meeting
- Brainstorming session
- Concept map
- Data flow diagram
- Fishbone diagram
- Ideas portal guide
- Jobs to be done
- Process flow diagram
- Proof of concept
- Sticky note pack
- User story map
- Workflow diagram
- Roadmapping: Your starter guide
- Agile roadmap
- Business roadmap
- Features roadmap
- Innovation roadmap
- Marketing roadmap
- Product roadmap
- Product portfolio roadmap
- Project roadmap
- Strategy roadmap
- Technology roadmap
- How to choose a product roadmap tool
- How to build a brilliant roadmap
- What to include on your product roadmap
- How to visualize data on your product roadmap
- What milestones should be included on a roadmap?
- How often should roadmap planning happen?
- How to build a roadmap for a new product
- 3 starter roadmap examples on a whiteboard
- How to build an annual product roadmap
- How to customize the right roadmap for your audience
- Product roadmap examples
- How to report on progress against your roadmap
- How to communicate your product roadmap to customers
- What is a content marketing roadmap?
- What is a digital marketing roadmap?
- What is an integrated marketing roadmap?
- What is a go-to-market roadmap?
- What is a portfolio marketing roadmap?
- How to choose a marketing roadmap tool
- Epics roadmap
- Now, Next, Later roadmap
- Portfolio roadmap
- Release roadmap
- Collections: Product roadmap
- Collections: Product roadmap presentation
- Collections: Marketing roadmap
- What is product planning?
- How to diagram product use cases
- How product managers use Gantt charts
- How to use a digital whiteboard for product planning
- Introduction to release management
- How to plan product releases across teams
- What is a product backlog?
- Product backlog vs. release backlog vs. sprint backlog
- How to refine the product backlog
- Capacity planning for product managers
- What is requirements management?
- What is a market requirements document (MRD)?
- How to manage your product requirements document (PRD)
- What is a product feature?
- What is user story mapping?
- How to prioritize product features
- Common product prioritization frameworks
- JTBD prioritization framework
- Introduction to marketing plans
- What is a marketing plan?
- How to create a marketing plan
- What is a digital marketing plan?
- What is a content marketing plan?
- Why is content marketing important?
- What is a social media plan?
- How to create a marketing budget
- 2023 monthly calendar
- 2024 monthly calendar
- Feature requirement
- Kanban board
- Market requirements document
- Problem statement
- Product requirements document
- SAFe® Program board
- Stakeholder analysis
- Stakeholder map
- Timeline diagram
- Collections: Product development process
- Collections: MRD
- Collections: PRD
- Collections: Gantt chart
- Collections: User story
- Collections: User story mapping
- Collections: Feature definition checklist
- Collections: Feature prioritization templates
- Collections: Marketing plan templates
- Collections: Marketing calendar templates
- Product design basics
- What is user experience design?
- What is the role of a UX designer?
- What is the role of a UX manager?
- How to use a wireframe in product management
- Wireframe vs. mockup vs. prototype
- 18 expert tips for wireframing
- Analytics dashboard wireframe
- Product homepage wireframe
- Signup wireframe
- Collections: Creative brief
- Common product development methodologies
- Common agile development methodologies
- What is agile product management?
- What is agile software development?
- What is agile project management?
- What is the role of a software engineer?
- What is waterfall product management?
- What is agile transformation?
- Agile vs. lean
- Agile vs. waterfall
- What is an agile roadmap?
- What is an agile retrospective?
- Best practices of agile development teams
- What is a burndown chart?
- What is issue tracking?
- What is unit testing?
- Introduction to agile metrics
- Agile dictionary
- What is kanban?
- How development teams implement kanban
- How is kanban used by product managers?
- How to set up a kanban board
- Kanban vs. scrum
- What is scrum?
- What are scrum roles?
- What is a scrum master?
- What is the role of a product manager in scrum?
- What is a sprint?
- What is a sprint planning meeting?
- What is a daily standup?
- What is a sprint review?
- Product release vs. sprint in scrum
- Themes, epics, stories, and tasks
- How to implement scrum
- How to choose a scrum certification
- What is the Scaled Agile Framework®?
- What is the role of a SAFe® product manager?
- What is PI planning?
- How to run a PI planning event
- SAFe® PI planning
- SAFe® PI retrospective
- SAFe® Sprint planning
- Sprint planning
- Sprint retrospective
- Sprint retrospective meeting
- UML class diagram
- Collections: Sprint retrospective
- How to test your product before launch
- What is a go-to-market strategy?
- How to write excellent release notes
- How to plan a marketing launch
- Knowledge base article
- Product launch plan
- Product updates
- Release notes
- Collections: Product launch checklist
- Collections: Marketing launch checklist
- How to make data-driven product decisions
- How to measure product value
- What is product analytics?
- What are product metrics?
- What is a product?
- What is a product portfolio?
- What is product development?
- What is product management?
- What is the role of a product manager?
- What is portfolio product management?
- What is program management?
- What is product operations?
- What are the stages of product development?
- What is the product lifecycle?
- What is a product management maturity model?
- What is product development software?
- How to build a product wiki
- What to include in an internal product documentation hub
- What is product documentation?
- How to build a customer support knowledge base
- Use cases for knowledge base software
- Introduction to marketing methods
- What is agile marketing?
- What is digital marketing?
- What is product marketing?
- What is social media marketing?
- What is B2B marketing?
- Collections: Product management
- How to structure your product team meeting
- 15 tips for running effective product team meetings
- Daily standup meeting
- Meeting agenda
- Meeting notes
- Product backlog refinement meeting
- Product feature kickoff meeting
- Product operations meeting
- Product strategy meeting
- Sprint planning meeting
- What are the types of product managers?
- 10 skills to succeed as a product manager
- Common product management job titles
- What does a product manager do each day?
- What is the role of a product operations manager?
- What is the role of a program manager?
- Templates for program and portfolio management
- How to become a product manager
- How to prepare for a product manager interview
- Interview questions for product managers
- Typical salary for product managers
- Tips for new product managers
- How to choose a product management certification
- Introduction to marketing
- What are some marketing job titles?
- What is the role of a marketing manager?
- What is the role of a product marketing manager?
- How are marketing teams organized?
- Which tools do marketers use?
- Interview questions for marketing managers
- Typical salary for marketing managers
- How to make a career switch into marketing
- Job interview
- Negotiating an offer
- Product manager resume
- Collections: Product manager resume
- How to structure your product development team
- Best practices for managing a product development team
- Which tools do product managers use?
- How to streamline your product management tools
- Tips for effective collaboration between product managers and engineers
- How do product managers work with other teams?
- How product managers achieve stakeholder alignment
- How to complete a stakeholder mapping exercise
- Aha! record map
- Creative brief
- Marketing calendar
- Organizational chart
- Presentation slides
- Process improvement
- Collections: Product management meeting
- Collections: Diagrams, flowcharts for product teams
- Collections: Whiteboarding
- Collections: Templates to run product meetings
- Product development definitions
- Marketing definitions
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You can't outwork a poor product launch into a success. But a good product strategy can help you determine successful products that will shine in your market's competitive landscape. Use our Product Strategy Framework deck to improve your current product strategy, better communicate your vision, and organize cross-functional collaborations that align everyone towards a common goal.
Questions and answers
How does this product strategy framework compare to other business strategy frameworks?
This product strategy framework is specifically designed to help businesses identify their unique position in the competitive landscape and build products that set them apart. Unlike general business strategy frameworks, it focuses on product development and launch. It provides guidance on improving current product strategies, better communicating the vision, and organizing cross-functional collaborations towards a common goal. It's a more specialized approach compared to broader business strategy frameworks.
Are there any case studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of this product strategy framework?
While the content provided does not specifically mention any case studies, the effectiveness of a product strategy framework can often be demonstrated through its successful application in real-world scenarios. These might include the launch of a new product, a significant increase in market share, or a notable improvement in customer satisfaction. However, without specific examples or case studies mentioned in the content, it's difficult to provide a more detailed answer.
Slide highlights
This 1-Page Product Strategy Framework slide simplifies the product strategy process. Answer core questions about your customer, product, company, and competition. Define key success metrics like customer retention, product reach, go-to-market viability, and brand power.
Use the Product Strategy Canvas to map your product vision with user personas, user journeys, and user stories. Detail your product's implementation constraints, design wireframes, and potential in a brief format. Present your data in a simple way that communicates key value.
Outline your key product strategies and show how much progress you've made on each with this 5-step Product Strategies slide. Measure viability and define the tactics needed to put the plan into action.
Every product's success or failure rests on the choices made in its development. A goal-first approach from a solid product strategy guides successful development, defines what your product is supposed to achieve, builds context around your market, and aligns your entire team behind a shared vision.
How does a product strategy framework enhance a business's competitive position in the market?
A product strategy framework enhances a business's competitive position in the market by providing a clear roadmap for product development. It helps in defining the product's purpose, understanding the market context, and aligning the entire team towards a shared vision. This goal-first approach ensures that the product is developed with a clear focus on what it is supposed to achieve, thereby setting the business apart in the competitive landscape.
Are there any case studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of a product strategy framework?
Yes, there are numerous case studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of a product strategy framework. Companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon have used product strategy frameworks to guide their product development and achieve market success. These case studies show how a clear product strategy can help align the team, define the product's goals, and set the product apart in the competitive landscape.
This presentation helps hone the focus and communicate the vision to analyze the success and viability of a product or new feature before you actually develop it. From there, it's all about execution.
Application
- Align product objectives: First, align your team on the initiatives and themes of your product. Focus on your company's overall goals and high-level priorities.
- Define project strategy: Outline the goals for your product and start with your vision, followed by the key performance indicators that will determine success, followed by a product roadmap.
- Use data to prioritize features: Use customer personas to determine the best features for user needs, allocate resources to modify products, and invest in new products.
- Canvas to create excellence: Define your product's market, price, competitors, differentiators, strengths and weaknesses, sustainable advantages, and risks.
- Voice the vision: Determine the time frame and measurable objectives, then quantify and analyze your current conditions to meet your vision statement's goal.
- Roadmap to success: Use Product Roadmaps to guide your product strategy through a full year's worth of planning across multiple milestones and long-term growth strategies.
With a solid product strategy (and beautifully rendered slides to visualize and align your team) you should have everything you need to execute a successful product launch.