5 Strategies for Companies on Multiple Product Management

5 Strategies for Companies on Multiple Product Management

Table of Contents

An increasing number of companies are beginning to offer several products to consumers with each product maintained and monitored in a very different way. While some companies have driven multiple product management successfully, other companies experience difficulty in this type of multiple brand management. Brands, however, are crucial and 89% of business readers report that the brand associated with a product is very influential. The chart below highlights just some of the advantages that companies who successfully maintain multiple brands are able to realize.

Not every band at a company plays a similar role either. There are different types of products that companies might include in their operational efforts. Some of the various types of brands that a company might be tasked with maintaining include the following:

– The product represents a large part of the company’s market share but has limited growth potential.

– A product that represents a large market share and has the potential to grow significantly resulting in more consumer relationships.

– A product that represents a small portion of the company’s market share and is unlikely to grow significantly in the future.

– A product that has a small market share but might grow significantly.

Even though managing multiple brands can prove to be particularly difficult, there are some effective strategies that companies can utilize. This article review some of the important steps that companies can take to better control the sale of their multiple products to consumers.

Strategy # 1 – Distinguish and Prioritize Between Products

Companies need to be very cautious about the products with which they choose to associate their name. Not only are some companies not up to a certain standard of quality, but some companies might also feel that associating their name with a product greatly confuses consumers. In cases where a company is worried about either of these elements, the company often elects to maintain the products through separate names.

Some companies offer similar products that must be monitored differently. In these situations, it is still important for the company to identify what type of consumer is most likely to be attracted to and use each product.

It is important that a company’s proposed brand not provide any competition against one of its existing items. This type of conflicting relationship can substantially impair a company’s potential profits.

Strategy # 2 – Be Honest About What Brands Will Work Best

It is important for companies to understand the products with which an association with the company’s name will be most valuable.

For example, the Colgate company benefitted from the association of the Colgate name with its line of Total toothpaste. The strong reputation of Colgate named helped attract consumers to the line of Total products.

This analytic step should be taken before a company decides to begin offering a product for sale. This way, companies can avoid divesting a significant amount of time in establishing a new line when a poor connection exists to the company’s name.

As a result, companies should determine if they have a stellar reputation or are an authority in a certain industry. Companies with these sorts of names can often use their identity to attract consumers to buy a product. On the other hand, if an item belongs to a very different industry, it is often wise for the company to consider if this kind of gap in brand awareness is capable of being overcome.

Once a company has determined that a brand name is appropriate, the company must then decide the name that should be selected for marketing the product. Deciding on the appropriate brand name is often a very difficult process. As the chart below illustrates, there are several types of brand names among which a company can choose.

Deciding to create a separate brand and then selecting the brand name is just one of the many challenges that companies face in making this decision. In response to these many challenges, some companies decide to market several products through one brand identity, which poses its own advantages and obstacles. The organizational chart that is revealed below shows the structural differences between companies that maintain one brand and companies’ multiple product management. While it is much easier for companies to create a good structure to maintain one product, single-brand companies are not able to reap the benefits associated with brand identities for particular products.

Depending on what products the company is selling and a host of other features, the decision between these two structures ultimately must be made after a company analyzes feature elements.

Strategy # 3 – Maintain Organization at the Top Levels of a Company

Companies must make sure that they have the resources in place to effectively manage the effort required to oversee multiple lines of products.

To manage several products, a large number of companies decide to establish a structure to control multiple product management. A large number of companies hire a chief marketing officer who performs this task. Management at the company should encourage employees to promote each of the company’s brands that apply to the department in which the employee works. Failure to properly manage products in this manner results in companies facing a much greater amount of competition. The chart below illustrates a sample model for how a company that offers several products that are associated with the same brand identity might operate.

It is important to note that this model is only how a company that maintains one brand identity operates. This problem can be much more complicated when a company is tasked with multiple product management

One of the downsides to maintaining several products in this way is that there are often significant costs associated with maintaining multiple brands. Because it is important that each brand stands alone to a certain degree, companies must pay separate costs for marketing departments, name registration, websites, and various other expenses.

While larger companies like General Electric and Procter & Gamble are able to afford the expenses associated with maintaining multiple products, many smaller companies lack an infrastructure to develop products in the necessary manner and find it very difficult to afford these various expenses.

As a result, in achieving successful multiple brand management, a company make sure to utilize adequate tools to do so including software that helps to streamline multiple sales channels. By condensing efforts among multiple products, companies are able to save time and consequently finances.

Strategy # 4 – Create Strong Ad Campaigns for Each Product

Companies who decide to introduce a new product line should make sure that the item is supported by a strong ad campaign. Rather than redefine the company’s existing image, the company will instead work on defining how consumers should view the product. After initial interest is created, many companies establish pricing. Statistics report that it can be challenging to interest a consumer in a product, however. 5 to 7 brand impressions are necessary before a consumer will remember a product.

There is a risk, however, that consumers might view a new product line as a startup effort rather than a new venture by an established company. A company’s relationship with consumers can be negatively impacted by this effect because a large number of consumers find it preferable to buy their products from established companies.

To make sure that a strong reputation is created for a product, many companies decide to hold a launch party or use extensive advertising. Some companies decide to also collect feedback from consumers about how they view a product. As a result, companies are able to successfully address any hesitations that a person might have about a product. The chart below shows just how complicated managing an ad campaign can be and raises the point that these projects are often very complicated in nature.

This chart also illuminates the many costs that are associated with running a successful ad campaign, which is just one of the many costs that companies must pay to launch a new brand.

Strategy # 5 – Conform to the Product’s Overarching Identity

When companies have decided to offer several products for different needs, it is critical that consumers attach a uniform identity to each item manufactured by the company. Typically, the mission statement that the company releases to its stockholders is an excellent place to define this vision. These identities are important because as much as 64% of people attribute shared values as the primary reason why they decide on a relationship with a brand. The graph below illustrates just some of the issues that companies are tasked with monitoring when managing a brand.

Defining each of these fields to satisfy a company’s new brand is often the beginning of the challenges that arise. It is important for companies to understand that offering multiple brands frequently makes it much more difficult to interest consumers in the company’s main product. Smaller companies often must divest more energy to make their product name to consumers.

The Difficulty and Awards of Multiple Product Management

Managing several different products can present several different obstacles that make management very challenging for a company. The advantage for companies, however, is that it is they are sometimes able to obtain profits from the sale of multiple products which they are often unable to do by focusing on just one item or brand identity.

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