Are you excited to work on the development of your digital products but overwhelmed and confused? Are you looking for a checklist to build up your confidence to develop your product (and earn profits)?  Then, this is the right reading for you. We are providing you with a seven-step process that will help you out in your digital product development journey.

1. Research and Planning

Research and planning ensure that the digital product addresses real market needs and user expectations. Consequently, this phase lays the groundwork for a successful and competitive product. Moreover, it minimizes risks and maximizes efficiency.

Market Needs: 

The first step in developing a product would be to conduct market research and get to know the problem statement of the targeted customers. You can work out research with the help of tools like SurveyMonkey by creating and sending out surveys, and Google Trends to see what people are searching for.

After identifying market needs, develop a user persona (who the target users will be) by understanding their demographic details, preferences, and pain points from answers to surveys and interviews, analytics, etc. For example, if it is an educational application, clearly define whether it is for students, professionals, or life-long learners. This will help you to design your product specific to your target audience.

Competitive Analysis: 

Furthermore, analyze existing solutions in your addressable market. Tools like SimilarWeb and Ahrefs can help you study competitors’ websites, traffic, and keywords. You can see where they are missing and how your product can fill in the gap in the existing market. For example, Slack succeeded by observing that existing communication tools lacked integration and user-friendly interfaces and then focused on that.

Success Metrics:

What does success look like for the application? You need to set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. It is important that the goals can be accurately measured or evaluated so the team understands what success looks like. For example, a goal might be reducing customer support time by a certain percentage or increasing user engagement. 

2. Concept and Design

Congratulations on completing the first step of the Digital Product Development journey. After research, your next task will be implementing ideation and product design.

Ideation and Brainstorming:

For the ideation process, use brainstorming sessions to generate ideas that solve your identified market needs. Tools like Miro can help with collaborative ideation. The best features to prioritize will be based on user feedback and technical feasibility.

Planning:

Once you have brainstormed the idea for your product, it’s time to create it. Before you dive into the implementation, you must have a plan and break down the development process into small tasks and time frame estimates to achieve your goal. There are various project tracking tools available in the market like Confluence, Trello, etc that will help your team to easily collaborate on a project and turn your idea into reality.

3. Creation and Production

The next step is creating your digital product which is the heart of the development process so that your concept can transform into a high-quality digital product.

Building the actual digital product could be about designing prototypes or programming for software, writing for e-books, composing for music, or building game levels. You would use tools and platforms that are best suited to that product type. Content creation is an important part of this journey.

Refine your product content through iterative reviews and improvements by gathering feedback from peers, potential users, or focus groups. This process ensures the content meets high standards and aligns with user expectations. For instance, writers edit and proofread multiple drafts, musicians tweak compositions, and developers optimize code for performance and security.

4. Distribution and Feedback

Following the creation and refinement of your product, the next step is preparing it for distribution and gathering user feedback. This stage ensures your product reaches your audience effectively and meets their requirements.

Preparation for Distribution: 

Prepare your product for release by finalizing the formatting of the product, creating any packaging or documentation necessary, and making sure your product is prepped for the platform you will be releasing it on. 

User Feedback and Iteration:

User feedback and the development cycle can be regarded as a critical part of the product development process. It’s important to release your product to a limited number of people or through a beta program and gather feedback so you can identify any issues or areas for improvement, and consequently, make the necessary changes. 

This stage of the development plans allows you to test, validate, and make any necessary fixes to your product in a ‘real world’ setting to ensure the product meets the needs of the users.

5. Launch Prep

The official release of your product involves developing a clever go-to-market strategy or how you plan to reach a larger number of people. 

Create a marketing plan for your target audience. For problem-solving products, it can be to create educational content like tutorials and guides to show value. Meanwhile, for entertainment products, you can create hype with trailers and teasers to engage your audience. Use social media, blogs, and email to get your potential users.

Make sure all documentation is complete, including user guides and FAQs, and train your support and sales teams to handle customer support and sales inquiries. 

6. Launch

Having completed launch preparations, you’re now ready for the official launch. 

Launch to your audience. Monitor feedback and performance closely. Fix any issues as soon as possible to ensure a good user experience. For example, an educational app can do promotions in schools, colleges, and online platforms like YouTube, thus reaching out to their audience more effectively. This will be part of the focus after the product launches. 

7. Post-Launch

At this point, it is important to gather user feedback to improve the product once more and to expand your market.

User Feedback and Support: 

Gathering feedback and providing support to your users results in a positive user experience and also helps you to improve your product. There are several tools like Zendesk to facilitate managing support tickets and tracking common issues effectively.

Feature Expansion: 

In this stage, development plans allow you to test, verify, and make any necessary fixes to your product in a ‘real world’ setting so that the product meets the needs of a user.

Launching an app may seem to be a lot of hard work, but it doesn’t end right there. To keep on top of the competition, you need continued innovation and betterment in your product. For example, keep on adding new features to a fitness app, such as workout routines or nutrition plans, to attract new users and, thus, try to retain individual ones.

Market Expansion: 

Go into new markets and user segments. Adjust your marketing to different regions and demographics. For example, localizing content and adding language support can help an e-learning platform expand globally.

Summary

From research and planning to launch, every step matters in creating a product that meets user expectations and stands out in the market. With the right tools and strategy, you can easily navigate digital product development and achieve your goals.