Launching a Product - How to make my new product fit into an existing product line?

Hello, my name is Ian Peterman. I'm CEO and founder of Peterman Design Firm, and today I'm going to answer the question, how do I make my new product fit into an existing product line? So this is really important when you've launched your first product, maybe second, maybe a whole line, and You're wanting to make sure that your next product really fits in with that product line. Hopefully you did it with the second product, so hopefully we're not stepping back and having to redesign, but that definitely happened. We've worked with clients— I've worked with clients that have needed to do that before. And so if you're wanting to be more strategic about this, you want to think about what is your current product line and There's different ways to look at a product line, and companies kind of categorize product lines in different ways. Well, the most common is product design language. So how does it look, materials used, and often the customer base. So one product line should only be for one group of people. It should be for only one segment of your customer base, or if you only have one product line, it should be for your customer base. As soon as you start to leave either the design language, so changing how it looks drastically, it really is pushing itself into a new product line. Even if it's for the same customers, it's 'cause for that, and it really can start pushing into— a different line, so you'll have like green line and a red line. And it needs to be more than just color though. So the shape or how material usage and things like that. Once those start changing, then the people that really loved, for this example, the red line may not like the green line because it looks different. So I've talked about this before. You'll have sleek designs or you'll have ruggedized designs. You can have— you can be the person that releases a product that has a sleek futuristic look, and then you release the same product. It's got same internals, it does the same thing, same features, same pretty much everything, but you have it in a ruggedized look and feel, and that shifts who is going to buy it. These people over here, they love sleek futuristic. They're probably not going to buy your ruggedized version. But you are opening them, and it's an easy way for companies to launch out there and get a new product without fully redeveloping and get into a new market. But if you're wanting to make sure that you stay within your product line, then you wanna make sure the design language is the same. So it's really important, people in branding understand this, you gotta use the same colors and you have to use the same fonts and things like that, and people generally have an idea. The same applies to products. So whether you're chamfering or putting a radius on things, whether you— the style of it, the materials chosen, even things like the weight. So if you have a product line, let's say you're a tool company and you have a line of power tools, you want to make sure that the feel of it It's very tactile. Someone's going to be using it all day long for work. You want to make sure that the feel is the same. So when somebody grabs one of the tools in the set, it should feel like that tool. And it should— the next tool should feel pretty similar. Obviously a little bit different because each thing is a different tool, but they should feel connected. It shouldn't be I grab a glass handle and then I grab a wooden handle, then I grab a metal handle. They should be feeling like the same thing because they like that. So when you buy a set, especially in product lines where they are product sets, where you— it's a collection. So in this tool example, you know, you have a drill, you have a saw, you have a flashlight, whatever that combination is, you want to make sure that it's the same feel so that you avoid anybody buying one going, I love this. And then buying the next product and going, this is not like the other thing. That even if everything else matches, if it all looks pretty close to the same, if it, you know, function or whatever it is, it all sort of works together except it doesn't feel the same, it doesn't have the same, uh, grip type, or, you know, the ergonomics are different, then the That person may not fit in, and it could be as simple as well. You designed this set for people with larger hands and thick gloves, right? So it's designed for a certain segment of the population, and then you make something really small. Well, that person can't fit their hand in with the glove. It's very awkward. It becomes an unenjoyable experience, and so you want to make sure that you're looking at all those. Those things and the features and ensuring that they match. It means the same person should be able to pick up each of the products, use it, and they should also be familiar with it. So if you learn one product, you should be able to learn the other products in that family because positioning, labeling, where are little notifications or where is You know, certain buttons, switches, where are they all located? They should all be similar because it all then creates a thing where I use product A and I love it because the buttons are here and the display is here and I can do— I use it like this. And then the next product, the display is in the same position relative to your hand and the buttons are in the same position relative to— and so you create a user experience and the user experience Experience needs to be the same between all products, and same in that as same as you can. Obviously, if you're doing a saw and a drill, you're going to be doing different things, so it can't be the same exact, but the handle could be pretty much identical. And that's what tool companies have done. If you look at their lines, their grips are all the same within one family. And so when you're looking to make sure my product fits into my existing product line, or if you're an inventor and you're trying to you've created a new product design, you've patented it, and you're trying to get someone to buy, acquire, license your idea, design it in a way, package it up in a way that fits with their product line. It's way easier for someone to visualize buying a new patented product if it looks and feels and actually fits into their product line, 'cause that is something that companies are very aware of. And you don't want to— if you're pitching something to them that doesn't fit any of their product lines, they're going to have to go spend all of the effort to go launch a new product line to hopefully have whatever you're trying to get them to work with work. Whereas adding to an existing product line means there's an existing customer base and is really beneficial for everyone. Makes it easier. It's an easier path to market. That's why the first product is always hard and the second product Typically, I recommend being a product family member of the first product. Make it, make it so that your customer base is going to use it because it is part of the product line and the product family. And so you take all those things, you make sure everything matches as much as you can in terms of design, in terms of look and feel, materials, things like that, the user experience. In general as much as you can, then you'll ensure that your product fits into your product line. Hey, thanks for watching. We really appreciate our viewers, and if you haven't subscribed yet, please do subscribe to our channel so you can get more great videos like this in your feed. And like the video. If you want to learn more about the Peterman Design Firm, please check us out on our website, petermanfirm.com. You'll find link and information in The description, and of course we're on all social media as well, so check us out there. All right, thank you. Thank you.