Are Your New Product Development Efforts Really Enough?

9. Review any new product’s ability to acquire or retain customers — and not merely produce current sales. Sometimes it makes sense to add or keep a slow moving, hard-to-find product in order to support your acquisition or retention efforts.

10. Realize that without a continuous flow of new, benefit-rich products, your customers will have no reason to read and shop your catalog. They’ll see it as “same old stuff.” Conversely, winning at the new product game will have your customers shouting “the new catalog is here.”

11. Remember that one hot new product can drive your business forward for months or create a whole new business. Just look at the gadget catalogs that sell I-Pod related accessories and imagine what the new I-Phone might spawn.

12. Invest in good product development people who can drive the product lines they manage forward to double-digit growth, not just baby-sit existing product line performance.

So the next time you realize that you’re spending an inordinate amount of time discussing the esoteric nuances of various key words for paid search, remember that catalogers are merchants first and foremost and what we have to sell is more important than how we sell it.