Explain the stages of Product life cycle. What steps do marketers take to make the introductory stage of the product life cycle successful enough to reach the growth stage?
Answers
Explanation:
Product managers create marketing mixes for their products as they move through the life cycle. The product life cycle is a pattern of sales and profits over time for a product (Ivory dishwashing liquid) or a product category (liquid detergents). As the product moves through the stages of the life cycle, the firm must keep revising the marketing mix to stay competitive and meet the needs of target customers.Stages of the Life Cycle
As illustrated in (Figure), the product life cycle consists of the following stages:
Introduction: When a product enters the life cycle, it faces many obstacles. Although competition may be light, the introductory stage usually features frequent product modifications, limited distribution, and heavy promotion. The failure rate is high. Production and marketing costs are also high, and sales volume is low. Hence, profits are usually small or negative.
Growth: If a product survives the introductory stage, it advances to the growth stage of the life cycle. In this stage, sales grow at an increasing rate, profits are healthy, and many competitors enter the market. Large companies may start to acquire small pioneering firms that have reached this stage. Emphasis switches from primary demand promotion to aggressive brand advertising and communicating the differences between brands. For example, the goal changes from convincing people to buy flat-screen TVs to convincing them to buy Sony versus Panasonic or Sharp.
Sales and Profits during the Product Life Cycle
(Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY 4.0 license.)