Innovation, Design, and Marketing Specifications
Designers must establish clear parameters for a marketing specification in order to create unique and creative solutions to a problem. Designers need to collect valid and useful data from the target market and audience throughout the design cycle to ensure the specification includes certain essential components.
Target markets
Target Market When determining the target market, the market sectors and segments need to be identified. Target markets can be separated by the following aspects:
- Geographic For example, their addresses, location, climate, region
- Demographic / Socioeconomic For example, their gender, age, income, occupation, education, household size, and stage in the family life cycle
- Psychographic For example, similar attitudes, values, and lifestyles
- Behavioral For examples, a person's relationship to a product (occasions or degrees of loyalty)
Market segments table:
Target audiences
Target audience A specific group of people within the target market at which a product or the marketing message of a product is aimed at.
Market analysis
Market Analysis An appraisal of economic viability of the proposed design from a market perspective, taking into account fixed and variable costs and pricing. It is typically a summary about potential users and the market.
Economic Viability An activity that can support itself financially - it can be applied to any economic unit, from a single project, to a business, to a country.
Fixed Costs Are not dependent on the level of goods or services produced by the business. They tend to be time-related, such as salaries or rent and they are often referred to as overhead costs.
User Need A marketing specification should identify the essential requirements that the product must satisfy in relation to the market and user need.
Competition
A thorough analysis of competing designs is required to establish the market need.
Every product you take to market, even ones that are new inventions or improvements on old products, face competition. This is because customers buy products for many different reasons. Some are interested in the innovation of new products, others care more about price point and clever marketing schemes. Your competition will capitalize on these buyer preferences and seek to edge out your product from the market. Identifying the competition in your marketing specification helps the organization to clarify how it can edge out and respond to the competition.
- Measuring against an existing product to evaluate competitiveness
Designers will often evaluate their products against an existing 'benchmark' - most often a product that is seen as being dominant or having the minimum required features needed in order to be successful
- To check compliance with national or international standards
Many products will fall under national or international standards. Although these standards are not usually mandatory, consumers will want and expect their products to meet the standards. Products that do not meet standards are unlikely to gain success in the marketplace.
Research methods
There is a range of research methods, and these include:
Literature Search This is performed using authoritative sources such as: academic journals, books, theses, consumer magazines, government agency, industry publications, etc.
User Trials This method is a trial where members of the community who will use the product are observed using the product - usually in a lab environment and participants have set tasks to perform under controlled conditions.
User Research The questioning of users about their experience using a product - can be a questionnaire or focus group.
Expert Appraisal Where an expert (chosen on the basis of their knowledge or experience) is asked to give their opinion.
Performance Testing This method tests the physical attributes of a product and tests it against different criteria.
Design Specifications
A design specification relates to the requirements of a product and details aspects of:
- Aesthetic requirements
- Cost constraints
- Customer requirements
- Environmental requirements
- Size constraints
- Safety considerations
- Performance requirements and constraints
- Materials requirements
- Manufacturing requirements
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