The basic components of marketing 101 are the 4 P’s of marketing: Product, Price, Promotion and Place (distribution).  Notice that the first P is product.  This is very important to understand because no matter if you sell hard goods or if you are a full fledged information product marketer, product development is a critical component of your internet business marketing strategy.

Here are four principles that can supercharge your product development.

Principle 1:  Your product should solve a problem.  With the web having such an enormous amount of information the ability for a product to solve a problem is even more important for internet businesses.  If you create a product that does not solve a clear cut problem you will find it much harder to convert sales because people will likely not have an immediate need for the product.  Without an immediate need when people arrive at your website they will simply click on to another site to visit.  As a result, a critical component that should never be overlooked in your product development strategy is to develop a product that solves a problem.

Principle 2: Before developing any product you must do thorough research in your market.  If you do not do your research or get lazy and only do a small about of research, you may waste your time creating a product that never sells.  

In researching here are some areas you can focus on:

1. Check out what is selling on Ebay for your market.

2. Hang out in forums on your market and see what people are talking about.  Are there common interests or problems being discusses?

3. Find people on Myspace who have an interest in your market and survey them on your product.

4. Use Google or Overturne search counts to tell you how many time people are searching for keywords in your market.  

Principle 3:  Make your product simple to use and always improve on it after the launch.   For example, if you are launching a software program make it very intuitive.  Then once you launch the product start a forum and get your users feedback.  Use the feedback to add features and make the product better. Whatever you do don’t just roll out your product and forget about it.

Principle 4:  This is perhaps the most important principle of them all and it comes down to two words: OVER DELIVER!  If you over deliver your product will be a big hit and you will likely get the biggest benefit of doing business on the web and that is viral marketing. People who really like a product will spread that around the web at the speed of light and that one small component can ignite your sales.

If you want your business to be a long time winner on the internet, you should consider using the above four principles in all your product development engagements.

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