Success Story

Product Development Strategist

One of the nation’s largest membership organizations was experiencing a steady decline in registration with a dramatic fall-off in new member registration. They conducted research revealing that a lack of content relevance was the key driver for membership decline. The client partnered with a firm to identify new product concepts to drive greater relevance, but needed a dedicated on-site product development resource to refine ideas and bring winning membership offerings to market.

The client contacted McKinley Marketing Partners seeking a strategic product marketing expert who had a proven success with the ideation, creative, and value proposition aspects surrounding a product launch.  McKinley placed a marketing consultant with experience managing market research and developing strategies for new products.

Solution

Since day one of the project, the consultant was instrumental in preparing new membership products for market. Her responsibilities included:

  • Leading qualitative and quantitative research to identify member needs and wants for specific membership offerings
  • Identifying and selecting goods and services vendors; providing direction to vendors to best tailor offerings to address member needs
  • Working with operations, IT and fulfillment teams to develop the optimal membership experience
  • Engaging channel teams to secure commitment to test marketing
  • Partnering with business analysis teams to establish pricing and ensure the delivery of profitable new memberships
  • Holding weekly cross-functional meetings to inform core and extended teams

The consultant identified and test marketed two new membership offerings. One offering exceeded all targets and was rolled out in Q4 2013. This product drove relevance and renewals, and delivered incremental revenue.  For the second offering, the consultant identified alternative vendors to address member concerns.

She also established a process to maintain a strong pipeline of ideas to deliver on a goal of rolling out three to five new offerings within the year.  She lead the development of three new offerings in the final phase of the market research pipeline.

With the consultant’s leadership and direction, the client reorganized to better support new product development, product management and delivery.

by McKinley Marketing Partners