6 Innovative Ways to Inspire Your Next Digital Product

“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” 

– John Steinbeck

We live in a world where every aspect of our lives is governed by digital products. From e-books and guides, podcasts and music, to software and apps, everything that makes life easy is available in a digital format. In fact, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the electronic accessibility of these products has not only made our lives easier, it has also created a new market for goods and services that can be transacted without the need for a physical inventory.

As per Statista, over 191 million e-books were sold in the year 2020 in the United States alone, and this market, which stood at USD 18.13 billion in 2020 is expected to reach USD 23.12 billion by 2026. And this is just for ebooks, imagine the stats for digital products like podcasts.

While these stats give us an idea of the huge potential that digital products hold, finding smarter ways to bring innovative ideas to life is the real question.

1. Brainstorming is the Key

Alex Faickney Osborn once said, “every single major idea that changed civilization came through some form of brainstorming.”

Developing a new product is an entire process that brings new ideas to life, which begins with brainstorming. You may have a superfluity of ideas for a new product, however choosing the one that solves customers’ problems requires intense brainstorming. Do thorough market research and listen to the pain points of your customers, this will help you understand the need of the hour.

Conduct regular brainstorming sessions among your team members and analyze the ideas that you all come up with. Following advanced brainstorming techniques for product ideas would shorten the entire time span for ideation and increase the likelihood of generating effective product ideas.

2. In-depth Customer Research

Doing in-depth research on customers and the market can increase the chances of your product being relevant and meeting the demands of users. In fact, a poorly researched product often fails to perform in the real-world scenario. The major questions that need answering during your research are –

• What are the pain areas of your target audience?

• What changes do they seek in the new digital product?
• Which factors would compel them to seek out your product?

Answering these questions would help you figure out a niche on which you can focus and create more targeted marketing campaigns tailored specifically to the needs of your audience.

After all, like Bill Gates had once said, “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning”.

Here are some effective customer research tips –

1. Ask questions – A good survey starts with the right questions. So while interviewing your customers for digital product creation ideas, ask the right questions and listen to them carefully. People like speaking about their problems, and there’s always something to learn from your customers.
2. Go through other projects – There’s never any harm in learning from your competitors or the learning of others. Analyze the successful projects of your niche and benefit from their product creation journey. While this may involve going through their process, do not copy the ideas. Be inspired by their process and try to come up with your unique ideas.
3. Survey the forums – When it comes to digital product creation, every digital product has its own dedicated community of users who often utilize these forums to discuss their problems and information.

3. Market Research for Product Ideas

“Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.”

– Seth Godin

Effective product idea generation requires a thorough understanding of your niche. So once you have understood the needs of your target consumer and have your niche sorted, conduct meticulous market research to understand the gaps and the problems that are underserved. Look for pain points which your competitors haven’t touched and which align with the issues faced by your users. This practice could help you figure out opportunities for better product development.

4. Analyze the Latest Trends

The best way to understand what your customers want, and what would be accepted across the audiences, is to analyze the current wave of trends. This approach is applicable in almost every industry that involves product development, be it fashion or information technology.

Keep yourself updated with the latest market trends, advancements in technology, and user behavior to get deeper insights into customer preferences. You could make use of a variety of platforms like Reddit, Google, Instagram, etc. to look for trends that are gaining traction in the digital space.

One of the best ways to do this is by crowdsourcing ideas, through social media polls, forums, or online communities. Engage in direct conversations with your potential customers about the kind of products they want, leading to highly relevant ideas.

5. The Painted Door Test

No, you don’t need to go about painting the doors of your office for this. The painted door test is an effective way to test the viability of your product or service, without having to actually build it.

Famously known as the “fake door test”, it helps you understand and validate if your idea is well received by your customers, like putting up a fake door just to check if anyone would knock or not.

6. Play at Your Strengths

While digital products hold immense potential to add value to businesses, creating these requires efficient strategy and brilliant brainstorming – So do what you are best at. Nobody knows your industry better than you, nor does anyone else understand the needs of your customers more than you. Trust your instincts and the knowledge of your internal teams like R&D, sales, marketing, engineering, etc in developing the next best product.

This not only boosts collaboration but also fosters an ecosystem of innovation and creative thinking where teams share their ideas freely with you. To make it better, incentivise the entire exercise by hosting “Hackathons”, or “Innovation Sprints”, with the best ideas winning rewards in the end.

A classic example of this is “Slack”, the idea of which was conceived during a Hackathon at their parent company. This idea evolved into a disruptive product that transformed the entire workplace communication.

How TIS Can Help You Spark Innovation

As the best website design and development agency in India, we specialize in transforming creative ideas into future-ready, scalable, and innovative products. Our experts use proven methods like design thinking, competitive analysis, and much more to help you go from ideation to execution. No matter at which stage of product development you are on, whether you need better ideas, or need help in executing an existing idea, our experts can help you with it all.

By partnering with TIS, you can leverage our years of experience along with a structured approach to accelerate your product development journey, turning your vision into market-ready digital products efficiently.

Final Note

It is often said and believed that brilliant products sell themselves, but in order to create a product that stands out, you need way more than just creative thinking. Regardless of what your objective is, whether you want to create a new product or improve an existing one, you need to follow a structured approach, have insights into user needs, and have a keen eye on the latest market trends.

Turning an idea into a fully functional product is a long and rough journey, but with the right approach, you can turn your digital vision into future-ready and disruptive products that skyrocket your business growth.

Ready to turn your ideas into groundbreaking products? Connect with TIS today to start making them a reality.