Glossary

Product Strategy

Craft winning product strategies that resonate with your target audience. Learn about value propositions, customer success, and roadmap planning to drive growth and success.

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5Ws and 1H framework

The 5Ws and 1H framework is a strategy used in investigative journalism. The journalist asks and answers six questions (What, Why, When, Where, Who, and How) to provide a complete and accurate story.

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ARPU

Average revenue per user (ARPU) is used to measure the success of digital products.

Ansoff Matrix

The Ansoff Matrix is a tool that helps businesses develop a product and market growth strategy. Product managers/marketers use Ansoff Matrix to make informed decisions and maximize growth potential.

B

BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)

BHAGs are substantial, long-term challenges that result in big payoffs for companies.

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Growth-Share Matrix

The Boston Consulting Group growth-share matrix is a prioritization tool that focuses on business value.

Brand Equity

Brand equity is the value of a brand in the eyes of the customer. A brand can have a positive or negative brand equity depending on how it is perceived, and this can have a positive or negative impact on a business’s commercial value.

Brand Extension Strategy

A brand extension strategy is the use of one’s current brand name and brand recognition to enter into a new product class.

Brand Recognition

Brand recognition is the degree to which a company’s brand is familiar, liked, and trusted by consumers. Good brand recognition offers many advantages to companies including helping to build and maintain healthy market share and profitability.

Break-even Point

A Break-Even Point is the point at which total revenue matches the total cost for a particular venture. At the Break-Even Point, an organization has recouped its costs but not yet made any profit.

Buy-In in Product Management

Buy-in in product management refers to securing stakeholder support for a product vision.

Buyer Persona

A buyer persona is a functional tool that helps businesses maximize their customer experiences by creating products based on a concrete understanding of the people buying (but not necessarily using) them.

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Card, conversation, and confirmation (3 C's)

Product teams can use the 3 C’s framework to better manage and resolve user stories following the steps ‘Card’, ‘Conversation’, and ‘Confirmation’.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Click-through rate is the percentage of an advert or listing impressions that result in a user clicking through to the site.

Co-branding

Co-branding is a form of partnership, where two companies or brands share their brand names, logos, etc., on one project, one product, or one piece of software.

Competitive Advantage

Competitive advantage is what makes a customer choose your business over another one. By understanding, and promoting, a competitive advantage, companies can win a greater amount of market share.

Competitive Analysis

Competitive analysis is the process of identifying competitors and evaluating their strategies in order to determine their weaknesses and strengths.

Competitive Differentiation

Competitive differentiation refers to how a company’s offering is distinct from its competitors’. It is based on aspects such as, but not limited to, an offering’s functionality, branding, and pricing.

Competitive Landscape

The competitive landscape is a valuable marketing tool that represents the current market for your product or service.

Competitive Matrix

A competitive matrix is a visual representation of your company’s competitive analysis data.

Conversion Rate

Conversion rate refers to the percentage of website visitors that complete a specific action.

Customer Empathy

Customer empathy is the ability to see the world through your user’s eyes. This understanding helps you see where your product fits into their lifestyle, and where it can really add value.

Customer Success

Customer success is a relationship-focused business strategy. Its primary focus is to help a customer achieve their goals when using a product or service — and to do so in an engaging, satisfying way.

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DHM Product Strategy

DHM product strategy asks product teams to answer three core questions: 1.) How will the product create delight? 2.) What makes it hard to copy? and 3.) How does it improve margin?

Data Strategy Roadmap

A data strategy roadmap is an organizational tool for all of your goals, metrics, and ideas surrounding how your business collects and uses data.

Differentiated Product

A differentiated product is a product that faces similar competing products with a similar target audience but manages to separate itself from its competitors in one way or another.

Distinctive Competence

Distinctive competencies give businesses an advantage by offering something no other business can.

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Economies of Scale

Economies of scale are the potential cost savings that can be made by producing goods or services in higher volumes, spreading fixed costs over a great volume.

Enterprise Product

The term ‘enterprise product’ refers to a product (typically software) that is used by a large number of and/or a variety of different people with different needs. Keywords: what is an enterprise product

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First Mover Advantage

First-Mover Advantage refers to the competitive edge a business earns by being the first to launch with a certain product or service.

First-mover Disadvantage

First-mover disadvantage refers to the challenges a business encounters by being the first to market with a new product or service.

Freemium

Freemium is a business model many SaaS companies leverage. They offer two core versions of a product: free and paid, though the latter may consist of multiple packages tailored to different users.

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General Availability

This is the release of a product to the consumer.

Go-To-Market Strategy

A plan with details on how to successfully release and promote a product.

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Idea Management

This is a mechanism within an organisation for harvesting and analysing concepts to potentially develop.

Incremental Innovation

Incremental innovation is a practice of developing and releasing a series of low-risk, small upgrades for existing products or services.

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Lifetime Value (LTV)

Lifetime Value (LTV) is a monetary amount representing the estimated revenue a customer will bring in across their entire time as a customer.

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Market Development Strategy

Market Development Strategy refers to a strategy in which companies introduce their product or solution to new audiences, outside of their current markets.

Market Penetration Strategy

Market penetration strategy is used by companies or organizations to launch or grow their presence and customer base within one of their already existing markets, or an existing market where a similar product or offer already exists.

Market Requirements Document (MRD)

This is a document that attempts to identify demand for a product.

Market Segmentation

A market segmentation breaks down a company’s target audience by certain attributes, to allow more targeted marketing and product development.

Market Share

Market share is the percentage of a certain market that an individual company’s sales are responsible for. Market share is used to give you an idea of how large, powerful or important your business is within its particular sector.

Market Validation

Market validation is the process of verifying a product of concept with a target market, usually via interviews.

Marketing Mix

The marketing mix is an umbrella term for all of the tactics or actions a company can employ to drive sales and increase awareness of its brand.

Marketing Plan

A marketing plan is a document that defines a marketing strategy for a company in order to reach their targeted audience.

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is a vital element of any business that relies on a subscription model, and an incredibly important metric to allow subscription businesses to prosper.

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North Star Metric - NSM

A North Star Metric (NSM) defines a business’s most sustainable and profitable core value.

P

PERT chart

A PERT chart, short for Program Evaluation Review Technique, is a visual chart used to estimate the length of time it will take to complete a project.

Personalization

Learn how product leaders use a personalization strategy to improve adoption, retention, and growth — and how airfocus helps align teams around it.

Porter's Five Forces

Porter's Five Forces is a tool that helps businesses identify their competitive advantage in a particular landscape.

Portfolio Roadmap

A portfolio roadmap is a high-level visualization of a business’s initiatives, either on a product or project level. It should cover all products mapped against your business objectives and link to product-specific roadmaps and projects.

Product Architecture

A product architecture map uses basic geometric shapes to express the functionality of a product. This allows the developers and designers to hone in on the right functional choices without being too concerned about the aesthetics of the product.

Product Brief

A product brief is the first step towards building a high-quality product. It sets the course to success by aligning all product teams under a unified strategy.

Product Discovery

Product discovery is the customer-centric process of determining whether or not a product or feature should be developed. It requires in-depth customer knowledge, to identify and validate which user problem(s) a build could solve.

Product Goals

Product goals are the accomplishments you need to achieve to bring a vision from theory to reality.

Product Initiative

A product initiative is a key task that is required to reach the product goal.

Product Launch

A product launch describes the time a new product, good or service first hits the marketplace — and how it performs in the months that follow. Many teams will be involved in a successful product launch, including marketing, sales, finance, and development.

Product Lifecycle

The product lifecycle is the journey each product takes from the inception of an idea all the way through to a product’s retirement.

Product Marketer

A Product Marketer is a marketer who specializes in bringing products to market. This means that they manage a product’s conception, positioning, advertising, and eventual release to market.

Product North Star

In product management, a product north star is a measure of how well the development team is solving customer problems in a way that supports the organization’s business goals.

Product Organization

A product organization is a type of company structure in which a business is built around specific products, with dedicated teams, workflows, and objectives for each.

Product Pillars

Product pillars define a product's identity and value proposition, making decision-making easier.

Product Planning

Product planning encompasses the internal processes that need to happen for a product to move through ideation, design, development, and deployment.

Product Positioning Map

Product positioning maps help you visually represent how your products compare to your competitors’ products.

Product Process Matrix

The product-process matrix is a visual tool that helps product teams understand the relationship between their product and the steps of their product development process.

Product Requirements Document

A product requirements document (PRD) is a detailed outline of all functionalities a software product must fulfill when being delivered.

Product Requirements Management

Product requirements management refers to the process of collecting, analyzing, tracking, and prioritizing product requirements. These requirements are usually communicated later on to key stakeholders.

Product Strategies in Marketing

Product strategies in marketing refer to specific tactics product-focused organizations can deploy in order to drive user acquisition, improve LTV, and ensure product-market fit.

Product Strategy

A product strategy is your business’s goal(s) for a product and the in-depth process for achieving success

Product Strategy Canvas

A product strategy canvas is a tool to help communicate and develop your product strategy.

Product Strategy Framework

A product strategy framework represents a plan which describes what and how a company hopes to achieve with their product.

Product Strategy Pyramid

The product strategy pyramid is a visual tool that helps define your product strategy.

Product Vision

A product vision aims to describe the future state of a product. It is the core essence of the product.Ideally, the product vision will serve as a guide for the stakeholders, as it will remind them of the general direction the product should be taking

Product-led Growth

Product-led growth is the secret behind some of the biggest names in SaaS and tech. Build your products for users first and sustainable growth will follow.

R

Rapid Application Development (RAD)

Rapid Application Development (RAD) is an adaptive software development approach where a software prototype is rapidly updated based on user feedback and iteratively delivered until it meets all client requirements.

Rapid Experimentation

Experiments are launched rapidly to discover new ideas. This allows product development teams to build less and learn more.

Rapid Prototyping

Rapid prototyping is a key part of product development, leveraging functional prototypes for in-depth testing of core design elements (size, function, etc.) and overall user experience.

Resource Allocation in Product Management

In product management, resource allocation refers to distributing budget, materials, and workforce to different tasks and projects.

Retention Rate

Retention rate is the number of customers that continue to pay for a subscription-based product over a particular period. A high retention rate indicates that your customers are getting value.

Return on Investment (ROI)

Return on Investment is a key business metric that measures the profitability of investments or marketing activities by weighing the size of the upfront cost against the net profits it produced.

S

SDLC - Software Development Life Cycle

Short for the Software Development Life Cycle, SDLC is a strategy used to break the process of developing an app into an organized, predictable methodology.

SWOT Analysis

The SWOT analysis framework assessing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to business, their rivals, or their project planning. SWOT is an acronym for these four factors.

Sales Forecast

A sales forecast is a business’s estimation of a product’s future sales. This helps companies make well-informed decisions related to resources, workforces, and more.

Seed Capital

Seed capital is a relatively small investment that contributed to a startup at the very earliest stage of the venture.

Serviceable Obtainable Market

Serviceable obtainable market is the revenue share that a business estimates it can capture within a specific product segment.

Single Source of Truth

Single source of truth, or SSOT, is a concept generally used to make sure that all of the organization’s members rely on the same data for business decisions. Keywords: single source of truth

Software Testing Life Cycle

The software testing life cycle is a multi-phase process of testing software to make sure it meets your quality requirements.

Story Mapping

Story mapping is the visualization of a user’s journey with your product, breaking each step down into user stories. This exercise can help you see clearly which features and functionalities are essential for your MVP.

Strategic Marketing Management

Strategic marketing management is the process of implementing your business’ mission through specific and strategic processes in order to maximize on your current marketing plan.

Strategic Roadmap

Strategic roadmaps help teams plan the next steps to achieve the goals of the overall business vision.

Success Factors

Success factors are all of the different internal and external influences which can impact the potential success of a business.

Success Requirements

Success requirements are the factors that influence whether or not a SaaS business is successful in achieving its strategic and financial goals.

T

The 5 Forces

The 5 forces, also known as Porter’s 5 forces, is used in strategic business modeling to assess the strengths and weaknesses of any industry. 5 forces can be used to evaluate the industry structure of a specific company along with its place in the market.

Three Horizons of Growth

The three horizons of growth is a framework designed by the management consulting firm, McKinsey, to help businesses stay focused on growth and innovation.

Time to Market

Time to market is a metric for how long it takes for a product idea to become available on the market.

Top-down Product Strategy

This is a strategy based on information passed downward from leadership to the product manager.

Total Addressable Market (TAM)

Total addressable market (TAM) refers to the maximum possible revenue a product or service could generate if it was able to activate every single relevant customer.

U

Use Case

A use case is a specific manner in which a persona uses an aspect of a product.

User Persona

A user persona is a semi-fictional character created to represent different customer types that use a company’s products or services.

User Research

User research includes qualitative and quantitative means of gathering user feedback on your product or service, to guarantee what you build is not only user-centric but has the best chance of commercial success.

User Story

A user story is a well-formed, short and simple description of a software requirement from the perspective of an end-user.

V

V2MOM

V2MOM is a framework designed to help companies understand their goals, values, and more in a simple way.

Value Chain Analysis

Value chain analysis is the process of combing through your value chain, looking for redundancies, unnecessary costs, and opportunities to increase revenue.

Value Proposition

A value proposition is an assertion of the benefits of the product to its potential consumers.

Value Stream Management

Value stream management is a management practice or technique intended to increase and optimize the flow of company value from end to end.

Velocity

Velocity is a measure of the speed at which an agile team completes work items. By analyzing velocity, teams can estimate how much work they can complete in future iterations.

W

WIG (Wildly Important Goal)

A WIG (Wildly Important Goal) is one of FranklinCovey's 4 Disciplines of Execution and can help product managers identify and accomplish critical goals.

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Glossary

Product Strategy

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Create an effective product strategy

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Create an effective
product strategy