by Stacey O'Brien, on August 17, 2017
With summer quickly coming to a close, 2018 planning has probably been on the mind of product manufacturers for quite some time. New products don’t design, develop, and build themselves in short order—they require a significant amount of forethought, planning, and budgeting (the budgeting process is the worst, right?).
If you, or someone else in your company, has been tasked with adding connectivity to a new or existing product line in the upcoming year, you might be feeling the pressure to build something...fast. Adding to that pressure is the fact that the Internet of Things can be difficult to conceptualize in the absence of a tangible connected “thing” to look at. So, the only way to get greenlighted for a new, connected product or for the budget to support it is to hurriedly build something, right?
Wrong-ish. That’s one approach, but definitely not the best one. Building something, especially in the realm of IoT, is often one of the most expensive and ineffective ways to make the case for your connected product. Instead, you need to first figure out why people would actually want to pay money for a connected version of your product (unless you’re a not-for-profit product manufacturer, which is cool, but you can probably stop reading here). Next? Figure out the best way to capitalize on that why (i.e., develop a monetization strategy).
A solid monetization strategy can take many forms and depends heavily on your product, customers, revenue streams, and business models. But, thinking this through is a crucial first step to set yourself up for success. Not only will it help you prove you know what you’re doing (imposter syndrome, anyone?), but it can also help get your connected project above the dreaded red line in the 2018 budgeting process.
On Wednesday, August 30th at 10:30 am CDT, Exosite will host IoT - Money Talks, a webinar designed to help organizations develop a long-term IoT monetization strategy to accelerate connected-product profitability. Our panel of experts including Ryan Carlson, Director of Digital Transformation Services at Exosite; Mark Benson, CTO at Exosite; Kimberly Hayman, IoT Business Architect at Exosite; and special guest Esra Kucukciftci, founder of Pricing Innovations, will discuss essential considerations around monetization, growth strategies, and making the business case for IoT. Space is limited, so sign up today.