Product life cycle stages and management

Product Life Cycle is a crucial principle of marketing principles. The most important aspects of the evolution of a product from successful development to the development of a successful marketing plan to answer for each ebb and flow. At each stage of the cycle, different advertising strategies must be implemented by the manager. The product life cycle, consists of four basic phases, introduction, growth, maturity and decline. The length of product life cycles differs between products and services and if an organization does not have balanced set of products or is a new firm the decisions made by the marketing managers could be severely detrimental to the nation.

The typical product life cycle curve, as reflected in the sales history of a product is a shaped until it eventually levels off. It is at this point that market maturity occurs and when the maturity phase has run its course, a period of decline follows.

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Advertising strategies must respond to the nature of the product life by making sure that initial introduction phases have significant emphasis while not putting to much advertising fund into a product that has already offered intense expenditure through development, while making sure that the consumer awareness of the product is at its peak and interest drives introduction sales numbers. In the second phase costs are reduced in other area but advertising cannot lag so much that growth is not stunted. During the maturity phase advertising can level off to meet the demands of other products and during decline the manager can either chose to reinvigorate advertising, making decisions based on belief in the product as well as competition and other issues.

The advertising manager must be essentially aware of marketing, operations and finance, with regard to break even points, as well as costs of development and cost of marketing for any given product. Each coarse of action can make or break a product and even artificially accelerate or slow the life cycle of the product. The manager's understanding of the product nature as well as its place on the cycle are essential to a complete understanding of the need to act or not act.

Product life cycles can vary considerably in terms of length. The steam locomotive made its debut in the early 19th century and disappeared from regular service in the UK towards the end of the 1960s. One can still, of course, find enthusiasts using them in the 21st century in the UK and there are parts of the world for example, Eastern Europe, Africa and China where the steam locomotive is still in regular commercial use. In contrast, some women's and men's clothes come in and out of vogue with amazing alacrity.

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Decisions are very important within the guide of the product life cycle, especially when the life cycle of the product can be perceived to be rather short, especially in the technology industry, where life cycles can be short, based on technological advances and development can be extremely important.