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Product Life Cycle - Free Essay Examples and Topic Ideas

Product life cycle refers to the stages a product goes through from its inception to its eventual decline and discontinuation. There are typically four stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. During the introduction stage, the product is launched and marketed to create awareness and generate demand. In the growth stage, sales increase rapidly as the product gains popularity and competition increases. In the maturity stage, sales growth slows as the market becomes saturated, and the product may face declining profitability. Finally, in the decline stage, sales decrease as newer products or technologies emerge, and the product is eventually phased out. Understanding the product life cycle is important for businesses to plan their marketing and product strategies, manage inventory levels, and make informed decisions about investments and resource allocation.

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Product Life Cycle: Stages and Examples of Products Essay

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Introduction

Stages of the life cycle.

The product life cycle consists of the following stages: introduction, when a new product is presented; growth, when it reaches a peak of sales; maturity, when sales grow at a slower rate and finally start decreasing; and decline, when a product becomes difficult to sell (Jacobsen 108).

The following are the examples of the products that are currently on each stage.

An example of the introduction stage is Mercedes-Benz C-class Coupe. It has been released recently and is still on its way to gaining popularity (“Five World Premieres at the IAA 2015” par. 9-11).

Apple iPhone 6s is on the growth stage at the moment, despite the fact that it was launched less than two weeks ago. In fact, Apple has announced that it had sold more than 13 million items three days after the release, which is a record for Apple (Muller and Kirschner par. 1-2). Starting from October 9, this product will be available in 40 countries more (Muller and Kirschner par. 1). Such a rapid transition from the first stage to the second one is no surprise due to the extreme popularity of this brand.

Diet Coke is now on the stage of maturity. A considerable decrease in sales started in 2008 and is still continuing (Sheffield par. 2). Diet Coke is now facing a lot of challenges from other soft drink producers (Sheffield par. 10-11), especially Pepsi Cola (Peterson par. 1).

Samsung Galaxy S4 is at its decline. As an attempt to renew its popularity, the company has made a new version of the product (S4 mini plus) this summer, and the advertisement emphasizes its low price (“Samsung Galaxy S4 mini plus quietly released” par. 1-2).

“Five World Premieres at the IAA 2015: Mercedes-Benz Continues on Road to Success.” Automotive World. 2015. Web.

Jacobsen, Marie-Louise. The Art of Retail Buying: An Introduction to Best Practices from the Industry. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons, 2009. Print.

Muller, Trudy, and Alex Kirschner. Apple Announces Record iPhone 6s & iPhone 6s Plus Sales . 2015. Web.

Peterson, Hayley. “Pepsi surpasses Diet Coke in huge soda shift.” Business Insider. 2015. Web.

“Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Plus Quietly Released.” GSMArena . 2015. Web.

Sheffield, Hazel. “What is killing Diet Coke?” Independent. 2015. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2022, January 26). Product Life Cycle: Stages and Examples of Products. https://ivypanda.com/essays/product-life-cycle-stages-and-examples-of-products/

"Product Life Cycle: Stages and Examples of Products." IvyPanda , 26 Jan. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/product-life-cycle-stages-and-examples-of-products/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Product Life Cycle: Stages and Examples of Products'. 26 January.

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Product Life Cycle Management Guide: What It Is & 4 Stages

Harold Fernandes is a multipotentialite and has worked on the product side and engineering side of multiple startups. He has led software, testing, and UX teams for over 20 years. He is also an international award-winning author and speaker, a certified mindfulness coach, a musician, and a bibliophile. He is at his happiest doing something new!

The second your product has hit the market, the race to gain (and keep!) market share has already begun.

Product life cycle management (PLM) exists because product managers , start-up founders, and business owners worth their salt know that there are few jobs as challenging as product management. And no wonder: the statistics on new product launches are scary. Somewhere between 80% to 95% of new product launches fail! Interestingly, this is similar to the failure rate of TSA agents trying to prevent crazy stuff from getting onto planes . I’m not sure which is scarier.

These crazy numbers are the primary reason large, established organizations prefer to acquire new products by paying a huge premium to buy out a successful start-up. The alternative—attempting to build one from scratch—is much riskier. For instance, when Google purchased YouTube for USD 1.5 billion back in 2006, everyone said they were paying a crazy amount for YouTube, and that they would never be able to recover their investment, let alone make money from it. Today, YouTube is as big as Netflix . Homegrown cat videos are giving Big Studio blockbuster movies and TV shows a run for their money! 😉

Building a product from scratch or handling a fledgling product may be super tough, but (surprise, surprise!) managing an established product isn’t any easier.

This is why agile product life cycle management methodologies like The Lean Startup by Eric Ries are part of the required reading list for all product managers. These agile product life cycle management philosophies attempt to move the needle towards the science side of the art vs science product success spectrum. 

Here’s what I’ll cover in this article:

What Is Product Life Cycle Management?

• Product Life Cycle Stages

The Importance Of Managing The Product Life Cycle

Integrating your plm system with the rest of your business.

• Difference Between The Product Life Cycle And The Project Life Cycle

Let’s take a look at product life cycle management and the history of product life cycle management as well.

Product life cycle management is a comprehensive framework that product companies use to manage a product through the phases of the product life cycle. 

PLM is a product management process that encompasses all aspects of a product including managing, planning, design, manufacturing, marketing , resources, and people, as well as the software that goes along with each of these aspects. It is an umbrella term that means different things to different organizations. Today several software companies offer PLM software products and solutions that help product managers handle decision-making on processes like pricing and marketing strategy. PLM is now synonymous with the PLM software systems that help manage the product life cycle. Let's look at the history of PLM to gain some perspective.

Related Read: 10 Best Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Software In 2023

The History Of Product Life Cycle Management

Product life cycle management began in the 1980s as an attempt by the American Motors Corporation (AMC) to compete against its beefier rivals Ford and General Motors, who had larger revenues and bigger budgets. Talk about a David and Goliath story!

The smart folks at the AMC took the following approach:

• Focused their R&D efforts on enhancing the lives of their existing best selling products that were in the maturity phase of the life cycle
• Used computer-aided design (CAD) to speed up product design and development efforts
• Stored all product data and designs centrally (in a PLM software system), allowing for quicker communication, version management, and conflict resolution

You may be thinking — BIG DEAL, my 10-year-old kid can do all this! Your thinking would be correct — today. In 1985, however, all this was bordering on the revolutionary. Remember, it was a time of spandex, hair bands, and boxy computers that filled small rooms and cost tons of money. Personally, I’m ambivalent about sports utility vehicles, but I love Van Halen and Def Leppard — the pre-eminent bands of that era IMO — so it evens out. 😉

The result of all this effort was great for AMC as they ended up kicking competitor butt-er-flies.

They launched new variants of Jeep, created a new market segment for vehicles called sports utility vehicles (SUVs), and finally got bought out by Chrysler who used these new techniques to reduce their development cost structure to 50% of that of the competition. 50% reduction is insane by any standards.

Still, the red queen rules supreme . Toyota came along later and ate everyone’s lunch, and today Elon Musk’s Tesla seems to be the king, with a larger market cap than that of the 6 largest car companies combined !

The Stages Of The Traditional Product Life Cycle

At the heart of product life cycle management resides the product life cycle. A given product moves through the product life cycle during its lifetime. The product life cycle begins after the development stage—when the product is launched into the market—and ends when the product reaches end-of-life and is taken off the shelves, physically or virtually.

By studying the traditional product life cycle, we’re attempting to improve our chances of success at the game of product management. Like every attempt to model reality, the product management life cycle is not perfect. It is, however, a good approximation and more importantly, useful for product managers trying to ride the beast . 

The traditional product life cycle consists of 4 stages: 

• Introduction Stage
• Growth Stage
• Maturity Stage
• Decline Stage

There are some variants to this which consist of 5 product life cycle stages or even 6 stages, but since we’re discussing the traditional product life cycle, we’re going to stick to 4 stages. 

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Product Life Cycle Phase 1: Introduction Stage

The introduction phase of the traditional product life cycle begins with the actual launch of a product. The effort involved in researching, designing, and building the product is not tackled here. Introducing a product is a highly specialized, expensive affair and typically no one talks about profit. Instead, the focus is on advertising, sales, and distribution.

This phase is akin to a plane taking off: take-off is among the riskiest parts of air travel, second only to landing. Similarly, getting a launch right is critical for the success of a new product. 

The first buyers of a new product are typically early adopters. These are the ones who often want to be seen as having something no one else has: your brand-new product. They are usually willing to put up with some flaws if the basic premise of the product is sound. As a product manager, during the introduction phase, you will be busy:

• Creating awareness in the market and clarifying features and benefits to the marketing and sales teams. In a start-up, that might mean talking to that one person who is the “marketing and sales team.”  Be aware that having been up close and personal with a product can cause one to miss simple yet valuable benefits and features.
• Getting more insight into how customers are using your product. You may have spent top dollar on market research and trials during product development . Now it’s time to see if all that time, money, and effort has resulted in a product that customers are willing to buy. Customers will use your product in ways that you never imagined and perceive benefits that were never intended. They may also get irritated by some of your “features.” This is the time for you and your team to uncover all that and to add or modify features to increase sales.

If the new product is a disruptive innovator, then ensuring that it gains maximum traction in the market becomes a critical task. Capturing market share means that copycats find it that much more difficult to gain traction.

Product Life Cycle Phase 2: Growth Stage

Once a product has been successfully introduced into the market and has survived, it reaches the growth phase. This is good news because it means that people want the product and are willing to pay for it! It also means you'll need to ramp up your marketing efforts. The focus in the growth phase is on rapidly gaining new customers and increasing market share as quickly as possible. Existing users might promote your product by using it or talking about it, which is great because word-of-mouth is the best possible promotion strategy.

The primary challenge in this stage is to orchestrate the marketing strategy, prices, new features, and increase capacity and distribution so that there are no hiccups to acquiring new customers. However, being too cautious means that competitors can grab market share.

Having a high growth rate can cause other challenges. Products have fallen flat simply because the demand was too high, the product was not available on the shelves, or the server infrastructure crashed due to high loads. Nothing is worse than having an amazing product with great demand and then failing to successfully meet that demand. This happens more frequently than you can imagine, so work hard to avoid this! Apple has been rumored to create artificial shortages to increase customer appetite, but I suggest you wait for your company to reach USD 2 trillion in the market cap before trying this strategy. As a product manager, during the growth phase, you will need to:

• Grab market share as quickly as possible by pulling out all the stops: new features, advertising, marketing campaigns, adoption , and leveraging available distribution channels
• Ensure that demand does not outstrip supply by a large margin
• Keep an eye on competing products and optimizing the price to ensure your product remains competitive while protecting your profit margins

Product Life Cycle Phase 3: Maturity Stage

The beginning of the maturity phase of the product life cycle is marked by a reduction in the rate of growth. At this stage of the life cycle, sales grow very slowly or reach a plateau. The maturity stage is typically the longest phase for most successful products, and many of the products that you currently use are most likely to be in the maturity phase.

In the maturity phase, the product marketing strategy is focused on differentiation from competing products . Typically, a product manager reduces prices to ensure maximum sales and competitiveness. A market-leading product may experience maximum profitability at this stage while #2 or #3 products typically experience reductions in profit due to price reduction and competition.

A smart product manager will figure out ways to introduce product variants at the end of the maturity stage to increase the length of the maturity phase. A major challenge with the variant strategy is cannibalization – the new variant may eat into the sales of the existing variant. 

Often there is no way around this, but a smart marketing strategy with proper differentiation that addresses different market segments or new markets can help reduce or even eliminate cannibalization. As a product manager, during the maturity phase, you must:

• Maximize profits by reducing costs. This will involve increasing the efficiency of your production, supply chain, and distribution operations.
• Maximize the length of the maturity phase by differentiating the product, adding new features, managing pricing, and keeping competitors at bay.

Product Life Cycle Phase 4: Decline Stage

All products inevitably reach the decline phase of the product life cycle. A market-leading product may last longer than others, but it too will reach market decline . There are multiple reasons for a declining product including:

• Changes in technology
• Market saturation
• Product innovation coming in from around the world
• Changing habits and attitudes of newer generations of consumers
• Planned obsolescence to ensure that customers buy newer models as replacements. There is a lot of debate around whether this approach is ethical, and the impact it has on our planet.

The start of the decline phase is marked by a reduction in sales figures. There is often no way to alter the destiny of the product without dramatically altering the product’s features or market segment. To deal with decline, companies typically have multiple product offerings in various stages of the product life cycle to ensure that revenues don’t decline.

Here are some of the ways to address decline:

• Address a different market segment or market altogether (international markets are a great way to do this)
• Add new features to make it a new-ish product
• Reduce prices, clear out the existing inventory, then put the product in end-of-life and discontinue it

Supporting existing products that are at end-of-life or end-of-support can be challenging and add to costs. Helping existing customers that are still using such products to upgrade by offering discounts is a good strategy to wind down the older product and cut down on support costs.

As a product manager, during the decline phase, you will need to:

• Figure out ways in which you can pivot the product to a new market segment or even a new market altogether
• Manage the end-of-life stage of the product and ensure that you meet all legal commitments while keeping costs to a minimum
• Upsell existing customers to newer products/variants

Having a deep understanding of the various stages of the product life cycle is important when it comes to developing new products. Knowing the stages helps in determining the feasibility and viability of a new product . 

You will be better able to answer these questions: 

• Is it worth building this product? 
• Will it survive in the market? 
• If it does survive, when can we expect to make money off of it? 

Typically, in an agile product life cycle, a product manager can run a series of small experiments to get answers to these questions. Here are some reasons why the product life cycle is important. 

Related Read: Why Is Product Management Important?

Estimation, Planning, And Forecasting

Once you’ve decided that a product is feasible and that it is worth going ahead with, then comes the next stage: product planning and forecasting. This is where in-depth knowledge of the product life cycle can assist in making plans and preparing forecasts for revenue, margins, market size, and customer base.

There is a school of thought that says that all this planning is in vain since no one has a clue about whether a product will succeed. However, the very act of working on a product roadmap by planning, estimation, and forecasting forces a product manager to think hard, ask difficult questions, and examine hidden assumptions that are unaddressed. Forewarned is forearmed.

Additionally, I don’t know of a single executive leadership team in any organization that has approved large product budgets relying only on the product manager’s say-so and hunches, so it is a necessary exercise anyway.

Personally, I always prefer an appointment with my dentist to a budget approval process, but if you come across such an executive team, be sure to let me know! I’ve taken a large sip of my elixir of immortality, just in case.

Marketing Planning And Approach

Different stages of the product life cycle require specific marketing approaches. For instance, in the introduction phase, customers have no clue about the product, so marketing needs to introduce the product to potential customers and educate them about its benefits. 

During the maturity phase of the product, marketing primarily relies on product differentiation to promote sales. When products approach end-of-life, discounts and rebates are often offered which attract customers who would not otherwise have bought that product.

Related Read: 10 Best Product Marketing Tools For Your Marketing Strategy [2023]

Communication Between Teams

Product management requires a multidisciplinary approach including design, engineering, marketing, sales, and support just to name a few. Working with multiple teams invariably brings about the challenge of communication and coordination.

The benefit of the product management life cycle is that it allows all teams to work with a unified paradigm so that it is easier to coordinate for success.

Concurrent Product Development

All products reach the end-of-life phase. Therefore, it is important for companies to have a pipeline of concurrent products to ensure that they maintain or increase levels of revenue and market share.

At the same time, it is important to ensure that new products do not cannibalize existing ones. The product management life cycle helps to synchronize product development to optimize the life of each product in its product portfolio .

No PLM software can operate in isolation, in a silo. While a PLM system is perhaps the keystone of a product company , the other pillars — enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), computer-aided design (CAD), supply chain, communications, and storage infrastructure — need to be tightly integrated with the PLM system to make it a globally optimal system. 

To take a simple example, even if your PLM system is top-notch, if it is not integrated with your suppliers and ERP, it will be hard to get the product to market on time.

Likewise, without a solid CRM system in place, it will be hard to provide the kind of service levels that get customers to recommend your product. Bad word-of-mouth can deep-six a product faster than you can say customer relationship management.

The details of how to integrate multiple complex systems like PLM, ERP, and CRM requires several books worth of content so we will only discuss an overview:

SCENARIO 1: You already own systems like ERP and CRM from different vendors with different platforms like Windows or Linux. Even if you're happy with each system, getting them together can sometimes be like trying to herd cats. Your best bet here is to get a good systems integrator to get all these systems to talk to each other. 

SCENARIO 2: You're a successful start-up growing rapidly and have a green field in front of you. There is an opportunity to start on the right foot and save a ton of headache down the line by ensuring that the parts you set up fit well like a jigsaw puzzle. Typically market-leading products (ERP, CRM, etc.) in each category will be from different vendors so there are difficult decisions and trade-offs to be considered. Is interoperability more important than functionality?

The long and the short of it is that integrating these large, complex, and diverse software systems is difficult and there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach or solution. Even the best industry standards may not be a good fit for your specific organizational scenario. Keep your eyes open and ask a lot of tough questions.

The Difference Between The Product Life Cycle And The Project Life Cycle

There is often confusion about the difference between the product life cycle and the project life cycle. I’ll attempt to clear some of the confusion around this topic:

• A project is defined as an endeavor undertaken to create a service, product, or result. The project life cycle has a definite beginning and end with a clearly defined scope and resources.
• The objectives of the project life cycle and the product life cycle are quite different. A project is used to achieve a pre-defined outcome that may or may not be a product. 
• The product life cycle may use many projects to achieve its goals, but the reverse is usually not true.

Life After Product Life Cycle Management

Like the proverbial product cycle that keeps going, thanks to an overlap between mature products and those in development, a product manager’s job is never done. PLM and the product life cycle are a necessary part of a product manager’s toolkit , especially since they help generate a semblance of order out of the chaos of the market. What has your experience been with PLM systems and processes? What is your opinion of the utility of the product life cycle? In what way did it help you? Let me know in the comments below! 

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Share this with someone who wants to get started on their PM career! Here's a bonus podcast to help them: How To Transition Into Product Management (With Elise Fox From Chegg) 

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The 6 Stages of the Product Life Cycle [+Examples]

Published: September 14, 2023

When I was 12 years old, I used to be confused about my cousin's CD collection. Why have CDs when I could go on iTunes and listen to all my favorite songs? This is a perfect example of a product life cycle (PLC) in action.

No one wants their product to become “obsolete” and reach the end of its product life cycle. That’s why it’s important to understand what stage your product is in so you can make better marketing and business decisions.

Below, we’ll learn about the product life cycle inside and out. If you’re in a pinch, use the links below to jump straight to what you need:

What is the product life cycle?

What are the stages of the product life cycle, importance of the product life cycle, breaking down the product life cycle theory, product life cycle marketing strategies, product life cycle examples, international product life cycle, when to use the product life cycle.

The product life cycle is the succession of stages that a product goes through during its existence, starting from development and ultimately ending in decline. Business owners and marketers use the product life cycle to make important decisions and strategies on advertising budgets, product prices, and packaging.

In the marketing industry, the typical depiction of the product life cycle only has four main stages — Introduction, Growth, Maturity, and Decline. At HubSpot, we agree that these are vital for a product, but the two stages “Development” and “Decline” aren’t nearly covered enough.

This phase can last for a long time, depending on the complexity of the product, how new it is, and the competition. For a completely new product, the development stage is particularly difficult because the first pioneer of a product isn’t always as successful as later iterations.

Before full-scale production, the product may be released in a limited market or region for testing purposes. This allows companies to assess market acceptance, gather user feedback, and make necessary adjustments before a wider launch.

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2. Introduction

The introduction stage happens when a product is launched in the marketplace. This is when marketing teams begin building product awareness and targeting potential customers. Typically, when a product is introduced, sales are low and demand builds slowly.

In this phase, marketers focus on advertising and marketing campaigns. They also work on testing distribution channels and building product and brand awareness.

This stage is crucial because companies have the opportunity to shake up the status quo and capture the attention and loyalty of early adopters. The positive experiences and word-of-mouth recommendations from these early customers can influence the broader target market and accelerate product adoption.

Some examples of products currently in the introduction stage include:

• Generative AI
• Self-driving cars
• 3D televisions

Ultimately, the success of this stage sets the foundation for the product’s future growth and success in subsequent stages of the product life cycle.

During the growth stage, consumers have accepted the product in the market and customers are beginning to truly buy in. That means demand and profits are growing, hopefully at a steadily rapid pace. This momentum is crucial for sustaining business operations, funding further product development, and generating returns on investment.

As companies scale, they can benefit from lower per-unit production costs, improved supplier relationships, and optimized distribution networks.

However, there are some challenges that come with the growth stage. As the market for the product expands, competition grows. Potential competitors will see your success and will want in.

Some products that are currently in the growth stage are:

• Smartwatches
• Electric cars

During this stage, it’s important to keep attracting new customers and solidify your brand image so you can stay ahead of the competition.

4. Maturity

The maturity stage is when the sales begin to level off from the rapid growth period. At this point, companies begin to reduce their prices so they can stay competitive amongst the growing competition. Streamlining production processes, negotiating favorable supplier contracts, and optimizing distribution networks also become important considerations.

This is the phase where a company begins to become more efficient and learns from the mistakes made in the introduction and growth stages. Marketing campaigns are typically focused on differentiation rather than awareness. This means that product features might be enhanced, prices might be lowered, and distribution becomes more intensive.

During the maturity stage, products begin to enter the most profitable stage. The cost of production declines while the sales are increasing.

• Smartphones
• Video game consoles

5. Saturation

During the product saturation stage, competitors have begun to take a portion of the market and products will experience neither growth nor decline in sales.

Typically, this is the point when most consumers are using a product, but there are many competing companies. At this point, you want your product to become the brand preference so you don't enter the decline stage. To achieve this, you’ll want to focus on providing exceptional service and building strong relationships with your customers.

In a saturated market, innovation also becomes essential to stay relevant. Businesses must continuously invest in research and development to improve products and offer new features. Failure to do so may lead to product obsolescence and loss of market share.

Some examples of products in the saturation stage are:

• Streaming services
• Breakfast cereals
• Soft drinks

Unfortunately, if your product doesn‘t become the preferred brand in a marketplace, you’ll typically experience a decline. Sales will decrease during the heightened competition, which is hard to overcome.

Decline also occurs when products become outdated or less relevant as newer technologies enter the market. Consumers may turn to more advanced options, rendering the declining product less desirable.

If a company is at this stage, it'll either discontinue its product, sell the company, or innovate and iterate on its product in some way.

Here are a few examples of products in the decline stage:

• CDs and cassette tapes
• Landline telephones

The best companies will usually have products at several points in the product life cycle at any given time. Some companies look to other countries to begin the cycle anew.

The product life cycle is important because it informs an organization’s management and decision-makers how well a product is performing and what strategic actions it will take to succeed. This helps companies allocate resources like staff, budgets, shows which products should be prioritized, and where the company should innovate next.

Other benefits of using the product life cycle include:

• Make better marketing investments and decisions
• Easier to make long-term plans
• Allows for better decision making with accurate information on performance
• Easier to streamline current processes within your company

Product Life Cycle Limitations

While using the PLC method certainly helps stakeholders plan, it does have limitations. The cycle breaks down performance over several stages, but unfortunately there is no way to tell how long each stage will last.

Complicating things further, not all products will move through these stages at the same pace. For example, a product may take longer to decline than others. Plus product managers run the risk of not dedicating enough effort and resources into a particular product if they think the product will decline, creating planned obsolescence – even if customers still use it.

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In the late ‘60s, Harvard Business School professor Raymond Vernon developed this marketing theory in response to an economic model that failed to account for trends present in international trade – that’s why it was originally called the international product life cycle theory.

It stated that products developed in an international market had three phases:

• New product
• Maturing product
• Standardized product

Here’s a quick breakdown of his theory.

Vernon theorized a new product would perform best in its country of origin to keep manufacturing and production costs low. Once the product gained demand, companies could begin exporting to other countries and continue building local production plants in each new location.

Having these local plants would offer the flexibility to make changes to the product without incurring huge costs.

The standardized phase would involve an influx of competitors, which would lead the company to focus on driving down production and manufacturing costs to remain competitive. As the market becomes saturated and a new product gets introduced, the company loses its relevance in its home country and shifts gears to create something new, with the cycle beginning again.

Since then, the product life cycle theory has evolved to focus less on geography and more on marketing. Let’s dive into it next.

You can use this template to map out your own product's life cycle phases.

Download the Free Product Life Cycle Template

Now that we’ve discussed the different stages of the product life cycle, let’s explore how to market products in each stage.

Development Stage Marketing Strategy

While marketing typically begins in the introduction stage, you can begin to build “buzz” around your product by securing the endorsement of established voices in the industry.

You can also consider a limited release of the product to a select group of customers or in a specific market segment. This exclusivity can create a sense of anticipation and urgency among potential buyers.

Then, you can use the feedback from the limited release to publish early (and favorable) consumer research or testimonials. Your marketing goal during this stage is to build upon your brand awareness and establish yourself as an innovative company.

Introduction Stage Marketing Strategy

This is where the fun begins. Now that the product is launched, you can actually promote it using inbound marketing and content marketing .

Consider collaborating with influencers or industry experts who have a strong following and influence in your target market. Encourage them to review and promote your product through blog posts, vlogs, social media posts, or sponsored content. Their endorsement can help generate credibility and reach a wider audience.

Education is vital in this stage. If your marketing strategies are successful, the product goes into the next stage — growth.

Growth Stage Marketing Strategy

During this phase, marketing campaigns often shift from getting customers’ buy-in to establishing a brand presence so consumers choose them over developing competitors.

One way to do this is by allocating resources to digital marketing channels like social media advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, and influencer partnerships. Then, leverage data analytics to target and reach your ideal customers effectively.

Additionally, as companies grow, they'll begin to open new distribution channels and add more features and support services. Consider partnering with retailers, entering new markets, or exploring e-commerce platforms to reach a wider customer base. In your strategy, you’ll advertise these as well.

Maturity Stage Marketing Strategy

When your product has become a mature offering, you may feel like you’re “sailing by” because sales are steady and the product has been established. But this is where it’s critical to establish yourself as a leader and differentiate your brand.

Consider sharing valuable and educational content, such as blog posts and industry insights, to position your brand as an authority. Educate potential customers about the benefits and value they can gain from your product.

Continuously improve upon the product as adoption grows, and let consumers know in your marketing strategy that the product they love is better than it was before. This will protect you during the next stage — saturation.

Saturation Stage Marketing Strategy

When the market has become saturated, you’ll need to focus on brand awareness and differentiation.

Identify specific customer segments within your market and tailor marketing efforts to appeal to their specific needs and preferences. Refine your messaging and positioning to resonate with each segment, allowing for a more targeted and efficient marketing approach.

You’ll also want to focus on retaining and strengthening relationships with your existing customers. Consider creating a personalized customer service experience and introducing new product features, loyalty programs, packaging options, or bundling with complementary products.

Competition is highest at this stage, so it’s critical to leave no doubt regarding the superiority of your product.

If innovation at the product level isn’t possible (because the product only needs minor tweaks at this point), then invest in your customer service and use customer testimonials in your marketing.

Decline Stage Marketing Strategy

While companies would want to avoid the decline stage, sometimes there’s no helping it — especially if the entire market reached a decline. In your marketing strategy, you can emphasize the superiority of your solution to successfully get out of this stage.

To extend the product life cycle, successful companies can also implement new advertising strategies, reduce prices, add new features to increase their value proposition, explore new markets, or adjust brand packaging.

Unfortunately, not every company is successful at pivoting their product out of the decline stage. If the product is obsolete or financially unviable, it may be best to plan for an orderly exit from the market.

Now that we’ve gone through stages and history, let’s review some real-life examples of them in action.

• The Typewriter
• Floppy Disk

Let’s follow the product life cycle of popular products that have since reached the decline stage.

1. The Typewriter

The typewriter was the first mechanical writing tool — a worthy successor to pen and paper. Ultimately, however, other technologies gained traction and replaced it.

• Development: Before the first commercial typewriter was introduced to the market, the overall idea had been developed for centuries, beginning in 1575.
• Introduction: In the late 1800s, the first commercial typewriters were introduced.
• Growth: The typewriter quickly became an indispensable tool for all forms of writing, becoming widely used in offices, businesses, and private homes.
• Maturity: Typewriters were in the maturity phase for nearly 80 years, because this was the preferred product for typing communications up until the 1980s.
• Saturation: During the saturation stage, typewriters began to face fierce competition with computers in the 1990s.
• Decline: Overall, the typewriter couldn't withstand the competition of new emerging technologies, and eventually the product was discontinued.

Skipping forward to the 21st century, we see the rise and fall of Vine, a short-form video-sharing app that was the source for many memes at its peak but eventually declined due to other platforms.

• Development: Vine was founded in June 2012 and mainly competed with Instagram.
• Introduction: The app was introduced to the public in 2013. Its differentiating factor was its short-form video format — users had only seven seconds to film something that was hilarious, absurd, or a mixture of both.
• Growth: Only two years after its release, Vine had over 200 million active users. Its popularity led to the advent of the phrase “Do it for the Vine.”
• Maturity: Because it was only in the market for a few years, Vine never reached the maturity stage. While adoption was high, it was still a fairly new app.
• Saturation: Vine competed in an already saturated market. Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube were the pre-eminent names in their category, and Vine soon started to decline in use.
• Decline: When Musical.ly was introduced, Vine lost a large amount of its user base and shut down. It was succeeded by Byte, a similar short-form video-sharing platform, but none of these have been able to surpass TikTok, which launched months after Vine’s end in 2016.

3. Cable TV

Remember the days of switching TV channels to find what to watch? I do — and they feel distinctly like something of the past. While cable TV is still around, it’s safe to say that it’s nearing the decline stage.

• Development: Cable TV was developed in the first half of the twentieth century. John Walson has been credited with its invention.
• Introduction: The first commercial television system was introduced in 1950, and by 1962, the technology saw the first hints of growth.
• Growth: After a decades-long freeze on cable TV’s development (due to regulatory restrictions), the technology began gaining traction, and by 1980, more than 15 million households had cable.
• Maturity: Cable TV matured around the 1990s. Around seven in ten households had cable.
• Saturation: The start of the 21st century saw an oversaturation of this technology, and it also started to compete with other modern developments such as on-demand services and high-definition TV (HDTV). While the internet was still in its nascent stages, it would soon gain on cable TV as well.
• Decline: From 2015 onwards, cable TV experienced a marked decline . Online video streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu have taken precedence — and this trend is set to continue.

4. Floppy Disk

This relic was once a popular and convenient way to store and share data between computers. I barely understood what they were growing up, and it astounds me to think of the very existence of cloud data sharing and other mass memory storage means.

• Development: The first floppy disk was developed in 1970 by IBM engineers. It was an 8-inch flexible magnetic disk in a square case with 2MB storage capacity.
• Introduction: It was introduced in 1971 and largely became known as the only way to transfer or store data.
• Growth: The floppy disk was majorly used in the 1980s-1990s.
• Maturity: Sold well in the market during the 1990s. Improving with time, it could hold 200MB of storage.
• Saturation: Major competitors emerged at the beginning of the 21st century. The invention of USB cables, external hard disks, and CDs gave people options to store their data.
• Decline: The floppy disk faced a major decline up to Hewlett-Packard stopping production for the disk in 2009. The storage capacity for other products in the market grew to be more efficient. Data storage evolution has grown to the point where floppy disks are simple relics.

Not all products need to face the decline stage. Companies can extend the product life cycle with new iterations and stay afloat as long as they have several products at various points of the product life cycle.

The international product life cycle (IPL) is the cycle a product goes through in international markets. As products begin to mature and companies want to avoid the decline stage, they'll typically begin to explore new markets globally.

When products reach mass production, manufacturing and production shift to other countries as well.

The international product life cycle stages are identical to that of a normal product life cycle. The development stage looks different, however, because local customs and regulations can affect how long it takes to bring the product to a new marketplace.

However, once you lay the groundwork in a new marketplace, your competitors will be sure to follow, and the life cycle stages will continue up until saturation and eventually decline. Your option is to either expand into another market or learn from prior mistakes and innovate before the decline stage rolls around.

Next, we’ll look at when you should use the product life cycle.

Businesses use the product life cycle to achieve the following:

• Establish competitive authority. If your product is new and recently introduced to the market, you can advertise it as a new and improved alternative to an existing product. If the product is established, you can vouch for its long history of use in your branding.
• Decide on a pricing strategy . Depending on the life cycle stage your product is in, you’ll choose how to price the product. A new product may be priced lower to entice more buyers, while a product in the growth stage can be priced higher.
• Create a marketing strategy . Your product life cycle stage will determine which strategy to pursue. Maturity and audience knowledgeability play a big role in the type of content you publish on your site and social media profiles.
• Respond before the product begins its decline. There’s no worse feeling than watching your product slowly become obsolete or be displaced by a competing product. By keeping the life cycle stages in mind, you can create a strategy that keeps you ahead of the curve as you reach the saturation and decline stages.

The product life cycle benefits businesses because they can shift their wording and positioning to best market the product at the stage it is in. If your product has recently been introduced and you try to market it as a long-established solution, consumers will see right through it and trust you less as a result.

Keep Your Product’s Life Cycle in Mind

Whether you're developing a brand new product or working with a mature, well-established brand, you can use the product life cycle stages as a guide for your marketing campaigns.

Each stage will dictate how you inform your audience about the product, how you position your brand in the marketplace, and how you decide to move forward after the decline stage.

By keeping your product’s life cycle in mind, you can invest in better marketing campaigns that result in a higher ROI.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in January 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure to learn more about how we use AI.

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7.3 Discussion Questions and Activities

Discussion questions.

• Who owns an idea? If a customer comes up with an innovation involving your product, and your company thinks that innovation can be commercialized, who owns the new product?
• Assume you come up with an idea for a new electronic product you think your fellow students would really like. How would you go through the product development process? How would you accomplish each step within that process?
• Select a product you are familiar with and explain the stages of the product’s life cycle and different ways in which a company can extend its mature stage.
• Why, given the availability of good research practices, do so many new products fail?
• What has been Apple’s pricing strategy throughout their products’ life cycles? If you made iPhone copycat products, what would your price have to be in order to compete successfully?
• What are the risks associated with beta testing? What criteria would you use to select customers when needing a beta test?
• This textbook is an open-source text, meaning your professor can modify its contents. Further, multiple delivery mode (online, print black and white, print color) is a relatively new concept for textbooks. What type of screening process would you expect to have been used in developing the concept of open-source, multimode texts? How would that screening process differ from the screening process used to assess this specific book’s potential? Describe what you think those two processes would look like. If you don’t think the screening process would differ, why?
• You’ve got a really great idea for a new online business. But you need capital to get the business going and when you ask investors for money, they want to know if you’ve done a market test and what the results were. Why are they asking for market test results? What are the risks associated with a market test? Are there other ways you can answer their real concerns without doing a market test?
• What characteristics of a product would make it a good candidate for a phased launch? What would make the product a good candidate for a worldwide launch?
• The product life cycle, the BCG matrix, and the GE matrix have all been criticized for leading to early harvesting of older products and overinvesting in new products. Why did that happen when these tools were applied?
• Take two existing offerings and combine them to create a new one. What type of offering is it? To whom would you sell it? What new benefits does the product offer, and how would you communicate them to potential buyers? What evidence could you generate to predict the likelihood of the new offering being successful?
• Identify two new consumer products sold in a grocery store or by a mass merchandiser such as Walmart. Explain the strategies used to introduce each of the products and which strategy you feel will be most successful.
• Identify three products that are sold in international markets and explain any differences in how the products have been changed to meet the needs of consumers in the international markets.

Principles of Marketing Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Discussion Questions Related to the Product Life Cycle Concept

Provided by James R. Martin, Ph.D., CMA Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida PLC Main Page | PLC Multiple Choice Questions | Graduate MA Course

1. What is the relationship between the product life cycle and the value chain and value added concepts? (See the Donelan & Kaplan , and Clinton & Graves summaries).

2. What are the stages of the product life cycle (PLC) in terms of the marketing or revenue producing perspective? (See the PLC summary ).

3. Is the length and sequence of each of these stages predictable in terms similar to biological organisms? (See the PLC summary ).

4. What are the stages of the PLC from the production perspective? (See the PLC summary ).

5. What PLC stages are included in the customer or consumption perspective? (See the PLC summary ).

6. What is the difference between product life cycles and industry life cycles? (See the PLC summary ).

7. What is the main objective of PLC analysis from: 1) the producer’s perspective? 2) the customer’s perspective and 3) from society's (government’s) perspective? (See the PLC , Boer, Curtin & Holt , Lawrence & Cerf and Hammer & Stinson summaries).

8. What are the producer’s strategic objectives at the various (overlapping marketing and producer) stages of the PLC, i.e., 1) conception, design and development, 2) startup and production, 3) growth and production, 4) maturity and production 5) decline revitalize and abandon? (See the PLC summary and Clinton & Graves summary). (The target costing summaries are relevant to this question).

9. Susman (1989) shows expense indicators for the various stages in his Exhibit 1 except for the conception, design and development stage where he includes only R&D. What is another appropriate expense or cost related indicator for these combined stages? (See the PLC and target costing summaries).

10. Susman (1989) also indicates that profits are zero in the conception, design, and development stages. What is an appropriate measure of income or profit to consider in these stages? (See the PLC and target costing summaries).

11. What is the meaning of the term technological risk and what type of investment strategy creates the greatest amount of this type of risk? (See the PLC , Investment Management summaries. The Hayes & Wheelwright summary is also relevant).

12. What is the meaning of the term market share risk and what type of investment strategy creates the greatest amount of this type of risk? (See the Investment Management summary . The Hayes & Wheelwright summary is also relevant).

13. Which stages of the PLC does traditional cost accounting consider? Which costs are considered? (See the PLC summary ).

14. Which stages of the PLC does life cycle costing consider? Which costs are considered? (See the PLC , Hertenstein & Platt , Clinton & Graves and Howell & Soucy summaries).

15. What is an experience curve or learning curve? (See the Learning Curve summary ).

16. What is forward pricing? Hint: The answer is related to the learning curve (Susman 89). (See the PLC and Learning Curve summaries).

17. Why would forward pricing be used in the startup stage of the PLC? (See the PLC summary ).

18. How does the PLC concept focus on the long run as opposed to the short run? (See CAM-I Figure 2-3 & Figure 2-4 and the PLC , Hertenstein & Platt and Clinton & Graves summaries).

19. What are some of the things that are emphasized at the design and development stages of the PLC? (See the PLC and Cokins 2002 summaries).

20. Why are companies reluctant to use the PLC concept? (See the PLC summary ).

21. What are the two main life cycle strategies? (See the PLC summary ). (See Clinton & Graves for a 3rd strategy, and Hayes & Wheelwright for 4 growth models).

22. What are economies of scale? What is the difference between the static concept and the dynamic concept? (See note on Economies of Scale ).

23. What are economies of scope?

24. How do the concepts of economies of scale and scope relate to the two types of strategy referred to in question 21? (See the PLC summary and Hayes & Wheelwright summaries).

25. What percentage of the product’s life cycle costs are determined before production starts? (See the CAM-I summary ).

26. What is the tradeoff between design and development costs and production and logistical support costs? (See the CAM-I Figures 2-4 and 7-2 and the Cokins 2002 summary).

27. How are the various types of costs (engineering, manufacturing and logistical support) distributed across the PLC? (See CAM-I Figure 5-2 ).

28. What is the portfolio theory or concept? (See the PLC summary and Adamany & Gonsalves summary).

29. How is the portfolio concept related to the PLC concept? (See the PLC summary and Adamany & Gonsalves summary).

30. What are the final customer’s product life cycle costs? (See the Artto and PLC summaries).

31. When and how should the customer’s PLC costs be considered by the customer? (See the PLC summary for the example provided by White and Ostwald ).

32. Shields and Young (1991) make a distinction between life cycle costs and whole life costs. What is the difference between these concepts? (See Shields & Young summary). (See the Estes summary for a discussion of social or stakeholder accounting).

33. When should the final customer’s PLC costs be considered by the producer? (See the Estes summary for some ideas).

34. Discuss the problems created by the traditional cost focus? (See the PLC summary and Hertenstein & Platt summary).

35. Discuss the relationship and compatibility of the PLC concept with the other concepts such as Deming’s theory of management, ABC, ABM, JIT, and TOC.

36. Discuss the underlying assumption in standard costing related to cost drivers and the reason cost allocations based on this assumption tend to create distortions in customer and channel profitability. (See the Manning summary).

37. Discuss the underlying assumption in activity based costing related to cost drivers, as described by Manning, and the reason cost assignments based on this assumption tend to create distortions in customer and channel profitability. (See the Manning summary).

38. Discuss the underlying assumption in Manning's SCM approach related to cost drivers and the reason cost assignments based on this assumption tend to create more accurate estimates of customer and channel profitability. (See the Manning summary).

39. Is the invalid assumption referred to in question 37 part of the ABC concept? Discuss this issue.

40. How is target costing related to product life cycle management? (See Target Costing ). (See the Yu-Lee summary for a critics view of target costing).