Product Management

In addition to our content creation services, Blum Interactive Media can help you develop product plans and specifications, resulting in more successful Internet applications and services.

In today’s tough economic times, we can provide you with outsourced product management expertise, for specific tasks, on a full or part time basis, for a short term engagement or for the entire lifecycle of the product.

Whether your company is big or small, you need to have a plan in place if you want to build the best  product you can. A Blum Interactive Media-produced plan is made up of a written report with flowcharts, storyboards, wireframes, a proposed budget and timeline.

The plan describes exactly what the product should do – what happens when you click here…and here? It includes a road map for future feature roll out, an editorial calendar for posting content via social media, and a meticulously crafted business strategy.

To get to that plan, we conduct research within and without the company. We analyze competition to craft both a business strategy and a feature-by-feature specification. We create buy-in from internal stake holders and integrate feedback from potential customers.

While some companies jump in right away to create a prototype and get it out to market, it is never too late to create a plan that looks towards a profitable future. Without one, you might get bogged down with misunderstanding, frustration, cost overruns and delays. All this directly affects whether your product is a revenue generating dynamo or a time-sucking dud.

Successful products all have one thing in common: great product management.

Let us help you jumpstart your business. Contact us today for a free initial phone consultation.

Once your plan, strategy and specification are in place, we can step out and let you run with the ball, or stay with you for a short or long term partnership. We can help you with your product’s launch, your social media strategy, and integrating customer feedback into a long-term product roadmap.

Our plan writing services involve the following critical activities. We can:

• Analyze the market and competition, providing targeted business intelligence.
• Conduct a content audit of all material already developed, online and off, and run interviews with your staff.
• Lead structured brainstorming to flesh out your vision.
• Based on customer input, prioritize features into must have, nice to have, and next release as part of a short and long term product roadmap.
• Specify features, changes or upgrades to bring a successful product to market.
• Create a detailed functional specification that spells out exactly what to do and that will serve as the basis for a technical specification.
• Develop storyboards, wireframes and flowcharts for how it all should look and work.
• Create the business and go-to market plans.
• Together with the development team, put together a timeline and budget.
• Conduct usability testing and interface design.
• Coordinate with your design and engineering team to develop and deploy new features.
• Gather and integrate product feedback from stakeholders.
• Work with stakeholders to monitor and analyze product performance.
• Build a content plan for promotion through social media.
• Help coordinate the product launch.
• Interface with all aspects of the company: marketing, business development, programming, advertising, financial.

We offer three ways of working together:

1. Upfront product planning and strategy

We’ll work directly with your management to conduct the activities above. You’ll receive all of the documents you need to jumpstart your development and you’ll have a complete plan for where to grow your business from the product perspective. Duration: 2-3 months.

2. Long term product management

We can add important product management skills that may be missing from your startup team. Maybe you don’t have full-time headcount to hire a permanent employee, or you need to fill the void left when an employee is out on maternity leave, disability or on sabbatical. Outsourcing can be much less expensive than hiring new staff, paying benefits and needing to give out equity.

Product development today is iterative. You don’t just deliver a plan and hope for the best. So we stay with you to make sure you get what you want.

As your outsourced product management team, we’ll interface with all aspects of your business – from marketing and sales to programming, advertising and digital media management – covering the complete product lifecycle. Duration: 6-9 months.

3. Product management coaching

If you’re interested in bringing product management in-house but you’re not sure how to do that, we can work with your management to train and coach you through the product process. You’ll build your own project plan, competitive analysis, flowcharts, specs and timelines – with us at your side the whole time. At the end, you’ll have built critical skills that will last you through your current product and those to come. Duration: 3-6 months.

And there’s more: through our strategic partnerships, we can help you locate a developer if required and provide project management during development.

And if, as a result of your plan, you want us to write your blog, conduct social media marketing, or design a full interactive video presentation, we can do that too. Click here to learn more.

So what are you waiting for? Contact us today for your free initial phone consultation. And let us help you jumpstart your business to success!