5 Types of Product Strategies: How to Build a Successful Plan for Your Mobile App

Have you ever wondered how to create a product strategy that optimizes the development process, helps you make better business decisions, and results in apps users enjoy?

There are several types of product strategies that can be useful when developing mobile apps. Find out what they are and choose the one for your project.

Product strategy in mobile app projects

Some product managers like to improvise. It works out well in certain cases, but the more specialists your project involves, the harder it gets.

In business, it’s better to rely on a solid plan that helps you make better choices and avoid risks. That’s what a product strategy is all about.

To make it possible, your strategy should consider all team members’ perspectives. It must also rely on market and user research and be aligned with your goals and possibilities.

Benefits of creating a product strategy

• Team alignment – product strategy brings every team member on the same page so they all have a clear product vision and can efficiently work together.
• Competitive edge – you determine what should make your app or products it offers stand out.
• Marketing plan – when you know what makes your app the best choice for a specific user segment and realize how competitors advertise themselves, you are able to create a marketing strategy that speaks to a target audience.
• A project roadmap – knowing the goals, you can prepare a list of prioritized features to help you create a detailed project roadmap with a development plan.
• Flexibility – you’re aware of potential risks and challenges and can plan how to avoid them or minimize their impact on the business growth.

Elements of the product strategy

Although product strategy can take many forms and may focus on different aspects, there are some elements that it should always include.

Target audience profiles

In the product strategy, you state who your target users will be. Your product is for a specific group of people with problems your app could solve. The team must know who they are and what motivates them to choose the app.

TIP: A thorough qualitative and quantitative research will help you better understand needs of this user segment. Send a survey, conduct in-depth interviews, and read industry reports to get more information.

Competitors’ way of operating

Competitor analysis allows you to understand the market situation better. It tells you what your product will compete with and lets you discover the unsolved user needs.

This way, you can choose solutions that will differentiate your app from others and make it worth trying.

In your strategy, write down the most important conclusions from the competitor’s analysis, such as who they are, what their unique product value is, and how they approach marketing.

Unique Value Proposition

Product strategy must state how the app works, how it answers users’ problems, and what makes it different from similar products existing on the market.

Not all apps must have unique features to offer unique value. Sometimes, a UVP can be the access to a specific group of products (e.g., in m-commerce apps), more affordable prices, or aesthetic aspects.

TIP: A Value Proposition Canvas can help you analyze user’s needs, motivations, and problems and juxtapose them with ideas for a product’s features. It’s best to do it together with the competitor’s analysis to ensure your ideas are fresh and offer something special.

Business perspective

Knowing your competitors is also helpful when choosing pricing models, which is another important part of the product strategy. After all, new app development is an investment that should pay off.

Remember that apps can also help businesses by building a better company image and indirectly supporting sales.

Set measurable long- and short-term goals for the business to achieve within a specific timeframe. Monitor how much they change after a new feature launch.

TIP: Business goals change, and so does the situation on the market. That’s why the product strategy must enable flexibility. Roman Pichler recommends updating the product strategy at least every three months to respond to such shifts.

Risks and limitations

Value Proposition Canvas helps you determine the app’s strengths, but you must also consider weak points and challenges in your strategy.

Based on industry reports and market analysis (and mobile app analytics, in the case of existing products), think of problems that will likely come up. Then, plan a way of operating that will enable you to face them.

Why is the product strategy so important?

In 2023, in the US alone, users downloaded 12.5 billion apps, according to the Business of Apps. In the Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile 2024 report, you can read that in the same year, the weighted average of time spent on mobile was more than 5 hours. It is the result for the top 10 markets.

It sounds like a lot for one person, but also you have to consider the number of apps your product must compete with. On the Apple App Store, there are 1.8 million apps available to download. This number is even higher on Google Play Store – 2.43 million apps in 2023 (Statista).

In the case of 25% of apps worldwide, users opened them only once, as Statista informs on their website (data for 2019). This data shows how important it is to spend time on a product strategy that makes users want to come back.

Types of product strategies

Cost strategy: when you offer lower prices

This strategy is often applied to apps that don’t offer anything particularly unique. The idea is to make people choose such an app because its prices are more affordable than the one the competition offers. The key in this case is to find out what can be optimized – think of resources, processes, project scope, etc.

To use this strategy, you must know what value your product presents to users, so the research is essential. Think of potential gains and benefits they get thanks to your solution.

A customer journey map can be handy as it shows you what emotions the product evokes, which allows you to assess its value.

Supporting questions:

• Do our potential users find the price important when choosing apps?
• Do we want to offer paid content?
• What would make our target want to pay for it?
• Can we make the products or paid plans more affordable than the competitors?
• What if something goes wrong, and people won’t be choosing paid options?

Differentiation strategy: when you offer unique features or products

The differentiation strategy might be for you if you have something nobody else offers. It can be an original feature, the way the idea was executed, or how the app looks (good UX/UI design can be a game changer).

How do you know your product vision is truly unique? Again, research is necessary. You need to check the market situation and know users well to determine if your unique feature is perceived as functional, attractive, and worth trying.

Supporting questions:

• Is our unique feature valuable to target users?
• Do we know what they think about it?
• Is this feature worth paying extra according to our target audience?
• How much is the product execution going to cost?
• Has something similar ever been on the market? If so, why didn’t this idea work out?

Focus strategy: when you build apps for a narrow target group

When your app is for everyone, it is, in fact, for no one. You need to know your target audience to create solutions that meet their expectations. Some apps are equally useful for several user segments, while others focus on one specific group with special needs, and most solutions are created with them in mind.

You can apply a focus strategy even when you have more groups of target users. In this case, you just concentrate on the most important segment with unique requirements. They will be more engaged and interested in your app.

Supporting questions:

• How well do we know our target groups’ preferences, problems, needs, and expectations? Do we need to conduct additional research?
• What solutions are a must for this specific group of users?
• Does any of our competitors focus on the same group? If so, what do they offer?
• Can we offer something unique at an acceptable time and within a specific budget?

Quality strategy: when you put product quality first

You probably care about your app’s quality anyway. So, what’s special about this strategy? It makes quality your unique product value. Users must associate your app with reliability and effectiveness. Such apps are dependable and turn regular users into loyal ones.

You should consider technical matters and features to achieve better results with the quality strategy. In practice, this means, for example, frequent software tests, monitoring bugs, analyzing user feedback, and market standards.

This type of product strategy is best for apps with target users who value high quality and are willing to pay extra for it.

Supporting questions:

• Do we have an experienced team, enough budget, and resources to provide users with top quality?
• How important is quality for our target audience?
• If something goes wrong, what will be our procedure? What alternative tools will we use?

At Holdapp, Quality Assurance testing goes hand in hand with software development. We run different kinds of tests depending on the project stage.

Service strategy: when you provide outstanding customer service

We all like it when others put extra effort into making us happy. It’s the same with apps–we’re more encouraged to use products made by people who care about us. So, even if we encounter an issue, highly professional customer service can turn this unpleasant experience into something nice.

This product strategy works well after the analysis of the user journey map. When you know potential moments of friction and pain points, you can work out some solutions in advance. Fast and effective customer support can do miracles, improving CX.

Supporting questions:

• What stages of the user journey are likely to cause problems?
• Can we avoid them by making changes to the product? If not, how can we accelerate our support procedure?
• How are we going to check if users are satisfied with our support?

The process of creating a product strategy

How do you start creating your product strategy? This process consists of several steps, and it’s best to consult each with various specialists. It gives you a holistic view of the company’s goals.

Formulate your product vision

Describe how your app should work and what the main benefit of using it is going to be. That’s a good starting point that clearly tells you and the rest of the product team what you can build on.

Find groups of users

This step involves conducting user research. Whether you already have customers/users or start from scratch, you should talk to people who will use your final product.

It may turn out that the user segment for the app will be different from the one you’re currently targeting.

After the research, prepare the main persona profiles. Highlight problems they face and describe how your app will solve them.

Audit your company’s situation

Decide what your company wants to achieve with this app project and how it’s related to its main mission.

Include the information about the timeframe in which your goals should be achieved. In your product strategy, specify also how to measure your success.

For this task, you can formulate Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Then, write down specific objectives that will enable you to reach your primary goals. For example, when your goal is helping children learn languages, your objective could be creating engaging content. It will be a huge help when planning your product development process.

Analyze the market

Conduct competitor analysis and consider app features, pricing strategy, marketing plan, and user targeting. Additionally, get to know better the situation in the market and your industry.

Based on that, you’ll be able to determine weaknesses and strengths in your current approach to product strategy and product vision.

Final thoughts on product strategy for mobile apps

A well-defined product strategy is important at every stage of the app development process. It helps you achieve business objectives, but only when it’s constantly revised and adjusted to the company’s needs. Product managers should make updates based on data and monitor market dynamics.

Last but not least, don’t prepare the entire strategy alone. Consult it with other specialists and, better yet, create it with them. If you need help, join our team during workshops and make up your plan with experienced software developers.