Product life-cycle management (marketing)

Product Life-Cycle Management (marketing) is a process that companies use to plan how to promote and sell their products. It involves thinking about how a product should be marketed, who should be buying it, and how the company can make more money from it. Companies use Product Life-Cycle Management to track the different stages of a product's life, from when it's first created to when it's no longer selling anymore.

To help explain this, let's think about one product such as a toy car. When a company makes the toy car for the first time, it's in a stage known as the Introduction. During this stage, the company will spend money on advertising, packaging the product, and getting it in stores. Then, people start to buy the toy car and the company makes money when they do. It's now in a stage known as the Growth stage.

During this stage, the company will work to make even more money by trying to increase the number of people buying the toy car. They might come up with different versions of the toy car, offer discounts, create special offers, and do more advertising.

Next, the company will reach the Maturity stage. This is when the toy car is well-known and most of the people who would buy it have already done so. So during this stage, the company will work to keep customers interested with the product and keep sales steady.

Finally, after some time, the toy car will enter the Decline stage. This is when sales start to slow down and people stop wanting the toy car. The company can no longer make money from the product.

Product Life-Cycle Management helps companies plan for these different stages and make the most money from their products.