For many people new means “good”, for others it means “be careful”. Do we know how a new product will be taken up?
Back in 1962 Everett Rogers put forward the theory “Diffusion of Innovations”, when he constructed a model to describe the take up of new products based on his research. This work has been quoted and referenced by many people and I recently came across this in a 2009 TED video by Simon Sinek where he referred to the Innovation Adoption Lifecycle Curve.
This curve shows that first sixth of people who use a product can be classified into two groups, Innovators and Early Adopters. You could say a sixth of all users are Innovators or Early Adopters, this helps to explain why so many new products like iPhones have grown so quickly. A sixth of us actually like something new.
So how do you describe these people?
Innovators are people who like change and are most likely try something new, particularly if they can see an advantage. They will try new things knowing that they will learn and move forward even if things do not work out exactly as planned. Innovators are a relatively small population at 2.5% of users or 1 in 40.
Early Adopters are more conservative than innovators, they tend take a wider and longer term view and they can see the potential of new things. Early adopters want something that has been proven as they need to be more confident that it will work for them. People who fall into the early adopters group tend to be leaders, have high influence with others and are less fearful of change. At 11% or over 1 in 10, Early Adopters are significant group of users.
In short, a new product at the start of its lifecycle needs to find that group of confident far sighted people. What do you think? What type of buyer are you?