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Nineties kids and cartoon fans of any age probably remember the infamous duo Pinky and the Brain. (True fans are singing the theme song in their head as they read this). The pair of lab mice were determined to take over the world, but their plans flopped before sunrise each night, dooming them to repeat the process over.
With just a little more research and preparations, perhaps they could have been successful.
In your path to market domination, don’t make the same mistakes as Pinky and the Brain. In this post on how to create a market development strategy, you’ll learn what steps to take and how to incorporate research along the way to ensure successful expansion.
Recommended: Concept Testing – The Secret to Marketing Success?
What is a Market Development Strategy?
Market development strategy guides companies through expanding their total addressable market and market share. In other words, how can you appeal to and reach more customers?
When it’s time to plan your path to market growth, follow these steps to craft a winning market development strategy.
All good business plans start with research. You should never guess what your customers want, especially when gathering data has never been easier. The growth of mobile surveys makes getting a snapshot of consumer insights fast and affordable.
When you’re trying to determine which market expansion strategy works best for your company, you need to understand:
Combining consumer research with some solid business planning and budgeting will give you a basis for making the best call on how to expand your market.
Use your research to decide what you’re going to do and how you’ll know if you were successful. Set a measurable target such as increasing new customers by 40 percent or doubling sales in two years. Once you’ve selected a goal, you can work backward to determine what objectives you’ll need to implement to achieve your goal.
As a part of your research and goal-setting process, you’ll identify any product development needs. In addition to planning for those improvements, you’ll need to focus your efforts on successfully marketing your expansion. This is another crucial area where agile research comes into play. Poor decisions around marketing and product launches and changes cost companies more than 3 percent of their profits, according to Gartner.
Test your marketing campaign concepts, messaging and creatives through short consumer surveys. Use the time while the product is in development to fine-tune your marketing strategies. Getting your marketing right is the key to a successful launch. Of the more than 30,000 products that launch each year, 95% fail. Take the time to do the research to make sure yours is not one of them.
Once you have your business and marketing plans in place, it’s time to launch. You don’t always have to launch with a finished product. Your launch could be for concept testing. For example, Tesla launched the Model 3 before the car was even through the design phase. People could reserve a Model 3 with a $1,000 deposit. About 400,000 people put down deposits providing the confidence and cash for a successful launch.
Market development strategies are not a one-and-done project. You’ll want to monitor your progress toward your goals continuously. As needed, conduct additional research to see how you can tweak your marketing to drive growth better.
At this point, it should be evident that research plays a key role in your market development strategy. For best practices and tips on implementing a DIY approach to research, download our DIY Research ebook.
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