Businesses venture into new markets as the next logical step after reaching degrees of successes in their current one. It can also be a way to refocus strategies and targets after gaining more experience in a market. Whatever the reason is, expanding or shifting into new markets requires a lot of consideration and planning before it can be done successfully. If you’re looking to make it into new markets with your own business, here are a few things that you need to understand.
Feedback Is Key
Even if you’ve made the decision to undertake expansion into new markets, you may not necessarily have a full grasp on how you arrived at that position. Feedback is critical here since your customers may have a different appreciation of your perceived strengths and weaknesses.
Your products and services may be succeeding (or failing) right no for reasons you don’t fully understand yet. Take the time to gather information from your following. This will give you a better foundation from which you can build your way into new markets.
According to Reach Further, the best way to get feedback is to be honest and straight forward with customers instead of promising promos for every answered survey.
Identify and Understand
There are several possibilities for your expansion. You can either explore new markets within your existing industry or try your existing capabilities outside it.
You can develop new products and services that don’t necessarily target the customers you already have. You can also look into new markets based on geographical locations.
You have to identify which of these will apply. From there, you can focus your research and planning efforts on how to approach your new targets. Since this is, by definition, a new market, both quantitative and qualitative analyses can go a long way into coming up with a clearer vision for your expansion.
Since this is the information age, you can leverage some emerging techniques to identify and further understand new markets such as social media marketing ,mobile data credit scoring, and Google Analytics.
Ticket to Expand
According to Inc., there are three common ways to enter a market:build, buy, or partner. These basically determine what kind of expansion you’ll be doing and how much time, money, and work it would entail for you to do so.
To build means to come up with a new product or service to target new markets.
It could also mean to literally establish another location. This method is usually associated with a higher risk since you’ll need to devote more time and resources into it.
To buy means to acquire an existing enterprise that may or may not be enjoying success. Although it can be costly, it’s a quicker and relatively easier way to expand.
To partner means to work with another enterprise in a mutually beneficial fashion.
The risk of expansion is minimized at the cost of some control over the collaboration. This is a good step for businesses that want to further understand the market they want to enter while also participating in it in some capacity.
Keeping the Existing Market
Lastly, despite the promise and demands of new markets, it would be tragic to lose your footing in your existing market. By keeping your existing customer base satisfied throughout this process, you’ll ensure a continuous and steady stream of revenue that can further support your expansion efforts.