If you want to grow your business, there are several strategies available to you, and each carries its own level of risk. To choose the most suitable approach, you must analyze your strengths and weaknesses and determine the clientele to target.
The best way to do this is to have a strategic planning process in place that will allow you to review the options available and choose the best one for your business based on its products, resources and stage. of development.
It’s not an easy task: markets change and customers change. To grow your business, you must not only replace the customers you lose, but also find new ones.
“Growing a business is a challenge,” says Jean-François Ouellet , associate professor in the department of entrepreneurship and innovation at HEC Montréal .
The decision on which strategy to follow should be made based on the talents, resources and capabilities available to you in your business.
1. Market penetration
“You have to plug the gaps and it’s usually not a question of marketing,” explains the professor. It’s about keeping the promise you made to your customers. If you promise a specific delivery date or level of quality and you don’t meet those commitments, it will breed dissatisfaction.”
The challenge is similar when it comes to attracting new customers. You need to effectively communicate what makes your business great and deliver on that promise every time someone buys from you. This is how you will gain loyal customers who are ambassadors for your business.
It must be remarkable. People must feel that your products correspond to what is important to them, that they meet a real and deep need.
It is this loyalty that will contribute to the development of your market.
2. Market Development
Your success in your existing market will eventually reach the point where your sales and marketing investments will be less and less profitable. This is when you will need to investigate other options for growth, such as expanding into another city, province, region, or country. You might also decide to target another customer segment or another demographic profile. You could also set up new distribution channels. For example, if you have an online store, you could go into retail, or if your customer base is businesses, you could start selling to individuals.
No matter what type of business you run, market research will be essential to breaking into a new market. You should explore several potential markets before narrowing down the list to two or three markets to investigate further. Export Development Canada and the Trade Commissioner Service offer excellent resources for companies looking to export or expand abroad. Once you’ve narrowed down your choices, you may want to research your industry further by purchasing reports from specialist companies.
Jean-François Ouellet points out that each market has its own characteristics and that what works in your national market may not work in another. The US market, for example, is not a single market, but rather a collection of local markets with different laws, regulations, logistical challenges, corporate cultures and consumer tastes.
When you’ve narrowed down a few options, the professor recommends sending a team to market, led by a trusted staff member. Rather than relying on surveys or focus groups, your team should present your products to real customers and real prospects to gauge their interest.
If so, you have confirmation of the viability of your project. Otherwise, you’ll know it won’t be as easy as you thought.”
3. Product development
To successfully develop and launch a new product, it is essential to know your customers well.
Jean-François Ouellet says, “Your most valuable asset isn’t your product or your technology, it’s what you know about your customers. In general, this knowledge is in the form of data. But it is also about qualitative and informal knowledge about the wishes, needs and preferences of your customers.”
Here are some ways to develop products:
Product modification
You can increase the demand for a product by changing some of its characteristics, such as size, shape, packaging, functions and color. The purpose of these modifications is to refresh the product or to react to the offer of competing companies