How to create a market development strategy
Creating an effective market development strategy involves careful consideration and meticulous research in order to get the results you want. The goal is to put together a solid expansion and budget plan backed by market research in order to keep traffic steady and reach new markets.
The basic steps are as follows:
- Ask the right questions
- Research development opportunities
- Define your goals
- Develop a marketing plan
- Introduce product to a new market
- Analyze results
1. Ask the right questions
Before you dive headfirst into your development plan, there are a few things to consider in order to ensure you’re going in the right direction. Asking the right questions before doing research is a great way to get a good idea of what you’re looking for and what you need to analyze.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Are there any specific target markets you haven’t tapped into yet?
- Are customers going to benefit from your product?
- Is it worth the effort to invest in the new market and approach new customers?
- Do you have to modify any existing products or plan to launch a new product?
- Does your business or company have the bandwidth to measure the effectiveness of a market development strategy once it’s in place?
Once you’ve got a clear answer for each of these questions, you’re ready to begin researching growth opportunities.
2. Research growth opportunities
It’s important to begin the research phase by identifying what your biggest market development opportunities are. This includes looking into your target audience and analyzing your market to provide additional value to your research. Doing so will provide vital information to guide you in the right direction and help you reach your goals.
Identify new audiences
Introducing your product to a new market is difficult if you can’t identify your target audience. Spend some time researching your target consumers and determining whether your product will interest them or not. Creating buyer personas to assess the demographics, motivations, and backgrounds will give you a good idea of what your new audience is looking for in a product.
Analyze your market
Once you've identified who your target audience is, conduct thorough research into your potential competitors by looking at reviews or sending out feedback forms to ensure your strategy is up to par. We recommend conducting a SWOT analysis to determine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and competitive threats.
3. Define your goals
Think about which areas of your business you’re hoping to grow by expanding into a new market. Consider the following areas for growth:
- Customers or users
- Products
- Sales
- Net profit
- Employees
- Geographic locations
Once you’ve identified the areas you’d like to focus on, you should also consider the requirements needed to help you reach your goals. This can include software, digital marketing tools, and initial funding, all of which can help you get your strategy up and running. You can also build out each area through SMART goals, which allows you to gather actionable insight from your data and share it with your team.
4. Develop a marketing plan
Expanding into a new market requires a strong marketing plan. You can build out your advertising strategy through various avenues to attract potential customers, including:
You’ll also need to consider any crucial resources you’ll need to hit your goals, such as equipment, staff, or raw materials. Once you have everything prepared, you can begin putting it all together like pieces of a puzzle. This will become your marketing plan.
5. Introduce product to new market
You’re nearly there! Once you’re happy with the plan you’ve set in place, you can begin launching your product to the new market. Here are some ways you can keep the product launch as smooth as possible:
- Use clear communication with your team by discussing your goals and progress throughout the marketing campaign. Doing so will help increase the likelihood of success and help your teammates understand what tasks they are responsible for.
- Provide frequent updates and keep everyone on your team in the loop on upcoming deadlines and tasks.
- Stay organized throughout your launch to ensure that the process stays on track.
6. Analyze results
Once the product is launched, you can begin using your primary software and tools to track your success. Collecting this information will help you assess how successful your launch is and give you a better timeline on meeting your deadlines.
This data is crucial for improvement and ensures that you’re on track to meet your goals in a timely manner. You can present this data to stakeholders and give them a better idea of what they can expect from you next.
