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Find A New Market for an Existing Product

The Growth Panel exercises loaded in the Library follow the Marketing M.O. process which starts with the assumption that you already have your product/service ready for sale. The late business analyst Peter Drucker once said:

“Business has only two functions – innovation and marketing.”

You’ve already handled the innovation part; Growth Panel will help with the marketing. It’s important to note that we define the term marketing as more than just traditional advertising or lead generation:

Marketing is the process of developing and communicating value to your prospects and customers.

Good marketing is essential for every company. It can make a company with a mediocre product successful, but poor marketing can send a company with a good product out of business. Yet even business-to-business (B2B) marketing is often seen as a soft creative field instead of the engine that drives company revenue.

In a perfect world, you would start with competitive positioning and build your entire business growth (aka marketing) program following this process.

Competitive positioning is about defining how you’ll “differentiate” your offering and create value for your market. It’s about carving out a spot in the competitive landscape and focusing your company to deliver on that strategy.

If you’re a new company preparing to launch your product (we’ll use this term to cover both products and services) your first step is to clearly define your initial target market and shape your strategy to penetrate that market and deliver value.

Summary

EXERCISE SUMMARY

When to Address

If you’re a new company in the process of building your product or service

If you’re an existing company looking to expand your market reach and revenue

If you’re an existing company developing a new product or service offering

Who Should Participate

Business leaders: company founders, owners, presidents and vice presidents

Competitive Positioning Find a New Market for an Existing Product page 1 of 20

Marketing and sales leaders

Advisors

Where to Use the Results

After completion, reference your results in the rest of the Competitive Positioning exercises.

Your segment/persona results will help you shape your Brand Strategy. Every brand representation, marketing campaign creative piece and sales pitch should be targeted at one or more of these segments/personas.

Why it’s Important

Choosing the market to pursue is a critical decision for any company. Poor understanding of a new market can easily cause a new product launch (and possibly an entire business) to fail.

What Builds Upon it

Since this is the first exercise in the entire process, it affects everything else that comes afterward: the rest of your strategy and the tools and campaigns that you use to execute your strategy.

Timeframe to Completion

This is not a simple exercise, and the results require substantial commitment. Sometimes, the exercise might lead to a “no-brainer” decision and will only require a few days of work. Most of the time, however, this will take weeks to possibly months to complete.

Potential Business Impact

Substantial. Few business decisions are as important as what markets you enter.

Deliverable

You’ll analyze market segments and brainstorm to determine if it makes sense to enter a new market. Your deliverable is the decision to enter/not enter a specific market.

Next Steps If you find a new market to pursue, you’ll want to address the rest of the exercises in the strategy portion of the process to address any changes you’ll need to make for your new market:

Competitive PositioningBrand StrategyDistribution ChannelsPricingSales ProcessMarketing CampaignsMarketing Plan & Budget


Target Completion Date

PARTICIPANTS

TASKS TO GET STARTEDPERSON RESPONSIBLE

DUE DATE

Notes


Find A New Market for an Existing Product

What to Complete

1. CREATE CUSTOMER VIEW2. DISCOVER POTENTIAL NEW MARKETS3. NEW MARKETS REQUIREMENT OVERVIEW4. RESULTS

Where it Fits in Competitive Positioning

Create Customer ViewDiscover Potential New MarketsNew Markets Requirement OverviewNew Market Analysis Results

Define Market SizeOutline Market CharacteristicsDetermine Market Lifecycle StateDetermine Positioning StrategyGet to Know Your MarketEvaluate Your Market ResearchDetermine Your Segments or PersonasProfile Your Segments or PersonasDetermine Your True CompetitionDecide on Your Rating CriteriaEvaluate Your Competitors and Yourself Analyze Competitive Analysis ResultsCreate SWOT AnalysisDetermine Your Competitors’ Value PropositionsRate Your Market on How it Solves Customer ProblemsDetermine Your Value PropositionCreate Competitive Positioning MatrixMap Your MarketSummarize Your Competitive Strategy


1. CREATE CUSTOMER VIEW

If you’re looking for a new market for your product or service, start by considering your current or prospective customers. Dive into the details and get a clear picture of them by creating a 360 degree view. What are the problems they face and why do they (or would they) buy from you? Search for the true reasons—they’re not always what we think. Then evaluate whether there are other markets, industries, types of companies, or applications for your product.

Your sales team can probably give you valuable ideas throughout this exercise. Consider including them in this session.

First, describe your customers (or potential customers), their problem(s), and how your product solves those problems.

Product or service

What are the problems your customers face? Consider whether they’re specific to individuals of company-wide. How significant are their problems?

Is your market actively seeking a solution to this problem? For most companies, there are a mix of people actively seeking a solution, people desiring a solution if it was presented to them (but they’re not actively seeking one), and people with the pain, whether they’ve realized it or not. Estimate the percentages of each. If you don’t know, start with a guess, and refine it as you are able to.

How does your product/service solve their problem?


If most of your market already has a solution in place to solve this problem, how does your product deliver more value than the competition? Quantify how your solution is an improvement. Typical examples are:

1. Product delivers a more comprehensive solution that accomplishes more than the competition. 2. Product delivers a faster/easier solution. 3. Product delivers a less expensive solution.

Make sure to consider this question from the context of your market instead of from your viewpoint (i.e. don’t overstate your differentiation based on small product features that the market doesn’t recognize. This is common in many industries—the market doesn’t differentiate offerings based on feature set, but the competitors believe it does.)

What do your customers value most when they buy from you? What are the factors in their decision to purchase? Is there a single deciding factor?

Who makes the ultimate decision to buy from you? Are there influencers? If so, describe how they participate in the decision-making process as well.


Next, describe a typical customer. You’re aiming to create a profile of an average customer. Many companies find that they have multiple customer groups or segments, so they need to create a profile for each segment. Some marketers refer to these as customer personas. This is especially popular in the technology industry. Personas can make it easier for your company to truly understand your typical customer. Some companies create a name (Sally the Secretary, or Dan the IT Director) and a life-size cardboard cutout of that person as a reminder. Add as many specific details as you can think of, for the specific person, the company, or both. Don’t be limited to the initial suggestions. Add as many as necessary to build a strong profile.

If you have multiple segments or personas, copy the below table for each.

Customer Segment or Persona

Customer Details

1 Problem your product solves for this segment/persona

2 Magnitude of the problem for this segment/persona

3 How your product/service is used

4 Stage of company growth

5 Number of employees

6 Annual revenue

7 Industry

8 Geography

9 Decision-maker & role within company

10 Were they looking for a solution before they purchased?

11 Were they aware of their pain before they purchased?

12 Did your product replace a previous solution?

13 Does your product provide a complete solution? Or is it a partial solution?


14 How do customers describe your solution?

15 If they’re a person, describe them in detail (age, income, family status, interests). If they’re a department within a company, describe their characteristics (# people, hierarchy, location)

16 Other

2. DISCOVER POTENTIAL NEW MARKETS

Now think about other markets you could pursue. Consider the profiles or personas you created. Are there similar people in other industries that you haven’t considered? What other types of companies have similar problems to those of your customers? Focus on their core pain and the solution you deliver. Brainstorm other industries, locations, departments and demographics.

Here are more specific questions to get you thinking:

1 Could companies whose problems are larger or smaller than those of your current customers use your product?

2 Are there other ways your product/service could be used?

3 Can a company in another growth stage benefit from your product?

4 Can smaller or larger companies benefit?

5 Can you create a version to meet the needs of companies who can afford more or less?

6 What other industries have similar problems and could use your product?

7 Are there other markets geographically? National? International?

8 Can your product be used by a different department or decision-maker within a company? What benefit would s/he gain?


9 Other

10 Other

From your brainstorming, are there any other segments/personas for your product? If so, outline them.

Are there other ways your product could be used?

Are there additional features or benefits that could make your product more valuable to any of the prospects you’ve identified above? If so, can you deliver them on your own, or by partnering with another company?

Are there segments/personas similar to your in other industries? If you’re not sure, take some time to research.

YOUR SEGMENT/PERSONA INDUSTRIES WITH SIMLAR PERSONAS


YOUR SEGMENT/PERSONA INDUSTRIES WITH SIMLAR PERSONAS

What is the size of these potential new marketing segments, in terms of number of potential customers and revenue?

Who is serving these markets right now? How competitive are they? [Exercise 4 – Competitive Positioning: Evaluate Your Competition can help]

What would your company need to do in order to pursue these markets? Is it a substantial undertaking in terms of time and budget? Does it require product innovation or taking on new partners? [Exercise 40 – Distribution Channels: Identify Potential Channels can help] Also consider the marketing messages. Are they similar to your existing messages? Or would you need to create new messages, collateral and campaigns?


3. NEW MARKET REQUIREMENTS OVERVIEW

At this point you should have a few ideas of new customer segments or markets to pursue. Penetrating a new market is time-consuming and requires careful planning and asset allocation. Start by organizing your high-level requirements for each potential market to pursue.

Product or service


New Market to Pursue

Overview

Now list the changes you’ll need to make in different areas of each department. Start high-level, and drill-down into any potential problematic changes.

DEPARTMENT AREA REQUIREMENTS

Marketing

Brand Strategy

Pricing

Distribution Channels

Marketing Campaigns

Sales Tools & Literature

Website

Creative

Other


Other

Other


Product Development

Engineering

Design

Features

Manufacturing

Suppliers

Other

Other

Other

Other

Other


Sales

Sales Training

Sales Headcount

Sales Management

Sales Process

Other

Other

Other

Other

Other

Other



Finance

New Capital Required

Potential ROI

Effect on cash flow

Effect on EBITDA

Banking changes

Accounting changes

Other

Other

Other

Other


IT

Software changes

Hardware changes

IT management changes

New software

New hardware

New users

Training

Other

Other

Other



HR

New headcount

New training

Use of current headcount

Employee performance measurementsManagement requirements

Salary requirements

Other

Other

Other

Other

4. RESULTS

Analyzing the high-level requirements of new customer segments or markets to pursue will probably deliver a list of questions to address in one or more potential markets.

QUESTIONS POTENTIAL MARKET RESULT

After resolving your questions, your research should clarify your results to determine if you should pursue a new market. List your results and plan your next steps.


NEW MARKETS OR CUSTOMER SEGMENTS/PERSONAS TO PURSUE

MARKETS OR CUSTOMER SEGMENTS/PERSONAS DESCRIPTION

NEXT STEPSSUBJECTS/EXERICSES TO ADDRESS

If you find a new market to pursue, you’ll want to address the rest of the subjects in the strategy portion of the process to address any changes for your new market:

Continue in Competitive Positioning [2 through 6]

Brand StrategyDistribution ChannelsPricingSales ProcessMarketing CampaignsMarketing Plan & Budget

TASKSPERSON RESPONSIBLE

DUE DATE

Notes


Find a Market for an Existing Product

Report

1. CUSTOMERS SEGMENTS OR PERSONAS 2. NEW MARKETS TO PURSUE

This report summarizes our results from completing Exercise 1 – Competitive Positioning: Find a New Marketing for an Existing Product.

1. CUSTOMER SEGMENTS OR PERSONAS

We used our customer segments or personas to identify and research new market opportunities. Step 1 was to detail the segments/personas.

Copy the below table for multiple segments/personas.


Target Customer Details

1 Problem our product solves

2 Magnitude of the problem

3 How our product/service is used

4 Stage of company growth

5 Number of employees

6 Annual revenue

7 Industry

8 Geography

9 Decision-maker & role within company

10 Are they looking for a solution?

11 Are they aware of their pain?


12 Does our product replace a previous solution?

13 Does our product provide a complete solution?

14 How do customers describe our solution?

15 Personal or company details (age, income, family status, interests, # people, hierarchy, location)

16 Other

Below is a list of our segments/personas, along with industries we found to have similar segment/personas:

OUR SEGMENT/PERSONA INDUSTRIES WITH SIMLAR PERSONAS

2. NEW MARKETS TO PURSUE

After analyzing our product and potential market opportunities, I recommend for us to pursue the below additional market(s):

Product or service


New Market to Pursue


Description of Opportunity

Market Details

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

NEXT STEPS SUBJECTS/EXERICSES TO ADDRESS


We’ll need to update our entire strategy for our new market.

Continue in Competitive Positioning, starting with Profile Your Marketing and Your Position [2]

Brand StrategyDistribution ChannelsPricingSales ProcessMarketing CampaignsMarketing Plan & Budget

Where We’ll Use

We’ll reference our results in the rest of the Competitive Positioning exercises.

Our segment/persona results will help us shape our Brand Strategy and every brand representation, marketing campaign creative and sales pitch should be targeted to one or more of our segments/personas.

Why it’s Important

Choosing a market to pursue is a critical decision for our company. A poor understanding of a new market will cause a negative impact on our top and bottom line.

What Builds Upon it

Entering a new market is the first strategic decision that affects all of our subsequent activities: the rest of our strategy, the tools we create and the campaigns we choose to use to execute our strategy.

Potential Business Impact

Substantial. Few business decisions are as important as what markets we enter.


DUE DATE



DUE DATE

Notes


1 find a_new_market(2)

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