Protected: Expanding Into New Markets, Marketing a New Offering
Expanding market reach or selling new products or services are great ways to grow a business. A disciplined marketing plan is required for that expansion to be successful and to ensure a competitive advantage.
Whether your business is expanding nationally or moving into new local markets, the odds are good that more recognizable brands will have powerful influence over your prospective buyers. Breaking through to a place where your brand is equally relevant in the buyers’ decision-making process is critical to your expansion successful, both short and long term. Deciding where and how much to invest in your expansion strategy depends on many factors.
As you develop a stakeholder and communications strategy for a new market or new offering, take into account these common, albeit complex elements to success.
Identifying and Messaging to Stakeholders
Defining the target market and/or prospective buyers for a company’s goods or services takes careful planning and research. Before we create persona-based messaging for our clients, we recommend the following:
Conduct a brand awareness survey of audience groups in key markets. This will inform messaging and provide a baseline to measure the value of ongoing marketing.
Consider your marketing budget and set restrictions on scope or the number of stakeholder groups you can effectively reach.
Determine the buy route for prospective customers. You may need to message to decision influencers as well as final decision-makers.
Creating a Content Marketing Strategy
Tailored messaging means targeting prospects where and when they are most open to conversion — and that may take several touch points over many months. Whether using thought leadership, virtual events, digital advertising or a mix, consider these three phases as you develop concept topics and platforms:
Awareness: What will help the buyer realize there is a problem or opportunity?
Evaluation: As the buyer researches solutions, what will differentiate your company?
Conversion: What reasons to believe or aha moments most resonate with this buyer?
Enhancing and Augmenting Digital Media
Depending on the stakeholders, you may find you need to experiment with new digital channels or elevate your owned digital media to reach buyers. Some advice from a pro:
Journey map your website to reveal opportunities to tighten the user experience with segmentation, more focused landing pages or micro-interactions.
A/B test ads and landing pages to find out what works early.
When leveraging social media as a marketing channel, onboard employees as brand advocates.
Think expanding your business is challenging? Try changing employee behavior.
B2B businesses should consider a wealth of variables when entering new markets or marketing a new offering. With nearly three decades of helping businesses do just that, we’ve considered them all.
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