Marketing Considerations to Make When Expanding Your Business

When you’re expanding your business, whether by launching a new product or service or simply moving into a new market, your marketing efforts will make or break your endeavor. Solid marketing is what makes a new product (or service) launch a success. On the other hand, poor marketing, reports Fortunly, is what causes a significant number (14 percent) of businesses to fall short of their targets or fail outright.

To help maximize your success, the pros at Eye/Comm cover the critical marketing considerations you need to make when expanding your business: 

Strategy

Every growth initiative should be accompanied by a marketing campaign. And every marketing campaign is based on a solid strategy (or strategies) that are both affordable and effective. The best strategy for your business will be based on your niche, budget, and related factors. Some highly-effective examples are referral marketing, influencer marketing, cross-promotions, video vlogging, data-driven marketing, and omnichannel marketing. 

Campaign specifics

After you’ve come up with a strategy, consider the specifics, such as the cost-benefit ratio, associated with the whole endeavor:

• Scope: Targeting only your ideal customers – the ones who need your product the most – is usually the best strategy. Casting too wide a net may, ultimately, get you fewer bites.
• Avenues: Consider the channels with which you can best engage your customers. Online channels have more reach than offline ones, but the latter ones may be more personal.
• Message or content: Your message has to be meaningful and appealing to your target audience.
• Your budget: Last, but of course not least, you should consider your budget. The ROI needs to be favorable.

Special consideration: New product launches

The process of launching a brand-new product can be extremely complicated. To avoid missing out on important steps, you can use a marketing strategy template for tracking and oversight. This template contains important events and information relevant to the product’s release, allowing you to stay on track with your goals – For instance, your business plan and exact marketing strategy. Here’s an example of a go to market strategy template from Miro GTM. It will let you streamline the process from beginning to end. 

Market research

Market research will allow you to fine-tune your marketing campaign, so your message reaches your audience the best way possible. You can realistically do your own research, says Iowa State University.

• Local market conditions: The current state of the market and geopolitical factors should be considered.
• Competition: What companies are in direct competition with you, and what are they doing marketing-wise?
• Supply and demand: Is there enough demand for your new product or service?

Branding and brand recognition

Before you attempt to raise awareness and engage with customers via marketing, it’s important to take stock of your existing branding. Your brand identity is your brand’s personality: It allows customers to engage and identify with you. Having a meaningful, emotionally-impactful brand identity will make it easier to gain traction in the market. 

Marketing manpower

Is your current marketing department or team capable of ably supporting your new marketing campaign? Could they do the work of doing the research, crunching the numbers, and developing an effective strategy? You may need to add more people to your team. You could also partner up with Eye/Comm to use our ready-made team and expertise.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that marketing is a constant process and something to be adjusted and refined on the fly. Furthermore, your marketing efforts should be supported and completed by other business growth strategies such as quality assurance, packaging, pricing, and logistics.

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