7 Handy Techniques for Breaking into New Markets

Finding the ideal niche and developing a sturdy yet flexible business plan is, in many ways, a continuous endeavor for the ambitious business owner, particularly those CEOs who are constantly looking for new avenues to explore.

It is not usually the easiest of undertakings but provided a little research and some handy techniques are utilized, honing in on the perfect customer can be done.

Sometimes, growing a brand and developing products and services means actively seeking out a new target audience entirely. If you felt as though the time was right for you to venture forth with your business and try and break into new and exciting markets, maybe even on a global scale, here are some important tips you might want to consider taking a look at.

1. Strengthening Your B2B Lead Generation

Before expanding into any given area, a market needs to exist to expand into, whether it happens to be an existing one or one that you strive to create.

Strengthening your lead generation can help you identify where your potential customers are, and it is often a good way to test the waters in the initial stages of the expansion process.

It can be difficult to nurture the marketing aspect of business if you don’t know who exactly you are trying to reach in the first place. Enlisting the help of a reliable B2B marketing agency is a good way to go in this case, as it can allow you to get some input from the experts if you do not know where to turn next.

Acquiring some external, expert direction can be a huge help in this area, as, in many cases, there is a chance you will have to completely overhaul your marketing strategy in order to reach new audiences.

A few handy hints in terms of lead generation include:

• Making sure you have a high-quality website – The more authentic your business comes across to your potential customer, the more inclined they will likely be to trust your brand.
• Keep a close eye on the competition – Keeping track of the competition is extremely valuable in many different aspects of business, particularly lead generation, as it might give you some indication of what your potential audience has come to expect from your particular field of work.
• Utilize social media – Social media has many benefits to businesses looking to reach a wider audience, so establishing yourself on relevant platforms in order to grow a strong sense of digital visibility is a must.

2. Nurture Brand Consistency

Just because you have decided to try and extend your brand’s reach, there is no need for your brand image to suffer. In fact, making sure to opt for brand consistency should be an important point to keep on your radar.

For example, if Coca-Cola releases a new product, it is usually immediately recognizable. This is for a vast number of reasons (aside from the size of their marketing budget), all of which should be taken into consideration for any company working on developing brand consistency.

If you want to ensure that you do not lose your brand identity when marketing to new audiences, then striving for cohesion and familiarity is essential. This can be done by adopting a unique color scheme, a bold logo, or an original tone of voice through which to write copy.

When working on your brand consistency, no detail should be thought of as too small to ignore.

3. Work with Other Brands

Collaborating with other brands can be a good way to enhance your company’s visibility while simultaneously reaching a pre-established customer base.

This can be fairly tricky to navigate, however, as you will probably need to make sure that the brand you have decided to partner up with shares your own values as a business. It is worth asking yourself questions like:

• Is their reputation in good standing with the public and/or other businesses?
• Would their customers be able to connect with my products and services?
• Would my existing customers appreciate the new partnership?
• How can my business benefit from the partnership, and what can I offer in return?

If you are thinking about trying to reach a global audience, partnering up with local brands and businesses can be a great benefit to your expansion into the new market. This is especially the case if you can manage to work with a well-received and highly respected company that can offer you a greater level of insight into your target destination.

Working with other brands could also pertain to raising your visibility through a sponsorship deal. For example, why not try sponsoring a local soccer team? Getting your company name plastered across the jerseys of your local team can not only raise awareness but can also help cement your presence in the community.

Sometimes, looking a little closer to home might allow you to discover new markets without even having to physically expand your operation.

4. Getting Hold of the Right Tools

With a handy toolkit at your disposal supporting your company infrastructure as your branch out into new markets can be made simple-ish.

The better your tools, i.e., your IT infrastructure or your market research software, the greater the chance your expansion will be able to take place smoothly.

Moreover, it is crucial to make sure that you have the right resources to support your company moving forward in the first place. Just because your setup works well at the moment does not necessarily mean that it will be able to cater to the needs of an entirely new market.

A few tools worth thinking about implementing into your business could include:

• Automated Marketing Platforms
• Chatbots
• CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Software
• Google Analytics (a classic, and still undeniably useful for digital marketing)
• Budgeting Software

Similarly, taking a step back and addressing your company finances is vital if you wish to make sure that your company can afford the undertaking. This could mean returning to the budget process and figuring out whether or not you need to come up with an entirely new plan of action.

5. Getting to Know Your Customer

Who is your customer? What do they want and why do they need your product, and why your brand over someone else’s?

These are some incredibly useful questions to ask yourself when attempting to discover and break into a new market, as it can lay the foundations upon which to build a marketing campaign and begin customer profiling.

Of course, getting to know your customer is often a big part of market research, but there are ways you can take a deeper approach to this aspect of business. For example, spending some time personally speaking to your customers is a good way to get to know them on a more intimate level, as is spending time in their local area and thinking about how your product or services might make a direct impact on it.

When it comes to the development stage, everyone needs to be thinking along the same lines. By ensuring that each of your departments and your individual staff members know exactly who they are creating products for and what your brand and its values represent, you may be able to expect a rise in effectiveness across the board.

6. Work with Your Current Customer Base

By asking your current customer base for their valuable feedback, you can give your product development team some great information to work with. After all, the customers who consume and interact with your brand are the ones you need to impress, so it makes sense that they should have a say.

Say you conducted a short customer survey, by asking your customers what they would change about the product, what they enjoyed most about it, and what they actively disliked can be a good way to paint a clearer portrait of how said product might perform in a new market.

Getting hold of this feedback can be quite tricky, but you can do it by:

• Offering your customers a voucher or a discount on their next purchase for filling in a feedback form.
• Supplying them with VIP status (people generally like feeling important).
• Give them merchandise.
• Ask them politely and honestly.

It is worth bearing in mind that whenever you move into a new market, information is the key to success, so getting hold of as much info you can about your customers should be a top priority.

Opting for data-driven solutions and maybe a bit of gut feeling is also far more likely to pay off in the long run, so coming up with some decent metrics to refer to can be a big help.

7. Don’t Overstretch

Prioritizing your markets is a good way to make sure you do not accidentally overstretch yourself on a pursuit that might not be fruitful for a while. Taking a measured, sensitive, and considerate approach with the help of some handy data can be a superb place to start.