We dive deeper into how to use strategic communications specifically for market expansion.
Entering a new market and planning for market expansion are different scenarios and should be treated differently.
In a previous article, we shared some steps to support market entry and included the logic behind so.
Just in case, here is a quick refresh about what strategic communications is. As shared, some steps for different scenarios are repeated. Especially since the foundation of any good plan starts with gathering and making sense of data. Creating a master strategic communications plan provides the ability to line up decisions, stages and tasks sequentially to achieve outcomes.
We want to reinforce that brands should look at their business goals for expansion and decide how would achieving that goal holistically look like. With that information, consider whether there are advantages to be gained through securing elements such as brand recognition, easier access to the correct customer, policy/regulation support for the industry or category, or reputation.
What can reputation do for my brand? Can it help me sell more, or save costs?
Actually, yes.
Whether you are a 3-man team or a large corporate, reputation is the key that provides your business development or sales team with access to decision makers.
With a positive and credible reputation created and delivered through a well-executed strategic communications plan, the ability for the brand to work through an organisation for a decision maker or stakeholder is enhanced.
For example, if your brand is a platform that can support F&B businesses, going in cold to sell without some content, or third-party references would make the sales cycle harder that it needs to be. To gain access and balance the power dynamic, a communications outcome is to be active in the F&B environment with both the brand, customers and prospects understanding the product prior to a sales visit. This can be accomplished by sharing media articles, or multiple education-focused blog posts or videos. The topics, frequency and tonality of the activities are what you would find in a strategic communications plan.
We can help you fix and problem solve for many growth and revenue scenarios such as market entry, market expansion, product/service launches through a strategic communications approach.
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We are Brand Utility is a business consultancy. Our principal consultant is a registered management consultant, certified and recognised by the Institute of Management Consultants Singapore.
We work with brands in the corporate, professional services, retail, travel and technology spaces.
So you are planning to penetrate within a country, move between cities or go deeper within a market.
Different from entry, market expansion requires more resources in order to reinforce current reputation, and to gain credibility in different places or with different audience groups.
In a market expansion situation, the overall logic is to assess current advantages and amplify them, as well as to identify gaps to plug them. Introduction of the brand to new customers requires broadcasting reputation to them, and importantly, not relaxing on service levels to current customers.
Current customers’ reviews and opinions matter greatly when convincing new customers to enter the sales funnel, and convert to a trial of the offering.
Here’s the summary we share with our clients. Barring any specifics to your case, we would recommend the following:
Market research: Use customer panels or other available tools to determine any localised differences between current and potential customers, in a city or market.
Gap analysis: Identify gaps that might be present between current and potential customer groups; determine how to plug them effectively without creating an entirely new offering. A new offering becomes a new market entry or product launch and cannot tap on existing reputation and credibility advantages.
Niche customer targeting: As with entering new markets, check if there are customers that are open to trial, review or discounts. This provides customer data for the new area and can confirm, validate or show differences.
Best practice: Update the strategic communications plan with best practices from other cities or areas, and work into the activities the means to test or experiment with these practices.
Update measurements and outcomes: Do not automatically assume that previous outcomes can be achieved in new spaces. Set-up, experiment, and confirm the measurements and outcomes for the new space. Be specific and realistic.
Spread resources well: Current customers demand a level of service to be satisfied. In exchange, they provide data, reviews and feedback on how to better engage them. These publicly-available information serves as a baseline for new customers to build their expectations of your offering in a new space.
Execute in spurts and at sufficient-to-impress levels: Once the decision to expand has been made, execute. Execute in spurts, and on a series of activities that can amplify reputation or credibility advantages. There is no need to cave in to pressure to go bigger and bigger with each activity. Instead, think about what the minimum sufficient level is to secure the outcome. Do that.
Experiment, measure and re-do: As each activity is completed, determine what improvements can be made. Incorporate the insights into the next activity. Wash, rinse, repeat.
We are Brand Utility is a business consultancy. We work with brands in the corporate, professional services, retail, travel and technology spaces.
We offer strategy and tactics to support growth outcomes - revenue, scale, regional expansion and market entry – for our clients.
Areas of support include:
Strategic communications: Approach to market, brand concept and map, positioning, messaging, story and narrative, thought leadership
Marketing: Campaign/programme planning, story-based marketing execution, digital marketing, community amplification, content planning and production, go-to-market execution
Lead generation and growth marketing: Digital advertising, social media advertising, social commerce, e-commerce
Integration of marketing with business operations: We plan and execute as a marketing and/or PR lead for your brand
Discover more about our services at our website.
Photo by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash
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