How to grow your business. A #useful presentation designed for business owners on the four strategic options to boost your business.

1. HOW TO
GROW
YOUR BUSINESS
Annmarie Hanlon

2. Agenda
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Understanding the 7 key elements in your business
Introduction to the 4 key product and market strategies
Customer insights
Marketing information sources and usefulness
Market segmentation
Pricing and routes to market
Your ideal customer
Which promotion methods work?
Positioning your business
Action Plan

3. UNDERSTANDING
THE 7 KEY ELEMENTS
IN YOUR BUSINESS

4. 7Ps
Product
Promotion
Price
Place
Processes
Physical
Evidence
People

5. INTRODUCTION TO THE
4 KEY PRODUCT AND
MARKET STRATEGIES

6. The Four Product and Market Strategies

7. HOW TO SELL MORE OF
YOUR EXISTING PRODUCTS
OR SERVICES TO YOUR
EXISTING CUSTOMER BASE
1. Market Penetration Strategy

8. Ways to achieve market penetration
1. Reduce the order
interval
2. Increase the average
order value
3. Demonstrate the entire
product selection
4. Increase or change
opening hours
5. Improve customer
service
6. Change packaging
7. Look at price breaks
8. Remove delivery costs
9. Make it easier to buy
10. Take away old stock
11. Contact customers

9. How can your business increase sales?
Action we need to take to increase sales from
existing customers

10. HOW TO MOVE INTO
NEW MARKETS
2. Market Development Strategy
Strategy

11. Ways to achieve market development
Demographics
• Age, gender, income, education, household size, business type
Geography
• Where they are based – local, regional, national, international
Life stages
• New mums, recently retired, moving house
Business sector
Benefit sought
Organisation size
• Manufacturing, services, retail
• 3 hour response time, VIP service
• Small, medium, multi-site

12. What new markets are right for you?
New market
Action we need to take

13. HOW TO DEVELOP
YOUR EXISTING
PRODUCTS OR
SERVICES
3. Product Development
Strategy

14. Ways to achieve Product Development
How can you
augment or improve
the existing product
offer?
What do market
conditions suggest?
What opportunities
exist for research
and development?
Do you have any
customer feedback?

15. Ways to achieve Product Development
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Can the product be made cheaper?
Can the product be made locally?
Can you increase quality?
Change the packaging?
Can you ask your customers or potential
customers what they want?

16. How to develop new products
• Walkers Crisps,
Marmite food
spread and
Vitamin Water.
Facebook
• RS Components
generates new
ideas via its
engineers
forum.
• Members seek
advice from
others.
Blog or
forum
LinkedIn
groups

17. Product Development
Supplies
Your
product
Added
value

18. Online sources for new product ideas
http://www.quora.com
http://ideascale.com
https://www.innocentive.com
http://www.hypios.com
http://www.wazoku.com

19. HOW TO MOVE INTO NEW
MARKETS WITH NEW
PRODUCTS OR SERVICES
4. Diversification Strategies

20. Diversification Strategies 1
Related Diversification
• Can you move into a new market with a new
product offer using the skills within the business ?
• Look at opportunities to increase sales within
similar customer groups, whilst still maintaining
your brand values, this is new but related
products.
• What’s your expertise, your technical know-how?

21. Diversification Strategies 2
Unrelated Diversification
• This involves greater risks and is only undertaken
where there is potential for high return on
investment, often because the company is
undervalued or financially distressed.
• Consider whether you have a strong management
team with the ability to manage diverse business
units.

22. CUSTOMER
INSIGHTS
WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO
KNOW

23. Source of insights
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Survey; in person, telephone, online
Google analytics
Website feedback
Comments on social media pages
Emails, letters, phone calls

24. Questions you can ask
• Why did you select our company in the first
place?
• What do you mainly use our company for?
• Which other companies do you use for these
services / products?
• What do you like about our company?
• What do you dislike about our company?

25. Questions you can ask
• What change in our business is likely to have a
benefit on you?
• Have your purchases stayed the same, decreased
or increased in the last 12 months?
• Has your budget for next year been increased,
stayed the same or been decreased for next year?
• Any other comments or is there anything I’ve
missed?

26. Insights: Surveys
• http://polldaddy.com/
• http://www.surveymonkey.com/
• http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurvey
s/home

27. MARKETING
INFORMATION
SOURCES AND USEFULNESS

28. Sources of information
Secondary
Primary
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Library
Online reports
Industry associations
Blogs, websites
Your customers
Your suppliers
Your staff
Exhibitions, conferences

31. MARKET
SEGMENTATION
A segment can be based on any
attributes where there is large
enough market for your business

32. Why segment?
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To create market niches
To provide growth for mature markets
To deliver more effective communication
To make the business more efficient

33. Segments
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Demographics
Psychographics
Lifestyle / Life stages
Belief and value systems
Geography
Benefit
Behaviour
When you can see
significant, measurable
differences in your
market, you should
consider market
segmentation.

34. You can create a segment if you can see
Size
Unique
Profits
Easy Access
Reaction
Benefits

35. PRICING AND
ROUTES TO MARKET
If it’s too cheap the buyer will be
suspicious ‘what’s wrong with it?’

36. Pricing strategies

37. Routes to market
Direct to customers offline
Direct to customers online
Via a third party under your own brand name offline
Via a third party under your own brand name online
Via a third party under their brand name (often called
'white label')
Via a marketplace like eBay, Amazon under your own name

38. Distribution options
Exclusive
distribution
• Limits access to the products via an
exclusive number of outlets or
partners. Exclusivity may be limited by
geographical area or product lines.
Selective
distribution
• Only selling via outlets or partners that
meet specific criteria such as position
in the market, location, competitor
products stocked.
Intensive
distribution
• Selling via any outlets or partners that
will stock the products.

39. YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER,
HOW TO CREATE THE
MODEL AND FIND THE
RIGHT CUSTOMERS

40. Identify your current customers

41. Developing the Personas
Rich: Marketing Exec
Age: 25
Second job after Uni
Degree in English
Loves playing in a band
Has done some web
programming as a
hobby
Catherine: Marketing
Manager
Age: 26
Degree in Languages,
CAM Digital Diploma
Commutes for an hour
to work
Mainly B2C, first B2B
role
Sean: Marketing
Director
Age: 41
MBA and speaker at
events
Young family, keen to
start own business
Results focused, works
long hours

42. B2B: Segmentation and buying cycle
mapping
Buying cycle
stage
Personas involved
Preferred content
Preferred channel
Length
of stage
Exploring
new agency
• Rich: Marketing Exec
• Information
• White papers
• Online search to
respected sites
• Blogs
6 weeks
Short-listing
• Rich: Marketing Exec
• Catherine: Marketing
Manager
• Recommendations
• Testimonials
• Trade websites
• LinkedIn
• Professional
associations
2 weeks
Contact for
discussion
• Rich: Marketing Exec
• Vendor website
• Email
2 weeks
Pitch /
meeting
• Rich: Marketing Exec
• Catherine: Marketing
Manager
• Sean: Marketing
Director
• Presentation
• YouTube
• Case studies
• Face to face
• Written proposal
1 month

43. WHICH PROMOTION
METHODS WORK FOR
WHICH CUSTOMER
GROUPS?

44. Traditional Marketing Methods
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Newspapers
Radio
TV
Billboards
Magazines
Flyers
Coupons
Direct Mail
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Catalogues
Events & Shows
Retail Outlets
Referrals
Sponsorship
Mobile/SMS
Press Releases
Sales People

45. 100M
iPhones
sold since
2007
20M?
Galaxy Note
Phablets
sold
2007
2012
2013

46. The Power of Social Media
200M
1 Billion
1 Billion
Users
Users
Users per month
500M
200M+
70M+
Users
Users
Users

47. Lead capture I
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Search Engine Results
Marketplaces
Pay-Per-Click
Paid Content Networks
Paid Banner Advertising
Affiliates
Coupon / Voucher Sites
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Group Deals / Daily Deals
Email Marketing
Social Media
Supplier Sites
Review Sites
Video, Images
News

48. Lead capture II
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Infographics
Whitepapers
Guides
Newsletters
Free audits
Webinars

49. How do you capture leads?
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5.

50. POSITIONING YOUR
BUSINESS

51. What’s your value proposition?
LOW TOTAL COST,
OPERATIONAL
EXCELLENCE
SUPERIOR PRODUCTS,
EXPERTISE,
INNOVATION
CUSTOMER FOCUS,
TAILORED TO
CUSTOMERS’ NEEDS

52. Ways to develop your OVP
Product
• Are there opportunities for
modifying the core or extended
product online?
Price
• Increased transparency,
downwards pressure on price,
what can you do?
Place
• New channels and new channel
structures.
People
• Changing role of staff and the
time they’re needed.

53. Ways to develop your OVP
Promotion
Physical
evidence
Processes
• New communications’
methods
• Client experience can
change. controlled.
• Adapting the business to
adopt online marketing.

54. Strategy blocks
To develop a strategy for your business, fill in the template below and turn
this into a sentence:
STRATEGY BLOCKS
We will (do this)
With (this product)
That is bought by
(audience)
Because (it does
this)
YOUR RESPONSE

55. ACTION PLAN

56. Action Plan to achieve objectives
ACTION
DETAIL
WHO
BY WHEN STATUS
New market
Agree market and our
product offer
Identify decision makers
and build list
Prepare letter 1 and
despatch
Appoint web company
MD, sales
30/05/13
Contactor
10/06/13
Admin
20/06/13
MD
30/04/13
Agree framework
15/05/13
Create copy
MD & web
co
Writer
Launch new site
Web co
10/06/13
New market
New market
Sort out
website
Sort out
website
Sort out
website
Sort out
website
31/05/13
23/04/13 Met 2 web
companies, got fee
proposal, must decide

57. Tips: Best Practice
1. Decide your objectives
2. Create a plan for the year
3. Integrate online and offline presence
4. Schedule work
5. Share the workload
6. Measure results – Google Analytics
7. Monitor the brand – Google Alerts
8. Review

58. My top 5 actions
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2.
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5.