8 Ways to Ensure Market Domination Creating a unique niche like bacon-infused vodka and diversifying product like CDs at Starbucks will help to seal your deal to ultimate success.
By Adam Toren
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
A variety of internal and external forces can affect the longevity of products and services your business offers. Understanding how your business excels where your competition does not is a crucial element in dominating your market. Incorporating these strategies into your marketing plan can push your organization into becoming an industry leader.
Related: 4 Marketing Principles to Dominate Your Target Market
1. Create your own niche.
Perhaps the most effective method for market domination is to create your own niche market. You're more likely to succeed at market domination if you're operating in the fringe with little or no competition. When Bakon Vodka released its handcrafted bacon-infused Vodka in 2009, it was the first of its kind on the market and became an instant success. Finding a niche where you can harness your passion for your work increases the likelihood of your business becoming an industry leader.
2. Develop your product or services.
Just because your business is successful now doesn't mean it possesses the elasticity necessary to survive in the long term. This is especially true if you're operating in a highly competitive market. Offering modified or new products to your current market segments keeps your business relevant in a dynamic industry. Diversifying your product attracts new niches to your business as well. For example, Starbucks leveraged new product development by offering pastries and sandwiches and diversified its product selection with CD sales.
3. Identify external forces.
A variety of external forces affect your market, including environmental, socio-cultural, demographic, economic, science, technology, legal and political forces. These factors affect market trends and may hold the key to dominating your market. For example, the state of the economy during and after a recession has a large impact on both consumer and corporate spending alike, while smart devices have created a larger demand for health and fitness data tracking.
4. Provide value and solutions.
What value are you creating? What problem are you solving? The answer to these questions is crucial to dominating the market. Your products or services should create a solution or provide value in places where your competitors are lacking. Highlight the incentive you're offering so your prospects understand exactly why they want to do business with you, or better yet -- why they need to do business with you. Identifying prime consumer motivators can help you realize your business's true value.
Related: Want to Stand Out From the Crowd? Know Your Unique Value Proposition.
5. Communicate with your market.
While you may be offering business services to the masses, you can achieve greater success by understanding what attracts specific niches to your business. Creating conversation with your customers provides insight into where customers find the most value from your business -- and where they don't.
You can implement feedback strategies and provoke conversation with your customers through a variety of platforms, including customer service, website forums, social media and survey forms. Personalizing email communications with your customers is a great method for building value and trust online.
6. Establish credible talent.
In addition to communicating with your customers, you can establish credibility for your business through the conscious procurement of talent. If your employees are happy, it is reflected in the work they perform.
Displaying photos of team members on your company website and social media profiles enhances your credibility while making your business appear personable and approachable. Hiring writing staff to write blog posts on company or industry news is a great method for invoking ethos from prospective customers. It also encourages your readers to share your content and is a great resource for free marketing and outreach.
7. Implement cost-leadership strategy.
Developed by Michael Porter, cost leadership involves offering the lowest cost in the industry on products or services. In order to successfully implement this strategy, your sales must still earn your business an acceptable profit after expenses. You may cut the burn rate of your business by consolidating operations or hiring freelance workers and independent contractors. While implementing a cost leadership strategy isn't possible for every business, it's proven to be a highly successful strategy for many large corporations, such as Walmart.
8. Competitive analysis.
Understanding the weaknesses of your competition is crucial to maintaining the competitive advantage. Implement a competitive analysis in your marketing plan to better understand where your business needs to compete most. Once you identify how to provide a stronger benefit than the competition, you need to establish this competitive advantage clearly to truly dominate the market. In the modern age of technology, many companies are innovating products and services to provide a unique mix of value to consumers.
While dominating your market can make your business more successful today, you should continue to develop your business in order to maintain the competitive advantage. Improve your products and services before your competitors do. Don't be afraid of some healthy competition -- competition drives innovation.
What techniques or strategies have you implemented to ensure the success of your business?
Related: The Simpler the Better for Big Ideas
