Post by Trade Coach on Feb 3, 2017 23:40:52 GMT 1
Most times, when we are launching a new product into the market with an existing players that are doing well, that one may think launching such a new brand along side the one on ground could be daunting task. But marketing has a lot in common as with the military strategy. No wonder, you find marketers and the military with the use of words as attacking a position, strategy, campaign, defending.
First weigh your strength and weakness in comparism with the existing market
With honesty, do a thorough assessment of what you have as weapon or strategy in your organization (product/services) that is superior to the existing ones, just as the military will first access their fighting power before confronting a war. Check if you have enough resources as the existing players, because an exiting market leader will have more facilitators, more outlets and maybe bigger marketing budget
Avoid head-on confrontation unless you have almost three times a leader’s resources
Here is another relevant marketing strategy. Defenders sometimes have an advantage unless the challenger possesses about 3 time size or resources. Again, the exiting leader or player already has exiting loyal patronage and well known customers in the market. The market and the customers will always give them benefit of doubt over the challenger. That is the simple rule of the ‘’devil you know is better than the angel you are yet to meet’’
For you to be able to attack the market leader head-on by claiming that you also can do what he does better, you will need to do things far better (3 times better) or more to be able to share better percentage of the existing customers. Therefore, it is important for you to exploit the weakness of the market leader and build your strength on those weaknesses. Remember, there is no perfect product or services. For instance, if the benefits that customers in a market want is three, usually, the existing leader may be satisfying only 2 of the needs and may tend to satisfy the 3rd need averagely. It is impossible to be tall and also be a short person at the same time. If you study closely the strength of a market leader, you will discover a weakness in that strength.
Find the things that he could not do well. If a market leader’s product is taking care of the needs of tall customers, design your own product of same category to suit/fit the needs of the short people/customers in the market for you to have good market share of the business.
As soon as you discover a solution to the weakness of the market leader, concentrate on attacking from that position of weakness.