Business Growth Tips: How To Expand Your Business Into New Markets

As an entrepreneur, you’d love to set up new locations and conquer more niches. But you’d rather do this when you’re ready—when your business is buoyant enough to spread its tentacles.

This article walks you through the steps you can take to get into new markets. Here they are:

Be Certain That You’re Ready To Expand

Ideally, you’d want your business to be in a strong position before you consider broadening its reach. We’ve already hinted at this. It should be meeting and surpassing its customer acquisition, sales, and profitability goals. And it needs to have a management team that’s capable of taking it to new levels of growth. Don’t make the move to expand unless you have these sorted out.

Decide How You Will Expand

Expansion can take any one of these forms: setting up in a new location, reaching new market segments, or targeting other niches/industries. Sometimes it’ll be clear what path you should take. In other instances, things may not be as straightforward. So it’s important that you probe your options before choosing one.

Survey Your New Market

Study the market you’re looking to get into. Examine its size and its demand for products similar to what you offer. Also, survey your potential competitors (whether they’re direct or indirect).

Assess The Impact On Your Business

Your move to expand will impact your business. Don’t go through with it until you’ve weighed this. Think about how it will affect your team and its existing dynamic. You may need to hire new people. Your aim should be to make necessary adjustments without upsetting your business’s operational efficiency. You also don’t want to deplete your resources beyond what your current establishment requires to run smoothly

Fine-Tune Your Business Model

How will your new product or outlet generate revenues? This is a question you must answer before extending your enterprise to new frontiers. A business model that reaps good profit will have the right mix of teams, financing, marketing, processes and execution. Design a model of this and decide how you’ll implement it in your new market.

Devise An Entry Strategy

You may choose to build your presence in your new market without help from parties outside your business. This approach will see you set up in a new location, complete with your own distribution system.

Get The Resources You Need

The resources you should secure will depend on the type of expansion you want to execute. For example, if you are targeting a new market segment, you may want to hire marketers who are skilled at reaching and engaging that demographic. If you’re going the route of purchasing a business in your new market, you’ll need to get financing for the acquisition. You may also have to hire new employees to fill roles at your new location.

Sell To The New Market

When you begin selling to your new market, make sure to highlight all the ways in which your offering is better than existing alternatives. Let your target audience know how your product can improve their lives. Connect with them over offline and online channels, especially the ones they use the most.

Final Words

If you’re going to make your business expansion a success, you’ll have to come up with a well-thought-out plan and execute it smartly. Examine the market you’re getting into, and prepare to deploy the right resources for growth. By doing these things, you’ll establish a formidable presence in your new market.