Companies are always on the lookout for opportunities to increase their share of the markets in which they are active. They want to expand their presence in such markets so that more people become their customers and use their products. This aim is called market penetration.
There are several ways that a business could go about achieving this aim. But before they set out to do so, they will need to ascertain the size of the market they already hold as a percentage of the entire market. This will give them a good idea of where they’re presently and what’s left for them to target.
If you are an entrepreneur looking to deepen your company’s market penetration, here are several ways you can do so.
Change Your Prices
One way to attract more customers and get a better market share is to tweak your prices. You could either increase your charges or decrease them. The pricing strategy you opt for will depend on the market you’re trying to capture. Lower prices could drive penetration in lower-budget demographics. Hiking them may draw patronage from persons looking for premium products.
Here’s a word of caution: You must understand the audiences you’re trying to get to with your price adjustments before you change your prices. If the market you’re selling to is sensitive to price movements, fee hikes could cause them to stop buying from you—the opposite reaction from what you’re trying to achieve.
Make Your Product Better
This is probably a no-brainer. If you improve the quality of your product—and market it as an enhanced version of what you’ve previously sold –you may get many more people interested in it. This will work if your market values such improvements. Not all industries or customer types are keen on this.
Sometimes you don’t even have to make substantial changes to your product. New packaging, with perhaps a few minor modifications, may be enough to get new buyers interested in your offerings.
Be Innovative
You can get ahead of your competitors by being more innovative in building and delivering your products. Innovation doesn’t have to be hard. Most of it is about tracking changes in your market’s tastes and motivations, learning from customers and vendors, and examining your competitors to spot possible areas you can improve upon.
Get creative at redesigning your products, making purchasing from you much easier, and drawing in more customers via referral programs. Execute these at a sizeable scale, and you’ll deepen your brand’s penetration of your target market.
Leverage Targeted Marketing And Advertising
Marketing and advertising can help you reach a much broader audience than you would if you simply wait to grow organically. This may cost you some money, but the results will make the spending worth it—if you get through to the right market segment.
This is where targeted marketing needs to be emphasized. It’s not enough to just throw money at marketing campaigns and paid ads. Doing this could wind up being a waste of scarce resources. Instead, define the audience you want to reach, and find out how your ads can get to them. Launch your marketing based on these facts to record high conversions and relatively low customer acquisition costs.
Partner With Other Businesses
Joining forces with other businesses could significantly increase your company’s market penetration rate. This strategy is more likely to work if the businesses you’re collaborating with sell products that complement yours. For example, if your company makes and sells formal clothes for men, it could partner with a business that makes and sells formal shoes (e.g. Oxford and Derby shoes).
Partnerships between companies that provide complementary products and services may help both parties involved, as they get to sell to each other’s customers and expand their reach in their target markets.
Final Words
It takes time and a great deal of effort to boost market penetration. But many businesses have accomplished this, so it’s doable. All that’s required is the right mix of resources (personnel, finances, and technologies) and a determination to get past current obstacles to growth.
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