Tweak Your Business Based on the Market Research

TWEAK YOUR BUSINESSBASED ON THE MARKET RESEARCH

march_2013

Tweak Your Business Based on the Market Research

MARKET RESEARCHSHOULD DICTATE HOWYOU RUN YOUR BUSINESS.

—Use research to realignyour business to the realitiesof the market.

—Businesses get started usuallybecause of some kind of market inquiry. Even if it’s just hearing family members complain that there should be an easier way to do (fill in the blank), that’s research.

No, this is not sacrilege or throwing out all other principles of business. It’s a sound approach.

TIME TO CHANGE FOCUS.

Relative Market Share(Cash Generation)

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BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP MATRIX

—How businesses evolve, however, sometimes excludes market research altogether. Leaders start making decisions based on gut instinct or pressure from stakeholders. In some cases, companies have kept supporting a losing product just because they had invested so much time and money into its development. Decisions become internally focused.

Tweak Your Business Based on the Market Research

FIRST, DO A STATUS CHECK. You need to have an intimate understanding of your status in the market and the factors that impactyour success. These are just a few examples, but make it a habit to find answers to these types of questions:

How much marketshare do you have?

Why are your competitorsbeating you?

Why is your best offeringperforming so well?

Where do you stand:Are you No. 1or No. 25?

Which companies mightleapfrog you in thenext year?

Why is your worst oneperforming so badly?

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Tweak Your Business Based on the Market Research

NEXT, STARTSEEING THE GAPS.

—If you’re already on top of your position in the

market, they shouldn’t be, but not everyone is

so lucky. Start looking at where the answers

took a major departure from your previous

assumptions. You could be losing in one market

and not even have realized why. You could also

have an offering that’s kicking ass but not getting

enough sales support. Those departures are going

to be where you have to prioritize your next moves.

—Are the answers to any of these questions surprising?

SALE

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TIME

INTRODUCTION GROWTH MATURITY DECLINE

Tweak Your Business Based on the Market Research

—Companies that utilize market research to improve their business don’t follow every little suggestion that could come out of analysis. There isn’t time or budget to do that. You have to prioritize your research findings and see how changes to those areas will affect your business success. For example, if one market is doing very well because a distributor is always on time and efficient, see how you can replicate that distributor’s processes across your network. Changes in processes can improve sales without overhauling your offering. But if it’s time to update or even eliminate an offering, make a plan to actively manage that transition.

Don’t stall because you want to keep waiting and seeing.

FINALLY, TAKE SOME ACTION — BUT THE RIGHT ACTION.

PRODUCT SALES PERFORMANCE

LEADINGPRODUCT A

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CD

Tweak Your Business Based on the Market Research

RESEARCH IS JUST THEFIRST STEP. And there are many more areas of marketing that will impact how you run your business.

—What’s important is that gathering information is a continuouspart of your business process. Get a glimpse at how else marketingcan help your business strategy by downloading The Message Manifesto. THE

MESSAGEMANIFESTO