June 2019 | Blue Donkey

New leads are the lifeblood of most successful companies. Even when sales perform well and the business is running smoothly, most marketing functions still need new ways to increase their lead pipeline, grow market share, boost brand awareness and drive their business forward. Without continual growth, companies can quickly stagnate. If this happens, businesses can become more vulnerable to aggressive competitors and could soon find their customer base dwindling.

One of the best ways a company can ensure they are developing the right growth strategies for their market and their business is to apply Ansoff’s Matrix to their business plan. Tried and tested, this simple but powerful strategy tool will help marketing decision makers map the growth options an organisation might choose between.

What is Ansoff’s Matrix?

Focusing on the key criteria of ‘who should we sell to’ and ‘what product should we sell’, Ansoff’s Matrix combines four broad product/market strategies – existing products, new products, existing markets and new markets. This provides four possible product-market combinations that can be applied to a business plan to create continued growth. Used by companies and strategists around the world, the Matrix is an extremely effective and useful business tool despite its simplicity.

Market penetration

The first quadrant of Ansoff’s Matrix emphasises stability and low risk, combining existing products with existing markets. Known as market penetration, it’s this strategy by which a company increases its sales and its market share through selling more of its current products and services to new customers in its existing market. That could be by looking at its customer base and selling to similar new ones, by offering special upsell and cross-sell packages, or increasing promotion. Growing markets, such as B2B pharma, medical instrumentation and financial services often attract the market penetration strategy.

Market development

Market development is the second quadrant of the Ansoff Matrix. The idea by which companies sell their existing products or services to new markets or a new type of customer. Market development is accomplished by promoting existing products or services to a new audience through carefully segmenting, targeting and positioning the product or service. Often, telemarketing is then used to communicate and engage the right buyers, with a view to building a strong relationship.

Product development

Product development creates new products and services to supersede or enhance existing ones. By anticipating changes in customer needs and developing products that meet those needs, companies use innovation to increase the spend of existing customers. A product development strategy aims to use existing capabilities to offer something new to established clients, increasing a company’s growth in the process.

Diversification

Lastly, when companies look for new products and new markets, the Matrix identifies it as diversification. This can help a company to survive difficult economic periods or focus their brand in a different direction. One of the most challenging strategies, diversification is usually only attempted when a business has a good understanding of their target industry and their target audience, or has a brand that can adapt and lend its weight to lots of new apparently unrelated markets. One of the most famous being Richard Branson’s Virgin brand, which operates in many different markets and lots of different customer types.

Risk

Ansoff’s Matrix has also been successfully used for simply identifying and responding to how risky a particular strategy might be.

Market Penetration Strategy – same product same market – has a low risk because the customer and the product are already understood.

Market Development Strategy – same product new market – has a medium risk because of the need to appeal to new markets or unknown customers.

Product Development Strategy – new product same market – has higher risk because it is very costly to develop and launch new products, plus new product failure rates can be high.

Diversification Strategy – new product new markets – has highest risk because neither market nor product is well defined at the outset, consequently investment is required for both.

By using the principles of intelligent telemarketing, Blue Donkey will help client partners build the insights they need to grow and adapt. To find out more about our targeted strategies, take a look around our website or speak to a member of our team.

References

Ansoff, I. (1957) ‘Strategies for diversification’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 35, issue 5 September–October, pp. 113–24.

Many marketing experts, theorists, economists and business leaders have built credible studies of B2B psychology, customer creation and retention that we continue to learn from today. The concepts they’ve developed have gone a long way in growing our thinking and marketing strategies, with thousands of ambitious companies large and small using their carefully crafted ideas to boost business.

One theory that’s especially applicable to what we do at Blue Donkey is Payne’s Relationship Ladder. Central to many B2B loyalty campaigns and brand awareness drives, this simple but effective theory informs much of our intelligent telemarketing work, helping us to create, build and develop an enduring customer base for our clients.

What does Payne’s Relationship Ladder tell us?

Developed by marketing theorist Adrian Payne in the late 1990s, the Relationship Ladder is an idea that illustrates how customers can be transformed from cold potential buyers, into loyal supporters for your brand. By leading potential buyers through five steps from ‘prospect’ to ‘advocate’ you can nurture exceptional customer loyalty and create a team of advocates who will spread the word about your brand.

Prospect

‘Prospects’ are those people you believe your products and services may be relevant to. Lists of Prospects are broken into segments based on their similar needs (in marketing we describe this as a homogeneous group), they are then targeted with calls and information based around those needs. Often Prospects may have some experience or familiarity of your brand but as yet haven’t made a purchase or really interacted with the business. At this stage it’s important to provide whatever impetus the Prospect needs in order to transform them into a Customer.

Blue Donkey’s intelligent approach involves carefully identifying the right key decision makers, generating the first contact with them, then nurturing a dialogue with a view to getting to the next stage (meeting, sales etc). This method quickly improves the chances of moving a Prospect up the first rung of the ladder. Whether it’s about engaging buyers with a few qualification questions, or the chance to build rapport and share information, this first level of contact is crucial when developing the Relationship Ladder.

Customer

Once a person or business has made a purchase they become a ‘Customer’. If the experience is OK but unremarkable the Customer may or may not come back. We refer to this as a transactional sale. Transactional sales are common in consumer marketing but in B2B we want high value relationship-based sales, where service quality and Customer experience become differentiating factors that win repeat business. This stage therefore has to go well in order for the next rung of the ladder to be considered. In B2B this relationship element is increasingly becoming the factor that generates a premium, builds trust and defines the business from the competition.

Client

Your ‘Clients’ are the people or businesses that return to the business again and again. Regular communication by telephone will help to create and retain clients by reminding them what’s special about your product or service.

Blue Donkey are not afraid to recommend that good relationships regularly require picking up the phone. Taking the time to speak with clients and to properly understand and align with their unique needs or conditions, enables us to develop a stronger ability for giving them what they want time and time again.

Supporter

At the ‘Supporter’ stage, customers are likely to be very engaged with your brand and take an active interest in your company. They’re likely to tell other people about your business, continually choose your products and services and have a loyalty to your brand. Supporters like your brand and your people, but they are still passive about recommending your brand to others.

Advocate

Once you’ve built a strong relationship with a ‘Supporter’, they climb the next rung of the Relationship Ladder to become an ‘Advocate’. At this stage, they’ll have enough trust in your products and services that they’ll promote your business to ‘Prospects’ helping you to build your customer base and ensuring your good reputation in the industry.

Though your ‘Advocates’ will be invested in your business on some level – be that emotionally or professionally – they still need to feel valued if they’re going to stay on the fifth rung of the ladder. Blue Donkey can help you to develop and maintain these crucial relationships, enabling you to focus on making your business thrive.

The Relationship Ladder makes helpful links between quality, retention and profit because the cost of marketing is amortised over the lifetime of a customer with several growth and profit benefits. Customer spend increases over time and customers are cheaper to sell to than prospects because they are already invested in your brand. Additionally, satisfied customers value the service enough to pay a premium.

To find out more about our intelligent approach, or if you want to build and develop your own customer base, contact Blue Donkey today.

Monthly Archives: June 2019

Our quick-fix growth hack using Ansoff’s Matrix