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Market expansion is something that every entrepreneur has on their mind when it comes to growing their company and looking for new customers.
With the internet, new paths for this are being traced, but not always taken advantage of. This is because the virtual world, no matter how many possibilities it offers, needs to be explored with strategy and planning.
Given the challenges of market expansion, it is essential to know the best strategies to take advantage of it efficiently.
In this text, you will have the opportunity to learn more about market expansion and why it is advantageous for a digital business.
How important is market expansion?
When a company grows, it sees market expansion as a way to generate new revenue and diversify its offerings.
This is especially true when an opportunity is mapped that, in some way, aligns with the current demands met by the company.
But, in addition, market expansion can bring other advantages. Check out what they are.
Reducing risks
One of the premises of market expansion is to diversify your offerings with new products or trying to reach other audiences.
By having more offers, you can reduce your company’s risks by multiplying growth opportunities.
When done with planning, expansion studies all market risks in order to mitigate them, managing to do everything necessary in advance to avoid them.
Cost reduction
This other advantage is very similar to the previous one. This is because cost reduction happens after studying the market carefully, giving the chance to find opportunities for budget optimization.
From there, the investment is targeted, with little risk of losses and waste.
Optimization of internal processes
When there is a choice to expand the market, it is necessary to carry out an internal audit to ensure that your processes are in compliance.
This audit ensures that all processes are reviewed and improved when necessary.
This ensures that the company will be competitive in its expansion, with the best internal practices.
Sustainable growth
Finally, an advantage that is the result of the others. Expanding your market is really advantageous, but when it is done without planning and in any way, the consequences can be disastrous.
Therefore, growth needs to be scalable and structured, which will provide more sustainability to your company, which will be able to understand its risks and scale them, making better use of each scenario.
Step by step to apply market expansion
There is no shortage of arguments to start expanding the market for your digital company. But how?
Check out this step-by-step guide with some tips to implement in your company.
1. Identify new personas
The persona is what can be called the ideal customer for your business. It brings together a series of characteristics based on data and studies that reflect the audience that converts most to your product.
Identifying new personas means recognizing that there is a new audience to be captured for your business. Therefore, it is interesting for your company to study new consumption habits of a potential audience to begin expansion.
2. Study market competition
It is very difficult to find a market without competition for your business. Therefore, it is necessary not only to find these companies and study them.
This study is an analysis from the public that that competition serves to its product, finding opportunities for action.
Always follow new campaigns from this competition and monitor their market movement. It’s not about “espionage”, but rather understanding the company’s behavior in this niche so that your company can operate in a healthy way.
3. Choose an expansion type
Defining the type of market expansion will indicate the direction of your planning: do you intend to expand your audience in other areas? Launch new products? Enter another niche?
Everything will depend, in the end, on choosing certain goals. And, in the digital market, all these possibilities can be realized simultaneously, even though the challenge is greater.
4. Set well-defined goals
This step could be the first. Regardless of when you will think about your goals, it is important to have them.
The goals need to be short, medium and long term, so that they reflect the final objective of your market expansion.
These goals need to be systematically monitored, and rethought if they are off track.
Therefore, when stipulating, establish a number that is consistent and achievable. In addition, of course, they are metrics that can guide your efforts to expand.
5. Make financial planning
Having financial planning is essential for your expansion campaign to be sustainable.
This plan will make your efforts viable and prioritize those actions with high impact and little financial effort, for example.
In addition to understanding your working capital, what investments can be made and what has given the most return.
6. Create partnerships
Understand partners as stakeholders who help enhance your expansion. They are suppliers, companies that already operate in your market, but without direct competition, and people with authority in the niche you intend to penetrate.
7. Have marketing prepared
Finally, structure your marketing. Have a team that can focus both on attracting new customers and on establishing the image of your business in this new market.
These teams need to work together so that your business can evaluate the performance of the expansion.
