Welcome to another installment of Dear Dale!
In this special section, we will post a question or two from our reading audience that our Founder, CEO and fearless leader at DeanHouston+, Dale Dean will personally answer!
Here we go!
Dear Dale,
We manufacture a lot of products for multiple markets. What are some marketing tactics we could employ to help us break into adjacent markets?
Dale Dean:
That is a tremendous question! It’s great that you have a strong foundation in the markets you’re currently in, but like anyone experiencing growth, you want to branch out into new areas and put new ideas to use. Perhaps a bit of a “blue ocean strategy” will be beneficial for your company.
The blue ocean method is based on a great book whose theory centers around businesses segmenting their audience to break into new markets where you have little or no competition. Think of it like fishing in a new pond with different bait. You’re purposely going into an empty market – that is to say, one where your products may not be well-known yet but have the potential for big success because you know people in that market value at least some part of what you offer.
The key to this is to focus on a certain secondary value – not the overall or primary value – of your product. This helps identify a part of your audience to whom you can alter your product messaging to cater to their exact needs. In essence, you’re creating a whole new audience in a different market but one whom you already seem to know and understand. This should help open up some eyes in adjacent markets to what you offer.
Happy fishing!
Got a question for Dale? Submit it right here and he’ll respond in a future INSPIRE issue!