Whether your goal is to grow your brand, company size, or profits, growing your business is an essential, yet difficult, process to tackle. Recently on our blog, we discussed three market research questions that will fuel your business growth. The gist was to analyze how you monitor your target audience, competition, and your company's technological advances (or lack there of). Because looking at questions like these from a fresh perspective is sometimes necessary to improve, I wanted to revisit this idea of growing your business with a few more strategic question suggestions.
1. What is your customer's biggest pain point?
As business men and women, we spend our careers trying to best serve the needs of our customers. Whether you are an electronics company hoping to introduce the newest, most innovative gadget or an author trying to write your next novel, you have to know what your customers want. And, typically, your customers' greatest wants are a result of their greatest pains. They say one man's weakness is another man's strength. Well, identifying, understanding and then capitalizing on your customer's pain points will provide your company with an attainable opportunity for growth.
2. Is your strategy aligned with the marketplace?
In our last post discussing business growth, we mentioned the benefit of competitive intelligence and asking yourself how well you know your competitors. We've also stressed the importance of understanding your audience and their needs. When you combine this information to map our the landscape of your marketplace, you must then ask how your strategy aligns with it. According to Copernicus Marketing, Consulting, and Research, only 10-20 percent of new products and services succeed. So, the questions becomes: how can you strategically position yourself in the most lucrative point in your current market's landscape. Because when you do so, you will find the necessary opportunities for industry improvement, and your business can expand to fill those gaps.
3. How robust is your market analysis?
If we aren't careful, it can become rather easy and convenient to ride the coattails of others. In fact, many times companies find satisfactory success doing just this. But when it comes to truly wanting to grow your business, satisfactory just doesn't cut it. If you truly want to reach new heights, you can't rely on others or on what is already there. You must think outside the box, analyze in a new light and pave your own path. Steve Jobs put it so well, saying "Don't be trapped by dogma-- which is living with the results of other people's thinking."
Thanks for reading!
Ashlan Bonnell
Writer
MarketResearch.com
