Now and then, we hear of companies trying to enter new markets. That’s just how business goes. But this does not mean that all attempts are bound to be productive. The unfortunate reality is that for every successful market entry, around four others fail. Introducing a product or service to a new audience or an entirely new location with its own distinct culture is inherently risky. So, how can you enter a market? You need a solid market entry strategy.

 


>Download Now: Free PDF How to Maximise Margins


 

When your company grows and flourishes, it’s natural to realise it’s time to look into new markets where you can thrive. However, the confidence that comes with being able to expand often causes managers to ignore potential dangers to new market entry, leading to failure. The key to avoiding this loss is to identify what issues most usually contribute to market entry failure and how to successfully defend your company from them.

 

In this article, we provide a comprehensive guide for firms launching a new or existing product in new markets. First, we define what a market entry strategy is. Then, we discuss the reasons why certain enterprises fail to enter new markets. Next, we outline the processes of how to enter a market with an effective strategy. Finally, we examine a successful market entry case study.

 

At Taylor Wells, we believe that a robust market entry strategy can ensure success and prevent excessive losses while businesses enter new markets. By the end, you will know how to boost your brand’s confidence and understand the dynamics of market entry.

 

 

How To Enter A Market With A Competitive Strategy

 

What is a market entry strategy?

 

A market entry strategy, also known as a go-to-market (GTM) strategy, is an approach that assists you in defining your ideal customers, aligning your messaging, and positioning your product for release. It also puts important business segments on the same page, enabling you to satisfy a market need while refining your product successfully. Entering new markets without a solid market entry strategy is likely to fail.

 

What are the market entry barriers?

 

1. Insufficient market knowledge

 

One of the most typical errors organisations makes when they enter a new market is a lack of research. Analysing your new target demographic is critical not only for promotion but also for selling. For instance, the marketing team may generate valuable interest in your company, but it is up to the sales team to convert that interest into income.

 

Consequently, having a thorough grasp of your new market’s values and preferred modes of engagement allows your sales department to better comprehend how to pursue, handle, and close deals in a way that the new market will accept.

 

2. Failure to convey a distinct message to the market

 

Some businesses find themselves lost when describing their value to new clients. Ask yourself, what distinguishes you from your rivals, and how does this serve your target market? Often, companies have yet to address this issue because they never needed to in their current market.

 

Not knowing your product or service well enough can stymie your expansion into new areas. Remember that understanding why customers choose your brand allows you to communicate more effectively with your new market.

 

 

3. Overlooked feedback

 

Some companies enter new markets despite statistics indicating a poor possibility of success. Take note that victory in one market may not translate into triumph in new demography. Thus, you need to be aware of the research and data that suggest prospective performance.

 

Often business executives have difficulty understanding that their product and market strategies may require a few alterations before entering a new market. Without realising it, they are setting themselves up for failure, exposing the company to irreparable consequences.

 

How to enter a market successfully?

 

1. Establish an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

 

The first thing you need to enter a market is an ICP, articulating your ideal customer. This is the type of customer that will likely benefit the most from your product or service while also bringing in enough revenue to make your company profitable.

 

To design your ICP, you must first know your prospective customer’s identity, which includes their lifestyle or work operations as well as the kind of issues they experience daily.

 

What you need is relevant and reliable data. Questionable information will most certainly result in wrong client engagements, whereas good data helps your teams to craft data-driven marketing and sales tactics that target the right people, leading to faster business growth.

 

In B2B, ideal customers are often those who can utilise your product to raise their income, cut costs, increase efficiency, or boost the productivity and well-being of their employees. Defining your ICP generates value in terms of revenue. ICPs can also provide recommendations, customer feedback, and reviews.

 

2. Monitor your competitors’ product lines and the value they deliver.

 

Knowing where your product or service fits in the market is critical to any market entry strategy. Why? Because understanding what your competitors are offering and considering the value they deliver to their customers lets you position your products and services.

 

You can begin by reading online reviews about the company. Sort by applicable market segments. Small and medium-sized businesses, for example. By doing this, you will know what customers appreciate and detest most about your rivals.

 

Another perk is that you can collect more data for your ICP. You can also benefit from studying minor and major market trends that can affect your launch in the short and long run.

 

3. Set the appropriate campaign message.

 

Branding and messaging are all about conveying the value of your product or service to your ideal customers in a way that addresses their needs. To do so, you must know them well.

 

Listen to or watch marketing demonstrations or get information from salespeople. Focus on how they present their objectives but also notice their flaws. You may even look up certain competitors and see how customers react to them. Complement this by reviewing case studies and online reviews.

 

Then, turn your attention back to your company and its competition. You must know all of your competitors’ existing messages on their digital platforms, as well as how they handle the branding and marketing of their offerings. This will allow you to determine your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

 

After that, you must create a proposal for executives that includes major insights about your competitors’ positioning compared to your own. Explain how distinctive your product is and how you can assist your ICPs in resolving their concerns better.

 

Finally, to cement your messaging, you must get a consensus with top company executives. It’s fine if there are several adjustments before you cross the finish line. That is completely normal. It can only hint that the final messaging and product branding were filtered and were most likely the best that the team could come up with.

 

4. Outline your budgeting objectives and your intended results.

 

how to enter a market

 

All effective market entry strategies have well-defined frameworks. You can create these structures based on the resources or money you have. We recommend that you opt for a 50-50 divide between your internal and external efforts throughout the initial run of your market entry strategy. This way, you establish achievable goals and then compare them in terms of utilisation.

 

External-based Initiatives to Enter a Market

 

You might have multiple outbound sales agents operating on your launch, for instance. Thus, you may calculate their engagement rates by evaluating the number of emails they send every day. This allows you to forecast how many appointments each agent can organise.

 

Following this, you should use the appointments to assess and update your agents’ objectives. This will enable you to develop your full budget and set data-driven metrics and sales targets to strive towards each month. However, if you find yourself falling far short of these expectations, you may have to revise a component of your market entry strategy appropriately, such as your preferred ICP, to boost efficiency.

 

Internal-based Initiatives to Enter a Market

 

Now it’s time to monitor your inbound and marketing efforts. This begins with an approximated cost-per-lead (CPL). Then, throughout the sales pipeline, you must integrate expected conversions from one phase to another. You can also calculate how much money you’ll require to achieve the very same quantity of prospects as outbound.

 

You can capture these opportunities using a balance of content and paid advertisement. Don’t forget that you should vary and explore alternative techniques as a part of your market entry strategy.

 

5. Design your strategy.

 

To connect with and attract your ICP, you must employ a variety of strategies altogether. These refer to your data, marketing tactics, content management, and partnerships.

 

Data Strategy to Enter a Market

 

Quality data, as previously stated, is necessary to reach your ideal customers. Using appropriate data, your sales team may target people who are most probable to purchase your product or service. This will support you in crafting the perfect outbound sales plan.

 

Marketing Tactics to Enter a Market

 

Enable testing, experimenting, and optimising when developing your market entry strategy.

 

Begin with an offer. Then, consider tailoring this offer to the lead sources you think are most likely to convert your ICP. Of course, you’ll need distinct offerings for the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel. You’ll also have to promote the offer uniquely on each channel.

 

Initiate the most basic — the bottom campaigns. They’re jam-packed with immediate gains and valuable takeaways. Consider targeting customers on online platforms like LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook, as well as developing campaigns on Google and Bing that target highly-searched phrases. After this, you may undertake your top and middle strategies.

 

New Product Pricing Strategy to Enter a Market

 

 

Pricing is crucial when introducing a new or current product to a market. The price of your products impacts their appeal to your ICP. A world-class pricing team can help you get the best pricing model.

 

Our findings show that with the right setup and pricing team in place, incremental earnings gains can begin in as little as 12 weeks. The team can capture at least 1.0-2.25% more margin after 6 months using well-researched price management techniques. After 9-12 months, organisations are frequently generating 3-7% higher profits every year as they find more complex and previously unrealised possibilities, efficiencies, and risks.

 

Content Management to Enter a Market

 

While data is the driving force for your outbound lead generation efforts, content is the impetus of your internal lead generation endeavours.

 

When developing a content strategy to advertise your product or service, the first step is to conduct keyword research. Although there are free services, paid solutions such as Semrush are significantly more sophisticated.

 

SEO tools like these allow you to examine the keywords that your competitors are already ranking for and uncover domains that you can monopolise. Moreover, you may also check the ranking of your target keywords and discuss your performance with the rest of the team.

 

Partnerships to Enter a Market

 

If you’re introducing a new product or entering a new market with little brand recognition, you’ll need to work with some partners. Organisations with similar ICPs can assist you. Especially if they have significantly greater brand recognition than you.

 

Co-marketing efforts will get your product or service in front of the right stakeholders, generating recognition and demand. Collaborative virtual events, white papers, and cooperative digital marketing are some of the most effective co-marketing efforts.

 

6. Enable a feedback mechanism.

 

Creating a feedback mechanism among marketing, sales, and product development teams will ensure that the important takeaways from your market entry plan are implemented. To do so, you must hold your team responsible for every aspect of your strategy. Making these individuals communicate their performance and accomplishments regularly can help you overcome hurdles.

 

Feedback mechanisms will assist you in identifying a strong ICP to target through the appropriate channels, marketing to attract customers, and developing products/services that better address your ICP’s problems.

 

 

What’s a good example of entry into foreign markets?

 

In the mobile phone industry, it’s hardly surprising that people associate quality products with Apple and Samsung. So Huawei, a relatively new Chinese company, has to do something to gain recognition. Let’s look at its entry into the Indian market, where the brand encountered some challenges.

 

To establish an impression in the Indian telecom provider industry, Huawei sought to differentiate itself by developing a distinctive style as well as a reputation for dependability. This prompted a major obstacle for two reasons. First, Indians have perceived Chinese enterprises as difficult to work with and Chinese-made items as mediocre and substandard. Second, China and India have strained relations.

 

Huawei began growing its presence in India by launching R&D and authorised service centres. Along with this effort, the company sought to hire mostly locals to prove their dedication to creating value for Indians rather than just profit. What was the result? India now has Huawei’s second biggest research centre outside of China.

 

The company is currently marketing its phones as aspirational devices and collaborating with local English language networks to disprove the reputation of a low-quality Chinese product. The takeaway is that creating trust, maintaining good relationships, and demonstrating a consistent dedication to the new market can lead to a successful footing and additional prospects.

 


〉〉〉 Get Your FREE Pricing Audit  〉〉〉


 

Bottomline

 

To enter a market requires a competitive plan of action. A market entry strategy, or a go-to-market (GTM) strategy, is a plan that outlines how a company will interact with customers to persuade them to purchase their product or service and establish a competitive edge. Executives must learn to manage a range of approaches to establish an efficient GTM. Pricing, sales and channel approaches, the purchasing process, new product or service launching, product rebranding, and product promotion into a new market are all parts of a GTM strategy development.

 


For a comprehensive view and marketing research on integrating high-performing capability team in your company,

Download a complimentary whitepaper on How To Maximise Margins.

 

Are you a business in need of help to align your pricing strategy, people and operations to deliver an immediate impact on profit?

If so, please call (+61) 2 9000 1115.

You can also email us at team@taylorwells.com.au if you have any further questions.

Make your pricing world-class!