While covid-19 brought the world to a standstill, post-covid times changed market landscapes and forced businesses to revisit their business strategies. While some have had to struggle just to stay afloat, some others have had to tweak and adjust their offerings to realign with the new normal.
Are the changes permanent? We can’t know that yet; suffice it to say that businesses have to tap into the changing market opportunities and adapt if they don’t want to be left behind in the current noisy environment.
How to identify and pursue new market opportunities?
Instead of diverting time and resources into many channels, it is best to identify those that would be beneficial for your business and dwell on those.
Understand how consumers are using your brand or products. Successful marketers are constantly tracking consumer usage to create and reinvent product lines. Also, see if consumers are using it differently now, as compared to before. The internet can be a good place to start your search. Social media is full of hacks nowadays, or creative improvisation, which could give ideas on how your products are used in other ways.
Identifying pain points can sometimes help to eliminate a whole problem by itself. For example, introducing robots and automation solves the problem of repetitive tasks and frees people to do other tasks, while also helping to avoid exhaustion. For someone who doesn’t have time to cut grass, lawn mowers can be a big relief. More importantly, pain points can be the leeway for competitors to ease in and grab the attention of your consumers.
Sustainability is an important factor for everyone now. Consider ways to reduce waste in as many aspects as possible, like production and transportation. Consider increasing the life span of your product.
Track the new trends in the market pertaining to your target audience and see if you can adapt or introduce new products to leverage consumer interests. Many a company has found much success in latching on to this. For example, food bowls were introduced as healthy food bowls many years ago. But due to its immense success and popularity, the complete meal bowl trend has trickled down into retail food chains and restaurants, and many like KFC introduced their own versions of it to cater to their consumers.
Instead of copying competitors, analyse strategies of successful brands that are relatable to yours and try to apply and adapt those approaches to suit your requirement. For example, when Fitbit became a success with target audiences, pet companies introduced similar trackers that are meant for pets.
Rather than taking the traditional route, go for a holistic and complete approach to product development and advancement in sales. Instead of focusing on a specific type of customer, target the needs and attention of your complete target consumer base. Involve those that are part of purchase decisions and focus on the entire range of benefits for your company.
Look for products and services that amplify and complement the purchase of your own products or brand. Think about including those that can give make the purchase process more valuable for your customer. For example, parking lots introduced additional services like car wash and detailing to entice customers; they were bringing their cars there anyway.
In general, view the post-covid times as an opportunity to look at new options and markets, and reshape and reinvent where necessary.
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