Growing Your Business with YCN Series – #2: How to find new markets in 9 different ways
Growing your business means more cash for you now, and a higher sale price in the future when you decide to eventually sell your business.
The 4 key areas covered in this series are:
- Expanding and improving your customer base
- Finding new markets – with existing products or services (what this article will be focusing on)
- Developing new products or services – to open new markets
- Improving profit
Your business’ market, like everything else, will change with time. Over time, you will probably begin to encounter the growth limitations of your original target market. Planning and implementing strategies to develop new markets (before your current market flattens) will not only help your business survive through tough times, it could also give you a considerable edge over your competition. In this article, we’ll outline 9 ways to identify and reach out to new markets for business growth.
FINDING NEW MARKETS
- Create a video channel to increase your profile. If you want to get your goods or services out there in front of a worldwide audience, think about creating a YouTube channel for your business. This is a great way to demonstrate products or share tips with your customers. For example, if you have a background in carpentry and a small business that makes wooden furniture, display some of your products on YouTube to gain a following.
- Use Google Global Market Finder to identify customers in similar markets. Look for customers you’re interested in targeting in markets that are like yours. Google’s Global Market Finder generates a spreadsheet based on monthly keyword searches that ranks the opportunities of doing business in certain geographical locations.
- Use Facebook and LinkedIn to grow your connections. Once you’ve connected with your customers on Facebook or LinkedIn, find people in their networks who are interested in your offerings. For example, if you’re starting up a small business making jewellery from your garage, a Facebook page showing your offerings is a logical and cheap place to start advertising. Find out about how to market on Facebook.
- Exhibit at trade events or conferences. Build connections, demonstrate new products and develop stronger relationships with new markets by presenting your business at trade shows. See what trade events are in Australia over the coming year. However, please note that due to the Covid-19 pandemic, upcoming conferences and trade events have been either postponed, cancelled or transformed into virtual events.
- Investigate opening in a new location. Research the feasibility of successfully opening a new store, office or branch. For example, if you already own a successful wholesale outlet on the western side of your city, think about the value of opening another on the east.
- Bid for Government contracts to secure long-term sales. If your products or services are suitable for government agencies, departments or larger corporates that release tenders for work, you might be able to find a totally new market you hadn’t considered before. For example, if you run an IT company that looks after the electronic data and security of small businesses, are there opportunities to tender for government work? Please contact Your Consultancy Network if you need assistance in bidding for Government contracts.
- Investigate wholesaling and retailing. If you’re a wholesaler, consider opening a retail outlet. Or if you only sell through retail channels, investigate entering the wholesale industry. Take a look at https://www.business.gov.au/Planning/Industry-information/Retail-and-wholesale-trade-industry
- Hire sales reps. Hire sales reps in other regions of Australia to help your business branch out into different markets. If they’re only on commission, it’s a result driven tactic. For example, if you have a growing business in Sydney that manufactures and leases vending machines, is it worth hiring some sales reps in other cities to broaden your potential client base.
- Export out of Australia. Develop an export plan to identify the feasibility of selling outside Australia. For example, you might cure meats and distribute them around Australia to various supermarkets. Have you considered exporting your cured meats to parts of Asia?
NEXT STEPS
- Why not book in for a 30-minute meeting with YCN to help you with brainstorming the above ideas and create a tailored Action Plan to help you find new markets – leading to higher profits and increased value of your business!
- Also, keep a look out for the next article in this Growing Your Business with YCN Series! We’ll be providing steps on finding new markets with your existing products or services.
