4 Basic Strategies for Business Growth plus how to build a growth marketing plan around your strategy.

1. Prepared by Hot Dog Marketing
Key Strategies for
Business Growth

2. When to Grow?
• When you know you can handle it
• You have the people, time, and resources to sustain more
business
• When you have the systems to scale
• Resources may be easy to acquire with scalable systems
• When stakeholders demand it
• Investors demand growth or clients demand more/better
services
• Opportunity/changes in the market or partnerships
• A competitor has exited
• Market demand has changed
• New/more resources have become available

3. Market Change Example
The Pandemic:
• The pandemic forced everyone to stay
at home, closing gyms and fitness
centers
• Peloton is a stationary bike with a
“boutique fitness class”-like experience
• Peloton seized this opportunity to grow
and boomed in popularity

4. Where to Grow?
4 Areas of Business Growth
• Market Penetration
• Market Development
• Product Development
• Diversification

5. Market Penetration
Gain more market share
• You are currently in a market, but want
to grow your share of the whole market
• Focus on customer acquisition
• Winning customers over from
competitors

6. Market Penetration Example
Winning e-commerce:
• To gain market share, targeted
competitors and outpriced them
• Even sold some anchor items at a loss
to win over customer loyalty
• Now, Amazon.com is the biggest online
retailer and one of the most valuable
companies in the world

7. Market Development
Expand your product into new markets
• You are currently in a single market, but
want to expand to another
• Focus on customer acquisition in the
new market
• New market may be geographic or
elsewhere in the supply chain

8. Market Development Example
Expanding to Small Business:
• Served the general population with
peer-to-peer payment transfers
• Expanded system to allow small
businesses to charge and receive
online payments

9. Product Development
New products for the same markets
• You are currently in a market and want
to capture more value from the
customer base
• Focus on creating an ecosystem of
supporting products
• New products can include creating your
own solution where customers have
historically purchased through third-
parties

10. Product Development Example
Creating an ecosystem: Apple
• Created a better product than the
competition
• Expanded into more electronic
consumer products that made
integration simple and easy

11. Diversification
New product for a new market
• You are serving an audience within a
market but want to branch out into
completely new territory
• Focus on where you can utilize current
operations, systems, or partnerships
• Diversification can be the beginning of
a bridge between currently unrelated
markets and products. It can also be a
hedge against significant market
changes

12. Diversification Example
New territory: Facebook
• Acquired Oculus, a virtual reality
gaming device
• Announced plans to merge Oculus use
with Facebook accounts, bringing
device users into their social media
ecosystem

13. How to Grow?
Create product development and
marketing strategies

14. Market Analysis
Are you expanding into a new
market or gaining more market
share?
• Who are the customers?
• What are the customers’ buying
habits?
• How large is the target market?
• How much are customers willing
to pay?
• Who is the competition?
• What are the competitors’
strengths and weaknesses?

15. Depending on which growth strategy,
your interviews may go broad or deep.
• By phone? In-person? Online Survey?
Focus group? Maybe all of them
• Consider asking the following:
• What did you like or dislike about the
product or service?
• What do you wish was different about the
experience?
• What would make it better?
• Why did you choose our company?
• Why was ____ feature important?
• What questions do you have for me?
Customer Interviews

16. Competitor Research
Through interviews or other research,
identify who will be your main
competitors
• Is it a single industry leader or many
smaller competitors?
• What are the competitor’s strengths and
weaknesses?
• What partnerships do competitors have?
• What are their marketing channels?
• How long have they been in the industry?
• What is the public perception of the
industry leader?

17. What assumptions are you bringing
into this venture? Validate those
assumptions.
• Ask the market if this is product they
need and how much they would pay for
it
• Do your assumptions align with the
responses?
• What needs to change?
• Is this venture still viable?
Validation

18. Growth Plan
Identify Audience Channels
Find the channels that the target market currently
uses. Engagement should be tailored to the
platform.
Identify Current Channels
Decide whether you can reach your new target
audience through channels currently in use.
Although don’t assume you can.
Plan the Engagement
Engage the audience through digital ads, organic
content, email, events, print ads, radio or podcast
ads, or a mix. Engagement should align with how the
audience uses the channels.
Whether expanding market
share, entering a new market,
or launching a new product,
develop a plan for engaging
the target audience

19. Execute the Plan
Put the marketing plan into action and
adjust as you go.

20. Thank You!
These are only some ideas for business
growth.
What other ideas are there?
Want to learn more about Marketing
Growth Strategies?
Check out:
https://hotdogmarketing.net/growth-
strategy/