VUCA times make any business strategy volatile and flexible. The strategy shouldn’t include strict guidelines the business needs to follow; it should involve a set of options and reference points. So as marketers, we should look for new ideas and markets constantly. this holds true whether you run or market for a B2B service company or a company that makes FMCGs or mass-market goods. Everything changes fast. New markets and opportunities arise, including the metaverse, blockchain-based services and new product categories. Where and how should you look for new ideas to brainstorm with your team?
Bringing Best Practices From One Market To Another
Years ago, travelers brought tea and coffee from regions far away. While the popularity of the drink grew, entrepreneurs likely struggled to grow leaves and beans in their homelands. Some succeeded, and today we can buy an originally grown tea from many regions of the world.
This is similar to the classic success story of Starbucks. The company was originally founded in Seattle. Then-new team member Howard Schultz went to Italy and decided to “bring the warmth and artistry of its coffee culture to Starbucks,” according to the company website. Today we all know the variety of coffee-based experiences we may find in one of the 34,317 coffee shops across the globe. That’s how the transfer strategy works. We take something that really works in one market and adjust it for another.
This could be a service, experience or product. The transfer is normally made from one country to another, from one continent to another or from one industry to another. Amazon started as a marketplace for books; today, it’s a whole universe of FMCGs of many kinds. The marketplace idea itself became popular. We have Airbnb for short-term renting, Booking.com for hotels and Skyscanner for airline tickets.
A friend of mine, Max, launched an application to track pregnancy for his wife years ago. Now he is a father of three and runs a pregnancy tracking app; he has also built an ecosystem of services for health and happiness, and his company’s applications offer 52 language options.
To compare, about 447 million people inhabit Europe versus the 335 million that live in the U.S. The available market of other countries could potentially exceed a domestic one. I would call it the breadcrumbs strategy. For some companies, providing a service or product for dozens of small countries in a localized way may bring more success than competing in one top market.
Where To Start
Look at highly competitive markets, travel more, and follow the people. How do citizens of other states, countries and continents resolve the issues you are working on? What do they love and enjoy? Could it be amplified in your homeland? Observation is a key part of finding what is missing and what you could embed in your own work.
Taking Things From B2B To B2C (And Back)
Most software as a service startups are dreaming big. They scale in the consumer market and launch enterprise licenses because with each enterprise sale, they gain more customers per deal. This guarantees a certain volume of annual fees and allows for investment and scaling.
Amazon started with an online store; today, it provides a set of IT services to many kinds of businesses. They literally chose best practices, scaled them and offered them as subscription-based services to any B2B customer.
Grammarly, a startup founded by Ukrainian-born entrepreneurs, released an English writing assistant for students in 2009. In 2019, the company became a unicorn (with a $1 billion evaluation) and later launched a B2B service. Today, more 30,000 business teams have used Grammarly, as have I.
What It Means To Pivot
Gaining a totally new customer segment demands time and money. Normally, pivoting (changing the course of business) from B2B to B2C or visa-versa happens when your original market does not allow you to grow anymore. Pivoting involves creating a totally new story for your company. In these situations, I highly recommend doing customer deep dives. Features your B2C consumers are in love with may be inapplicable for business clients, so it’s important to understand what a new market needs.
Expanding Your Customer base Or Offerings For Existing Customers
A couple of weeks ago, I was working on a workshop for an IT company and was looking for a tool to work with: something that could help to decrease stress but that is still fun and creative. My family likes to use Legos, so I made a program using bricks. While mining for the ideas, I discovered the concept of “Serious Play,” which was developed by Johan Roos and Bart Victor and aims to enhance business performance. Today people all over the world are participating in Lego Serious Play workshops to build 3D models of their thoughts and ideas. In my experience, exercises like these can improve internal communications and allow teams to collaborate more productively and improve creative thinking.
Lego started with wooden toys for kids. Today they offer a variety of options for any age, and the sets’ themes change. You can build Lego flowers or a bonsai tree for your garden of the future, make a Van Gogh “Starry Night” painting or Rolling Stones logo. Companies that employ strategies like these are generally constantly looking for new customers or ways to expand the experience existing customers have with their company.
Getting Started
Step into customers’ shoes: How are they using your product, or how could they be? Play-Doh originally started as a tool for cleaning wallpaper, but one day the founder discovered that it could be used as a modeling clay for children. Today, Play-Doh is a part of the Hasbro group and provides endless craft possibilities for kids and adults.
