Business is never simple. There are so many dynamics involved in our day to day business lives that we sometimes don’t know which work to do on which day. But due to this busy status, many times our competitors take the lead from us. Quite simply, either we were complacent, or they were smart or it was simple bad luck.
If our competitors are less and the market share belongs majorly to us, then we need defensive marketing strategies. However, if our market share is under attack, or competitors have taken a majority market share, then we need strategies in place to gain market share. Instead of complicating this article for you, I have made it pretty simple.
Step 1 – Analyse your competition
In the article on How to analyse your direct competition, I have given several steps to finalise who your main competitors are. The market analysis begins from this step and then goes on to the other steps. One of the crucial thing here is to be realistic about your competitors. Generally, if you are doing such an analysis for the first time, only observe direct competition and not indirect.
Step 2 – Make a comparison
An excellent way to understand why your customers are leaving you, is to do a business to business comparison. Here’s how you can do it.
- Calculate all direct competitors in your region
- List down all their products and their complete product portfolio
- Compare the product portfolio of all those who are above you or below you
- Analyse the features which are absolutely missing in your portfolio or things which you are doing incorrectly
- Do a SWOT analysis for yourself and find our your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Once you have such a comparison ready, you will know why your customers are choosing your competition over you and why they are shifting base to competition.
Step 3 – Add value to your products
Now that you know your competition thoroughly, it is time to act on the Analysis. Add as much value as possible to your products so that you gain market share slowly but surely.
- Add more products to your portfolio if possible to attract new set of customers
- Add more features in existing products
- Reduce the cost so that you can fight on the basis of price
- Increase the service delivery levels so that your customer always leaves happy
- Invest in business and increase the infrastructure if you have to
Above are some of the ways to add value and gain market share in your market. Remember that this methodology works best when you have analysed your competition thoroughly. The more you analyse, the better it is for you, and the more insights will be received by you.
These insights can help you defeat competition altogether. When you want to gain market share, you have to remember that Holistic marketing is the best marketing strategy to help you. You need to improve the organization at its core to gain a solid market share and reach the dominant position.
Many a times, you can use the competitive ladder approach. First, beat the single competitor who is just above you. Then the one after him, and then the one after him. This systematic approach means you have to invest only to beat your next in line competitor.
It also means that you will probably not get a lot of market share fast. But hey, doesn’t the tortoise always win from the hare? At least that’s what we were taught.
Hitesh,
I have a very innovative product in a niche market. There are less than 5 total competitors in our space and we are trying to figure a way to show it to the customer base and gain market share. There is a nationwide need for the product. Our product is also in flux on pricing based on certain budgets of each potential customer. I can tell you that its a product that will be used in govt, so budget is an issue. Also, the main competitor is a 2-3 person company. We are bigger, have more resources, better innovation, developers, support and overall ease of use. The problem is that the overall space has very small differences Coke/Pepsi ultimately, however the bells as whistles we have are more technologically advanced and will save major time and resources for the user base. What would be your suggestion in presenting this to the market? We’ve showcased it and some states use it exclusively, but there are a lot of states and even more entities within each state.
The only problem i can find in your case is distribution. All the other things you have mentioned show that you are confident that your company can make it big. But something is holding your approach to customers. If so, then my suggestion would be to get more people on board specifically targeting sales and distribution. Because that is a major time consuming process.
You mentioned Pepsi and Coke in the above example. You were probably mentioning that the differentiation between the products is not much. But the only reason most of these brands are actually surviving in the market is because of their distribution and supply chain. So if a majority of your market is *unexplored* and you are confident of your own ability, then i will suggest to first concentrate on exploring the market completely. And to give yourself some good time because results will not come immediately.