Market Penetration: 3 Winning Audience Strategies

Stefan van der VlagBest Practice, General, Guides & Resources

9 MIN READ

Market penetration can be a tough decision, especially if you don’t know what to expect. You’re going to deal with customers that think differently. Not only that, though, but they may also even have different norms and cultures. And sometimes you don’t understand their language. I guess it’s safe to state that penetrating a market comes with its own share of hurdles. And it can be a daunting task if you’re not equipped with the right strategies! See, without a proper strategy… It doesn’t matter how much preparation or market research you have done on your target audience. Many companies fail because they forget to do their homework. And because of this, they usually end up making swift decisions. A good strategy protects your business from poor choices.

Moreover, a good strategy will not interfere with its growth in the long run. And as you’re going to spend money on advertising… Remember, you may have to sell at lower prices to capture the audience’s attention… As a result, you incur some acquisition costs. Think about it. There are loads of brands that have attempted to enter new markets. Only to see themselves retreat early on. These brands are not startups and have been in the business for quite some time. But they still fail to penetrate new markets anyway. Why is that? If such brands have failed in their attempt to penetrate new markets… how sure are you that your brand is going to manage without the best strategies at hand?

So, are you already wondering what strategies you can use to penetrate the market? Well, we compiled a list of a few of them in this post. Hopefully, this helps you increase your share in a market that already has fierce competition. But before we get to that, let’s first find out exactly what market penetration strategy is.

Let’s Define: Market Penetration Strategy

Market penetration is the homework a business needs to do to grow its market share in a market where they already have their products and services. Getting recognized in a market that already has established brands… especially with their loyal customers… is not easy. It’s like breaking into someone else’s courtyard and forcing yourself to get recognized. 

Now, there are different approaches you can use to penetrate your new market. And, the ones that will work better for your business are the educational and community-based approaches. These approaches have worked for many companies, but they are clearly not a walk in the park. Finding new sales opportunities is necessary for growing your market share. And being able to grab new customers in the market place is not going to be easy. Your brand is going to face both direct and indirect competition. And you’ll need a smart, data-driven strategy to challenge them. 

Market Penetration is not going to be easy.

So, are you prepared for that?

See, market penetration is risky… The market you may be willing to enter is already saturated. And your customers or clients already have their trusted brands. Convincing them to switch is going to take a lot of effort if at all, you’re going to succeed. But you can’t just give up without trying! Because if you manage to penetrate the market… your business will achieve substantial growth as well as have immense revenue growth!

3 of the Best Market Penetration Strategies to Use

1. Focus on Educating People

One of the best ways to penetrate new markets is to make educating people your top priority. Like we’ve already mentioned in the definition part, education is one of the best approaches any brand can use to penetrate the market. Of course, your target here is to reach a large group of people within the shortest time possible. But, you can’t educate all of them at once, so you focus on a specific group. Select a small group that will act as a representation of the larger group.

Once you have your target group, find out the problems they have in common. From there, you find out how your business can help solve these problems. Remember, you’re not going to focus on how your business can benefit from these people. But how you’re target audience can benefit from your products or services. People are more interested in value, and you must ensure you provide just that. Ensure these people understand the benefits they’ll get when they transact with your brand and gain their trust in the process.

Put yourself on the shoes of your target group and think about what you’ll like to learn from the brands you follow. Your target group expects to get some valuable content from what you’re going to teach them. That’s what you’ll expect to get, too, if you were the learner. You need to get nothing but the best from your tutors, right? Your target audience expects the same, and you can’t gamble with this expectation. After all, they have nothing to lose, right? And they can easily switch to your competitors if they’re not satisfied with what you’re offering

Here’s how it panned out for Dr. Berg:

Market Penetration with Dr. Berg

Image Credit: Dr. Berg

To learn more about how to channel your education towards the expectations of your target group… you can take some lessons from Dr. Eric Berg. This is a keto diet expert who runs chatbot, and he does it all with its focus on education. The health expert has been very successful in his with up to a million subscribers. He’s gaining up to 20, 000 new subscribers every month. From the number, you can conclude that his marketing course is indeed a hub of interest to followers.

According to the doctor, there was no much information about his product out there. And yet there was too much competition. They wanted people to learn about it and hence created an education channel. This channel allowed people to learn anywhere at any time. Dr. Berg’s strategy was to provide value for his target customers before asking for sales. The strategy was very brilliant, and it worked wonderfully. He reached his target audience through a new channel and penetrated the market in a very clever way.

You can also adopt this marketing strategy. And as a result, it can generate a lot of sales as well to increase your market share. If the market you want to penetrate doesn’t have bots… You may wanna consider swooping in and claim that strategy first. Do this, no matter how competitive your business is because it can position you as an authority fast. 

Here is how you can do it too:

  • Build your expertise on the topics of interest
  • Get qualifications necessary for understanding specific skills for the industry
  • Find out what problems your existing customers already have
  • Create a bot strategy that will open up your distribution channels

2. Create a Community for Market Penetration

The next strategy you can use for your market penetration efforts is to create a community within your target market. There are a lot of things a community can do for you in your efforts to penetrate a new market. Think of communication with your prospects, providing support. Or safe communication between you and your brand. Additionally, a community will position your brand as a leader in the current market. This list of what a community can do for your brand in your efforts to penetrate new markets is endless.

A community creates a platform where everyone feels welcomed and equal. The members can share their problems openly. And within the community, they give their opinions without holding back. This is better than a family setup. And your brand can interact with the audience in a more personalized manner.

Take lessons from renowned experts such as Saleem Ahrar. Thi guy is an e-commerce enthusiast and the founder of WithinTheFlow. This is a private Facebook group consisting of dropshipping entrepreneurs. Saleem first focused on building a community when he set out to start building a market penetration strategy for his business.

Here’s how it worked out for the guys at WithinTheFlow:

Get this in Messenger button

Image Credit: WithinTheFlow

When creating WithinTheFlow, Saleem and his team, found out common problems affecting entrepreneurs. They wrote valuable content intending to address these problems. The team has managed to bring together up to 5,000 members from all over the globe. They still have 2,000 waiting to join. They succeeded in building a community by discovering the problems people have within their audience. This, of course, is one part. Part 2 is finding solutions through discussions within the group.

From the examples taken from WithinTheFlow, there is no doubt a community works. Especially in helping you reach potential customers and educating them in the process. If you manage to build a thriving community using a messenger chatbot as this company did… you will be 1000s of steps ahead towards penetrating your desired market. All you need to do is to dedicate your full effort to realize it. Make the necessary adjustments where needed, and patiently wait for it to work out. Of course, it will take time. But eventually, your brand will be able to build networks… start partnerships, and connect with a community within your industry of interest.

Awesome, right? Let’s move on to the third strategy.

3. Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads have, for a very long time, worked in ensuring you can reach out to your target customers. Especially about letting them know about your products or services. Of all the social media platforms… Facebook is a very successful one in helping you get people to see your content and interact with you. This makes Facebook Ads one of the best strategies you can use if you want to penetrate new markets.

Facebook ads provide you with a platform to gain the immediate attention of your target audience. You can quickly increase your brand awareness via this brand. Once you get your product out there. And you capture the attention of your target audience… You can focus on communicating with your acquired lead via email list, Facebook Messenger, or through SMS. The leads generated by these ads provide an easy way to get those contacts and email addresses. This is important. Because it will help you communicate on a personalized level with your prospects.

You need the engagement this platform can help you generate. It helps to build more reliable connections with your target customers. The platform gets your brand out there and gives it the recognition you deserve. Think about it… Many of your target customers are spending most of their time on Facebook. They do it more than they do on other platforms. Facebook ads just follow them there and ensure they notice the brand.

This is one of the best strategies for gaining entry into new markets. Because you won’t struggle to be noticed in a market that is already saturated with competitors offering the same services. Advertising through this platform is also the best way to test the market. And decide whether to penetrate it fully or retreat. Of course, things do not always work as planned, and sometimes you might be forced to flee. But then if you know how to exploit the ads to work in your favor, market penetration won’t be an uphill task.

Here’s a real-life example:

5 Napkin Burger is one of the brands that have managed to penetrate new markets using FB ads as their strategy. It led to getting more local customers within its 4 Manhattan locations. They did it by building a database for their interested diners to be used later in marketing.

They managed to drive business on their side using Click-to-Messenger Ads:

Click-to-Messenger Ad Example

Image Credit: 5 Napkin Burger

The brand didn’t stop there… The restaurant continued to acquire new customers by building relationships. Later they invited them to receive news about the restaurant as well as special offers. The ongoing communication helped them get repeat business. And as a result, they claim successful market penetration.

Bottom Line

It doesn’t matter which one of these 3 strategies you choose to use for your market penetration. All of them are very effective. And all 3 can help your business find its way into the new market if you understand how to use them. But, before you choose any strategy, you must first understand how challenging this is going to be. And you should only dedicate resources and be patient if it’s going to help you out. Again, no strategy is better than the other. You just need to find out what’s going to work for your brand. And this begs for testing and patience.

So, I guess you’re up! Dig deep into your system and find out what works and how it works. These are 3 strategies you can use to penetrate a new market with bots. Follow those success stories of brands that have succeeded before… and see if you can adopt their strategies. And remember, don’t forget to add an education-based marketing campaign into the mix. Because this approach is going to contribute a lot to this journey – especially long-term. Education is what will establish your brand as an expert in your target industry. Because this will help you gain the trust of your customer. Remember, the space you want to enter is already competitive… and you need the best strategies to succeed.

Try to penetrate a new market with a chatbot today… Try Clepher.


Click Here to Discover How to do Market Penetration with Chatbots!

 

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