Market Building: A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

Over the years we’ve worked with many spin-outs and start-ups who are innovating an almost completely novel product category. For these pioneering businesses, the inherent 'newness' of their solution incurs an additional marketing overhead: the cost of educating future buyers about this new class of solution and why it could be valuable to them.

As a true innovator, in order to successfully move prospects into and through the sales funnel, your marketing programme needs to help target customers fully understand the strategic significance of your new solution (including how it fits within their existing ecosystem of solutions) plus, potentially, persuade them to create additional budget for the benefits it offers. That extra educative step may seem onerous for early-stage companies who are already heavily bootstrapping their marketing and communication resources.

However, taking the early initiative to build market awareness for a burgeoning solution area is never a wasted investment: it gives your organisation the opportunity to play a dominant role in growing the overall market 'pie' and, ultimately, securing a bigger slice. Sooner or later - if your value proposition is sound, your solution compelling, and your addressable market sizeable and attractive enough - new entrants and challengers will inevitably emerge. When they do, they should be welcomed: they will be validating and proving your market.

We're firmly of the belief that competition is a good thing. Our advice to clients is always to remain large-minded - not small-minded - when it comes to competitors. Strategically balancing co-operation with competition is a smart approach for creating profitability, sustainable competitive advantage, and long-term business success. A rising tide does indeed lift all boats.