Growth Strategies - Introduction to Market Penetration

There are a number of opportunities available to business owners that will allow you to grow your business. This can be expanding and developing your existing product/service range, options for diversification, entering new markets and more. The most important element that will help you decide which route to take is market research and then setting goals that you are able to measure. 

Market penetration is one growth strategy that allows you to develop your existing market. Retaining existing customers through development of loyalty schemes and having a real focus on building existing customer relationships is an essential element of this strategy. 

A market penetration strategy gives you the opportunity to focus on selling to additional customers within the same market which reduces the risk involved.  One way you can achieve this is starting to sell in a different ‘place’. You may want to start selling online, or even opening additional retail locations. The way you increase your market penetration rate will depend on your business and the market in which you are operating. 

Developing strategic partnerships is one great way to expand your reach and can be a very cost effective option as you will be able to rely on others resources. This allows you to mitigate risk and will help you utilise lessons already learned from those partnerships. These partnerships could involve working with retail partnerships and selling your existing products in alternative retail locations. These can allow you to increase sales as well as increase brand awareness. You are able to access a new customer base within the market you are already operating.

It is important that you make sure that you develop a sustainable growth strategy. Sadly there are many SMEs that move too quickly and invest too heavily in this strategy. Ensuring you have enough cash flow to continue and maintain existing operations is essential, and this can be a real downfall for those businesses that do not take this into full consideration.