Expanding Your Business Through Market Development

Have you been looking to expand your business into new markets whilst continuing to grow your existing clientele? With the help of thorough planning and the implementation of a strong business strategy, you could be confidently doing both.

Current marketing trends and practices show that businesses which adopt a development strategy are more sustainable and offer a considerable advantage over their competitors. Once your business has saturated the potential of its local market, you may be looking to further expand into new markets and further expand your horizons. In the business world, change may be inevitable, but growth is not – business growth depends on your strategy and goals. A virtual office is something that could really help you expand into new markets.

Your Growth Strategy

Your business will have most likely started with a business plan, which you may have used to secure funding in the early days. You will have already proved that there is not only a demand for your product or service, but you are also a competent business owner. The only difference this time is that you are making a case for expansion.

Whether you are requesting funding from investors, a bank loan or self-funding it is good practice to have a growth strategy plan in place. If you do require funding in the future, you will already have a plan you can use to demonstrate your business goals. 

Using Market Knowledge

Developing a successful growth strategy will require the application of some fundamental marketing activities and techniques. Firstly, if your business has only been providing its services or products in one area, you need to be sure that it will expand elsewhere. To geographically grow your business, you will need to source out potential hotspots outside of your locality. Do your competitors have virtual offices in specific geographical areas? It may well be that they are picking up new customers from that location.

To properly prepare your business for growth, we recommend that you take the following steps when creating your development strategy:

1. Define your new target market(s) – determine the demographics and the geographic location (research virtual offices in new areas).
2. Do your market research – the more you know about your potential customer base and your competition, the easier it will be to identify your niche in this new market. 
3. Enter the market or look for another target market – after completing your analysis, you should have a good sense of the growth potential in the areas you are looking to expand.
4. Create a plan to enter the market – how will you promote your business and deliver your products within the area? How will you sustain the current business through customer satisfaction?

Cost Vs Action

The amount of investment will depend on several elements, from the cost of your market research to advertising, product development and staffing. When entering new markets, you can keep costs down whilst you’re initially researching and starting in the area, by making use of virtual offices. 

Here at Venture Offices, we provide several different virtual office packages, starting as low as £15 a month depending on your budget. This is a great way to test out new geographical locations without having to physically put any roots down or spend money on an expensive office building. Most of the highly desired locations for market share are in big cities, which unfortunately means extremely high costs too! 

For more information on the packages we offer, please give us a call on 01205 809222. We can’t wait to help your business expand into new areas and grow your brand locally.