Marketing today has changed from what it was in the ‘60s and ‘70s, mainly because of the increasing competition in every segment of the market. Today, customers are ‘over satisfied’. The marketing companies have segmented the market to such microcosmic levels that it has become too fragmented to service them profitably.
Today most consumer products and distributed by big names like Wal-Mart or Costco. Though the market is flooded with brands, there are actually lesser manufacturers. The life cycle of every brand has become brief, which makes replacing every product more meaningful than repairing them. This makes the whole marketing process a bit more complicated.
Though all marketing efforts must be geared to feed the customer ‘need’ , there are many companies who focus more on their products. For instance, they are focusing on a particular category and then the sub-category to which it belongs (example: juice concentrate and then flavor). Then they decide on who will consume this product. Those who they consider are unlikely to use the product are eliminated from their marketing efforts. While doing this, they are simply opening another channel for competition to enter.
Agreed, that you have taken a lion’s share of the market as you control 75% of the market share because of your USP (unique selling proposition) like flavor, convenience of use, attractive packaging, etc. But have you ever thought about controlling 100% of the market and not allowing any competitor to even a bit of the pie?
To be able to do this, what you require is some innovative marketing – in other words called ‘Lateral Marketing’. Stop feeling complacent with 75% of the market share (Vertical Marketing) and think how you could capture the customers who still are not yours. This may require further market ‘segmentation’ but at the same time you are expanding the market.
Let us imagine that you are marketing soap and you control 75% of the market because of one single attribute – it requires less quantity of the product to make more suds. Your competitor who is playing in the balance 25% of the market would rather spend less than use less soap. Your aim to increase your market share would ideally be to indulge in some lateral thinking and not launch a separate brand.
Lateral marketing is all about working with the same category of product which is complementary to each other rather than acting as a competition. Innovative thinking could result in soap with more bleach, less foam, free of fragrance but with more foam – the permutation and combination can be endless. Even the pack size and presentation could change, like larger economy packs, selling in individual packs or the formula of the product could be altered to make it more improved and add newness to the brand. This type of strategies works best in stagnant and mature markets which are not showing any major growth. The strategy could also create new markets which would require greater marketing expenditure and affect your company’s business vision to a large extent.
This type of innovative marketing would not create new categories but would create a separate segment within the primary category. With this you could capture that 25% of the customers which were going to someone else, yet you are marketing soap, at the end of the day!
