The Market Map
A business that is trapped in a revenue plateau quite often is looking for that silver bullet that will fire them to the next level of growth. Growth fundamentally is an outcome of many different activities. The challenge for any business is what combination of activities need to be done to achieve that growth outcome.
A focus on products that can scale is an approach to achieve growth. If you are to concede that a business where revenues have plateaued has not easily found that silver bullet, then the approach to identifying how to scale needs to be more methodology driven.
A Market Map is a methodology that enables you to see who loves you, who are your biggest competitors, and who is holding the most power in the marketplace, it focusses on the six market characteristics:
- Customers
- Channel
- Competitors
- Suppliers
- Partners
- Money Flows
Drawing out the marketplace in the market map allows you to see all the players on the field. The goal of the market map is to get a good view of all these players, where your business fits in, and what actions you may need to take as a result to move from the plateau that you are currently trapped in.
A market map is a pragmatic methodology that is key in the decision making as to which products you choose to scale from a Marketing Attribution Framework methodology. Why, because the Market map shows you at a strategic level the possibilities for scaling and making money from this product.
Money Flows
The strategic importance of a Market Map is to understand how the money flows – the incomes and outgoings.
You will be able to see, from your current position, where your strengths are in the amount of money your core customers spend with you each quarter. You will see:
Which customer type love you based on the spend levels and whether that spend was growing. Which customer type that are not in love with you and the spend diminishing.
Which competitors you are competing with and the opportunity to understand what type of products are now beneficiaries of this spend.
The Market Map methodology also looks at the outgoing spend to deliver a product. At a strategic level it will aggregate pass through revenues to suppliers with a correlation to the incomes from customer types.
In a world where ecosystems are required to deliver a quality customer experience, very few businesses can deliver a full portfolio of product in-house. This Market Map methodology will identify the level of spend. It will identify the level of dependency with certain suppliers, which may impact how the business can scale. Do the products that have been identified to scale:
- Create even higher dependencies on these suppliers?
- Give you greater buying power?
- Open the possibility to invest and deliver the service yourselves?
Outcome
The outcome of a Market Map exercise needs to co-exist with identification of your Core Customer and the scalable products you have identified to deliver growth from a Market Attribution Framework. The outcomes will provide a strategic insight on:
- What type of customer buys your product and service today and are they the same customer type to achieve scalable growth.
- What are your supplier costs and how does this change to achieve scalable growth.
- Who are you competitors and which customer type are they also working with.
- How big a business change will be required to achieve scalable growth in this market.
Every business that has plateaued has different characteristics and positions in the market right now. A Market Map typically occurs after the Market Attribution Framework and Core Customer methodologies, but that does not need to be the case if the scalable product has already been defined.
- Market Attribution Framework - is a methodology to identify products where there is a Market need and to create a differentiated strategic position in the market from which to achieve revenue growth.
- Core Customer - is a methodology to identify to identify who is the target audience for these products and services, what are their roles, what are their core needs, what are their drivers. This targeted strategic insight establishes the foundation for the development of a unique position for the business in serving the needs of this market.
