What is a marketing opportunity? It’s a way to grow your business or brand. It allows you to connect with potential customers and attract new leads searching for solutions your company can offer.
No one wants their company’s growth to become stagnant or stall altogether. But if you’re always doing the same tactics with your marketing campaigns, that is exactly what will happen.
You’ll reach the same people with the same message, and they’ll start to tune you out. To grow, you must look for new ways to reach your ideal audience and get on their radar.
How to identify a marketing opportunity
To find potential marketing opportunities, you must know your ideal customer intimately. You also need to know your marketing goals.
With that information in hand, here are three ways to uncover the next best marketing path for you to try.
- See what marketing opportunities competitors in your niche are using with a competitive analysis.
- Do market research to identify new places where you can reach your target audience.
- Talk to your current customers. They know you and can often identify new ways to reach and help others who need what you offer.
To help kickstart your list of potential marketing opportunities, here are 10 ideas for you to consider.
- Create interactive marketing content
- Guest post on key sites in your industry
- Advertise with Gmail
- Promote high-performing content on Facebook
- Host a podcast (or being a guest on podcasts your ideal customers listen to)
- Create video content
- Generate ads on sites your target market use
- Host a giveaway
- Invest in original research your audience cares about
- Use automated email marketing campaigns
It’s important to remember not all of these opportunities are right for your business, and you don’t want to spread your marketing budget too thin. Otherwise, you dilute your efforts, and you won’t see the results you want.
How to decide which marketing opportunities to pursue next
Instead of trying everything to see what works, analyze each opportunity before you begin. This way, you can see if it’s a good fit for your company.
As you complete a market opportunity analysis, ask yourself these questions:
- How many people do you have the opportunity to reach?
- Are those people potential leads for your business, who need what you offer and can afford to purchase from you?
- What is the impact of pursuing this marketing opportunity on your marketing budget?
- Do you have the time, energy, and resources to give this opportunity a try?
- What do you need to do before getting started?
- When can you expect to see qualified leads come in from this marketing opportunity?
- Does this opportunity support your overall company goals?
Your answers will help you decide if you should give the new marketing opportunity a try. You may also decide that one would be a good fit for you later, but not right now. If that’s the case, leave it on your list of potential marketing strategies, and come back to it when you’re ready.
Make sure your new marketing opportunities are producing results
You want your marketing decisions to be data-driven. Once you’ve had time to implement a new marketing opportunity, give it some time to run, and then go back and make sure it’s delivering results.
Analyze what you’re spending, how much traffic you’re getting as a result, and what return on investment you’re getting.
These numbers can help decide if you should continue what you’re doing or tweak your marketing strategy or if you need to scrap this plan and try something different. That way, you can be sure your marketing budget is doing what it’s supposed to do, helping your company grow.
