Developing New Market Opportunities

By: Rachel Newcombe - Updated: 9 Sep 2012 | *Discuss

 

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As your gardening business grows and expands, it’s a good idea to try and develop new market opportunities. But how do you find and go about developing these new market opportunities?

Successful businesses are prepared to, and do, evolve over time and there comes a point when it’s worthwhile to begin to develop and target new market opportunities. Even though your existing business model and approach may be working very effectively, it never hurts to try and expand into new areas. By doing this you could introduce new products, new brands, gain more customers, try introducing new angles or new ways of doing business.

Developing new market opportunities can bring all sorts of unexpected new angles to your business and broaden your horizons considerably. But you do need to know where to find the opportunities in the first place

Finding New Market Opportunities

One of the key ways in which new market opportunities can be discovered is by keeping on top of any new gardening trends and ideas that arise. With the gardening and home and garden sector it’s very common for particular gardening trends to come and go in popularity, with many being picked up from ideas started in other countries, such as the US and Canada.

You can keep an eye on potential new trends by checking out US-based gardening forums, reading consumer and trade magazines from the US or seeing which new products are launched there. Of course, it’s also really good to keep up with the British media too, so you can see what new ideas are being highlighted here.

Your customers also play an important part in the life of your business, as them buying your products or employing your gardening services helps keep you afloat. So don’t forget to investigate the possibilities of finding out what they’d like and where they’d love to see your business heading. Carrying out simple market research activities, from getting customers to fill in questionnaires or take part in small focus group sessions, can be a valuable part of identifying potential new directions.

Business to business networking is also useful for helping you find and develop new opportunities. Interacting with other relevant gardening organisations not only helps identify potential new angles, but can also open up new market opportunities. For example, a similar business may be interested in teaming up with you for special events or promotional opportunities. Or they may have news of a great new product, or range of products, that are looking for a suitable retailer and it could be your chance to get in on the act and stock them.

Whenever you’ve decided to develop new market opportunities, don’t forget to think about your budget and work out how much you can set aside to do this. If, for example, you discover a new product range you’d like to stock you will need money at hand in which to invest in it. You may also require funding in order to do some of your market research or pay a small fee to focus group participants.

Finally, it’s good to view exploring new market opportunities as fun and enjoyable. A business that evolves is far better than one that becomes stagnant and you never know where new market opportunities could take you.

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The Importance of Setting New Business Goals

Seeking New Ideas and Inspiration

Learning from Mistakes and Experience

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