Week 5 - MBA 6601 - Market to Scale Camp

 Moving on to the next stage in Ascend Your Start-Up focuses on how to move your product from being marketable to making it fit in within the market that it is being offered. Having a good marketing strategy will, unfortunately, only take you so far. Studying the market and have a go to product strategy that targets where your active audience is, is essential for selling your product within the right market. You should focus on distribution channel strategy.

Having a solid channel strategy is a way to multiply your product sales and accelerate your revenue. You already know where your competitive landscape is, or at least you should by this point, so now you should get a good grasp on the distribution channels and the match has to be perfect. Do not get this confused with go-to-market strategy. A go-to-market strategy is the roadmap to launch your product, whereas, a product market fit is placing your product so that it satisfies the market in which you place it. Know that this product market fit will change over time as your company and product grow and develop both within the product itself and the environment where it resides. 

Knowing all the different distribution channels and where your customers will purchase your product from is a good indication of how your will conduct each stage of sales. Gathering data within this process is essential and usually focuses on lifetime value of the customer, cost of acquiring the customer, and payback on customer acquisition costs. You should utilize this data to unlock the lifetime value of the customer to accelerate your company and product growth. 

One way to help with this is to determine an effective pricing strategy. Strategic pricing is a way to let customers know that you are bringing something of value to them. You also need to do your homework in this area to determine what value you need to bring. Supply and demand analysis tells you what is out there and how you can competitively price what you are offering. If you offer something free to begin with, you need to determine how to turn that free customer into a paying customer, and you should plan ahead so they do not just fall off before you have been able to devise a plan for doing so. Standard pricing keeps the price of the product consistent across markets despite shipping and taxes and can work really well. When utilizing competitive pricing you really have to do your research on what your competitors have to offer and what you can realistically offer in discounts without harming your business. 

I really think with the push to buy local that has happened over recent years, companies have the potential to price their products a little higher and still keep the sales volume. Especially in the United States I feel like there has been a movement to undercut large corporations and give back to those in their community. Devising a solid strategy for marketing and really focusing on your customer base and their wants and needs will serve you well as a business. It is really important to listen to customer input and find better ways to serve those that are going to make your business a success. 

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