In this post, we go over 4 ways to disrupt your market and stay significant in your industry.
The maxim “innovate or die” is a rallying cry for organizations that want to remain relevant in these fast-changing times.
Every minute of each day, competing businesses are springing up with new ways to snatch your employees and clients.
These brands are constantly searching for new ideas that will increase their market share and enable them to take over the industry.
If you do not want to wake up to the sudden realization that all your clients are gone and your company has been thrown out of business, you cannot afford to maintain the status quo.
But what does it mean to disrupt your market?
Believed to have its root in the concept of “disruptive innovation,” an idea coined by Clay Christensen, a Harvard business professor, disrupting your market is introducing new ideas and discarding the conventional way of meeting your market’s needs.
It is a business strategy that entails employing novel methods that depart from the established way of doing business.
Disruptive business leaders are risk-takers.
Rather than adhering to conventional approaches that have been generally accepted by experts, they experiment with novel strategies.
These business leaders are quick to sense a wind of change in their industry and take the necessary steps to prepare for takeoff.
Consequently, they are the first to take off when the wind arrives, leaving their competitors in the dust.
Why do you need to disrupt your market?
Despite its high risk of failure, disruptive innovation is an effective way to keep up with technological advancements and ever-changing consumer needs.
It is one of the strategies organizations, big or small, can apply to stay ahead of the competition.
Market disruption was the strategy Netflix employed to replace video rental companies (and now, cable TV). Today, Netflix is the largest movie house worldwide, despite having no physical cinema to its name.
Market disruption was the method Uber, the largest taxi company globally, applied despite having no taxis to its name.
On the flip side, refusing to embrace change and disrupt their market is the reason several popular brands have failed.
Nokia, Kodak, Yahoo, Blackberry, MySpace, IBM, Xerox, Segway, and Toshiba, are some of these companies.
Having seen how result-oriented market disruption can be, the next question that comes to mind is: how can you properly disrupt your market so as not to end up with a huge failure on your hands?
This post offers four invaluable insights to facilitate your attempt at market disruption.
1. You need to understand your market and its needs
Understanding the needs and pain points of your market is vital to attracting and retaining the right customers.
Additionally, this knowledge will assist you in creating the right disruptive strategy that will solve their problems and meet needs they did not even know they had.
That is how Uber was born.
The taxi company started by identifying people’s hidden headache of not being able to get a ride at certain hours of the day or in particular locations.
After several experiments, the founders came up with the idea of Uber as we know it today.
Other good examples are Apple and Netflix. No one called these companies to tell them it was time to produce iPhones, iPads, or an online streaming TV service.
Instead, by observing their market, these companies were able to pinpoint market needs and propose solutions.
Understanding your market will enable you to craft disruptive strategies that are relevant and suitable to their current needs. [Tweet that]
2. Be unpredictable
For several reasons, brands like Coca-Cola are famous around the world.
One of these reasons is their unpredictability when it comes to advertising their products and marketing their goods.
Unlike its contemporaries, Coca-Cola’s marketing strategies are typically unique, humorous, and unexpected.
Whether you are considering its “Share a Coke” campaign, its “Open Happiness” and “Hug Me” promotion, or its “AHH Effect” marketing innovation, the company has continued to disrupt its market with its unpredictable marketing tactics, beating its competitors’ hands-down.
This unpredictability is not only limited to promotional strategies.
You can choose to create a product your market does not expect or offer a service they did not think possible.
Back when horses and bicycles were the means of transport, people who needed a faster transportation system would have expected faster horses or speedy bicycles.
No one would have expected automobiles.
3. Offer new radical products and services
Offering radical solutions to problems is another way of causing a wave of change that will leave competitors reeling.
Still using the bicycle and horse example, Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motors, stated that if his customers were asked what they needed to get to their desired location faster, they would have said a faster horse.
Rattling the market by offering new but radical services is what companies like Amazon and Alibaba have done.
The retailing giants have given their customers the opportunity to purchase necessary items from the comfort of their homes.
4. Be innovative and willing to take risks
Disruptive marketing is risky and requires adequate research and product testing before implementation.
But if you are going for it, why not go all in?
For you, going all in may require going against the best practices of your industry. It may require you to create humorous ads around your otherwise serious product or to create a radical new good or service.
In all, disrupting your market will require innovation, creativity, and dimensions of thinking above and beyond the norm.