Today you’re going to learn some strategies to reach more of your total addressable market, retain customers, and achieve business growth.
This will be helpful if you’re stuck at a particular revenue number or you’ve plateaued in terms of growth.
Total Addressable Market Video Training:
How To Increase Your Market Share
The 1st thing you want to do when you’re trying to acquire more market share is to figure out:
- Where you’re at in the ecosystem of the marketplace
- What the actual total addressable market size is
So let’s put this in layman’s terms…
Let’s say you are at $2 million.
This is a good revenue number for a small business.
But let’s say you’re tapped out and you can’t go any further.
You’ve been stuck here for 2 years.
And you suddenly have this false belief pattern because you’re stuck.
- That’s just the size of the opportunity
- The market can’t go any further
- There’re no more customers
These are all the incorrect things that people think.
Figure Out Your Total Addressable Market Size
There’s a quantifiable way to figure out whether or not that’s actually true.
And 99.9% of the time, it’s not.
The solution is to actually figure out the total addressable market size.
You can purchase data to figure out the size of the market you’re in.
Or you can hire an analyst.
And what you’ll find is 99.9% of the time, the market is drastically bigger than what you think it is.
There’s so much room for growth.
To put this in context…
A client I’m working with came to me and said they’re stuck at $3 million for 37 months.
They asked if they should sell the business and do something else.
They said to me, “I just feel like there’s no more customers and no room for growth”.
I didn’t just go off the gut feeling of the entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurs are smart.
But sometimes they’re wrong.
We actually purchased some data and we figured out what the total addressable market size is.
Give Your Business Room For Growth
And we discovered that it was a $50 million market; they had only tapped at $3 million.
94% of the marketplace was still available for them in terms of acquiring new customers and capturing more market share.
You need to actually figure out what is the quantifiable size of the marketplace you’re in.
You also want to know what percent of the marketplace you have. Where you are at in the ecosystem.
When you know that number…
Then you have an exact target that you can shoot for as you optimize going forward.
Analyze What Your Competitors Are Doing
Now that you’ve figured out that you’re most likely in a very small percentage of the market…
You realize that there’s a large percent of the market owned by your competitors.
Now, this plays into the 80/20 Pareto principle…
Usually the top 2 or 3 competitors have a lion’s share of the marketplace.
Meaning that most of the customers are working with:
- Competitor #1
- Your 2nd competitor
- Competitor #3
Now, if you understand it, they have your customers.
These are the people that you want to be studying.
Objectively, there’s a very high probability that they are doing things on the front end in terms of customer acquisition and channels that you are not doing.
They’re putting out better offers in the marketplace, okay?
They’re talking to customers in a way that you are not.
What Channels Are Your Competitors In?
First thing you want to do in relation to this is figure out exactly what channels your competitors are operating in.
If someone is a top competitor, they are most likely operating in multiple channels.
- Facebook ads
- YouTube ads
- Google ads
- Taboola ads
- Affiliate programs
- Billboards
And usually, businesses that are operating in the smaller size of the market are only operating in just a couple channels or 1 channel.
Expand The Platforms You’re On
If you want to compete, you have to be in the same channels that they are.
How are you supposed to acquire more market share if you’re not actually in the channels that they are?
They’ve already proven these channels work because of the size of the market they have.
There are customers hanging out in those channels.
So you want to figure out what channels your competitors are operating in.
And you want to make sure you’re there too.
Scaling Your Business By Expanding Your Offers
The 2nd thing you want to do is figure out what offers your competitors are making in the marketplace.
Objectively, they have a large share of the market already.
This means they’ve already proven that the offer they put out on the front end is appealing to the market.
Now, it’s your responsibility to understand what they’re doing.
Objectively write it out.
What are they doing better than you?
- Longer free trial
- Landing pages load faster
- Better sales copy
- More upsells
- More risk reversal
You want to do a deep dive analysis.
Don’t let your ego get in the way.
You want to objectively look at what they are offering in the marketplace.
Become The Better Solution
If you want their customers to do business with you…
At the minimum, you have to be just as good as them.
Ideally, you want to be a better solution all around.
If they offer a 14-day free trial, you can offer it for 72 days.
You offer free returns for 90 days.
Make sure your landing pages load faster.
You provide a better customer service experience.
Whatever it is, make it a no-brainer offer where you truly are the best front-end offer in the marketplace.
Everything you put out needs to be significantly better to acquire their market share.
So now you have more eyeballs on your product because you’re in all these different channels.
And more importantly, you’re now putting out much better offers into the marketplace.
Reach Your Total Addressable Market With Ads
You also want to be aware of their ad spend in the different channels.
What if they are putting $15,000 into a particular channel…
And you’re only spending $2,000 a month?
Again, that’s another reason why they have more of the market share.
If you want to compete and grab their market share, you can’t be passive.
You’re playing with the big boys.
Other people have your business and you need to make sure their customers come do business with you.
You Want To Buy From Your Competition
The next thing you want to do is have better product delivery than your competitors.
Go out and buy from the top 3 companies in your marketplace.
Why would you do that?
What would make it a good idea to give them money?
We already know they are the leaders in the space.
They already have a significant portion of the market size.
That means they must be doing a decent job at delivering the products or services.
The lifeblood of every business is repeat customers.
- How are they actually delivering the product or service?
- Are they helping the customers get the results they want?
- How’s the packaging for the product?
- How easy is it to use?
- Do they offer free shipping and you don’t?
You want to do an A/B comparison.
Where are you falling short in terms of what they’re doing?
Remember you want to be aggressive here.
You ideally want to be significantly better in all these areas so customers stick around and remain loyal to your brand.
Reverse Engineer Their Systems
Right after you purchase from them, you want to figure out what they are doing on the back end.
What are they doing in terms of email follow up?
Tech support?
What’s the packaging look like? The delivery time? The quality of materials they are using?
Do they send follow-up emails that help you use the product?
You want to do a point-by-point analysis of what they are doing better than you.
Also, what areas are they weak in?
Orders could arrive late or there could be damage in the shipping.
It might take them 48 hours to get back to you when there’s a problem with the product.
Well, that’s a huge opportunity right there.
If something takes too long, that’ll piss some customers off.
And those customers will look for someone new to do business with.
What can you do to make them pick you?
If they’re offering free shipping, can you offer free shipping plus rush shipping at no charge?
I’m not saying to eat into your margins and take a loss on every transaction.
Those are just some examples of how to treat customers better.
In the end, you want to know what the leaders are doing.
So you can perform your analysis and do things significantly better.
Total Addressable Market Summary
So this is a very strategic approach of acquiring more market share.
- Figure out where you’re at revenue-wise
- What the total addressable market size is
- Where you are in the landscape
- What channels your competitors are in
- Exceed their quality of offers, products, and delivery
- Be the overall better company to do business with
When you follow this approach over time…
This is how you eventually get to the point where you’re the leader in your market.
If you enjoyed this article, we have similar lessons on our Strategy Samurai YouTube Channel.
Another article you may like is how to use business leverage to achieve significant business growth.