Go Where The Money Is
6/4/2009
By Jim O’Gara
OnMessage
As business owners, marketing and public relations professionals, we must be able to adapt—especially in trying times like these. The world around us is being transformed like never before. Communication channels are changing. Consumer buying habits are changing. And thus, business models must change.
It is absolutely critical for all of us to examine our business models and market opportunities. Certain industries continue to grow and certain segments of consumers are still spending, which results in changes to our own clients’ businesses. It’s up to us to determine where our next growth opportunity lies.
To ensure your company doesn’t get left in the dust you must “go where the money is.” What I mean by that is that many market and consumer segments have stalled out in this economy, while others are still very active. Has your core target market and audience stalled out? Is your business slowing down? Do you know where to find your next client or your next growth opportunity for your business?
Someone once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Nothing could be truer when it comes to conducting business in this economic climate. At some point, your business must evolve, adapt and reinvent itself to survive or better yet thrive. You must be on the lookout for the next opportunity to fuel the future growth of your business.
Believe me, I know. As the owner of OnMessage, a Dallas-based integrated advertising agency, I saw the writing on the wall and knew several of our clients serving specific markets were going to pull back on their marketing dollars based on the economic decline. If we sat back and did nothing to change the way we go-to-market, our business would suffer or possibly fail. So what did we do? We knew that not every industry was going to pull back on advertising, so it was up to us to determine where the advertising money was currently and where it would be for the next several years to come.
The process outlined below enabled us to identify our next growth engine. We adjusted our business model and organization to seize an opportunity in an industry that we had dabbled in but not fully exploited — the health care sector. It was an industry that was and is still growing. An industry injected with billions of stimulus dollars. An industry still spending significant money on advertising.
By following a few simple steps we were able to formulate the idea that would fuel our growth in the years ahead. What was that idea? To start a whole new division of our agency, one that was 100 percent focused on the health care market. How did we come up with the idea? Keep reading.
You too can determine “where the money is” for your next growth opportunity for your own agency/company by following these five simple steps:
1. Assemble a team that meets weekly to discuss new market opportunities.
You won’t be able to see the next growth opportunity in front of you if you don’t slow down and spend quality time looking for it. The first step is to form your “transformation team.” Hand-pick individuals within your company who are most likely to bring innovative ideas to the table, not the ones who will likely say “we tried that, it didn’t work.”
Make sure the team has representation from various functional areas of your business or agency. Tell the team in the first meeting that “mind-erasers” are essential before beginning this process. Meet off-site. This is critical as it opens the doors to more creative thinking with fewer distractions. Establish up front that you are not asking them to play their traditional roles in the company. They are all now officially “intraprenuers” – individuals responsible for reinventing the company so it can capitalize on the next growth opportunity for the business. You’ll be amazed at how much this changes the way they’ll attack this process.
2. Identify how your clients’ business and their own customers’ spending habits have changed.
Assign the team the task of documenting the way your client’s business and their customer’s buying habits have changed. Here are some questions to ask: Are your clients focusing more in one industry segment than before? Has its own customer base stopped buying something from your client completely, and if so, why? Are your clients consuming products or services from your competitors that you don’t currently offer? Is that something your company could offer? What’s the next big thing your clients will be looking for from a company like yours?
These are all great questions to have the team analyze and document thoughts on. When the team gets back together, review all of their thoughts and answers. See if those ideas might lead to a product or service line extension that could fuel growth with a new innovative product or service idea that doesn’t exist at your company. Your next growth opportunity just may be new products or services your own clients are waiting for and willing to purchase, even in difficult times.
3. Determine what markets are more likely to grow and spend more money on the types of products and services you offer.
In addition to identifying additional products that your existing clients/customers might be interested in, it’s just as important to look for entirely new markets that could fuel future growth. For us, it was health care. We discovered this by auditing the markets in which we had experienced success with limited focus or business development efforts. After all, if you are getting business in a segment without chasing it, imagine how much you could grow that opportunity if you placed a highly focused, comprehensive effort behind it.
After we had developed our short list, we conducted additional research to identify those markets that were forecasted to not only grow, but to continue investing in marketing and communications tools throughout the recession. That’s what led us down the path to launching our health care division: OnMessageTHRIVE.
What markets are you dabbling in? Where have you seen success with little to no effort? Do the homework necessary to identify new market opportunities that will ensure your growth and future success. The intelligence and insight is out there – all you have to do is look for it.
4. Leverage “spending sprees” or “market driven investment waves” in a target market.
There are several factors that drive spending behavior in various segments. New technologies, industry regulations, government funding, fads, health concerns … the list goes on and on. Spend some time analyzing those market segments you serve. Are there things taking place in a specific industry segment that is driving either businesses or consumers to spend more money on products or services in your space? Are there new market segments that you should be targeting where similar spending trends are taking place?
Take some time to identify where spending sprees are taking place within your industry and where the market is driving people to invest in products and services like yours. You’re bound to surface another growth opportunity for your business.
5. Determine how your business must adapt to capitalize on the opportunity.
We all need to understand what has gotten us to where we are today is not going get us where we need to be tomorrow. Too many shifts have taken place in the market. The way companies go to market has fundamentally changed.
Take communications and marketing for instance. The days of simply using direct mail, radio, billboards, newspapers, etc. to reach potential customers are over. We now live in a hyper-connected, digitally converged world and the way people consume communications messaging is completely different. Your future customers are more likely to learn about you or even your client’s business through a “tweet” or a blog than by reading your direct mail piece or reading an article about your client in the print edition of your local paper.
Marketing yourself and your company is just one area of your business that may need to be retooled. So take an audit of your entire business model. What areas must be transformed for you to capitalize on new growth opportunities? How do internal processes and resources need to change? These, and many other questions, must be answered to understand how your go-to-market strategy must change in order to take advantage of your next big opportunity.
At the end of the day, we’re all smart enough to identify our next significant growth opportunity. The problem is, we never get out of the weeds long enough to formulate and execute a plan. So stop what you’re doing right now and start with step one in this article. Hand-pick your “transformation team” of intrapreneurs and schedule your first meeting. It will set in motion one of the most strategically important initiatives you’ll conduct in 2009 for your upcoming communications initiatives.
Jim O’Gara is the founder and manager of OnMessage and manages the overall strategy and operation. He works closely with clients to define and develop their overall marketing strategy, messaging and brand on a daily basis. With more than 15 years of experience on the client side, O’Gara has a deep understanding of the client’s perspective for its own marketing needs. He has also gained a solid understanding of traditional and interactive marketing through 20+ years of B2B and B2C marketing experience in both technology and healthcare marketing, in conjunction with his hands-on brand/product management, product marketing and global marketing communications experience. Due to his vast expertise and growing success within the healthcare marketing sector, he was selected to start up and lead the AMA North Texas chapter’s special interest group focused on healthcare marketing. He works with and contributes to several charitable/not-for-profit organizations including The American Heart Association, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Honor Flight, and The Dallas Fort Worth Business Marketing Association. O’Gara received a Bachelor of Liberal Arts Degree from Grand View University in Des Moines, IA and currently resides in McKinney, Texas.