How do you keep your eyes on the prize in a landscape that presents so many market opportunities?

There was a time when most founders believed that the more markets they presented their products or services to, the better their chances of increasing their market share.

By now, most of us have learned the hard way how wrong this thinking is, as evidenced by how many investors and customers said “no” to our faces. 

By now, we know that increasing market share is not about how wide the net is but where you cast it. 

But what we do not quite grasp yet is how we can keep attracting, engaging, and delighting our way to bigger catches. 

As a scale-up, you have already won over the early adopters. But that market alone will not help you gain enough traction to blow your competition out of the water.

What you need to do is to gain access to a bigger yet specific group of customers called your “beachhead market”.

This group is the one you need to win over if you want to become established enough to expand your business to bigger adjacent markets and figure out your next best steps in product development.

The question now is: How can you effectively attract your beachhead market and eventually increase your market share?

In this article, we discuss the 3 best practices that help you focus on the right things and fine-tune your strategy.

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1) Gain as much free publicity as possible

Free good publicity is the holy grail in marketing. 

And while we do not recommend skimping here, saving money in some areas can help you be more discerning and deliberate with how or where you will spend your marketing dollars.

Some easy and creative strategies you can adopt are networking at relevant events, sending out press releases, building relationships with influencers, making share-worthy videos, pitching stories to the media, and even maximising your social media channels.

But perhaps the most effective way to get people to talk about your brand and, subsequently, get that elusive beachhead market’s attention is to stimulate your existing loyal customers to become brand evangelists. 

This process is more complex but worth the time and effort. To do this, first, sift through which of your customers are product-led and which are brand-led.

Product-led customers are only loyal to your brand if you live up to their feature and specification requirements.

Brand-led customers, on the other hand, are the ones who are already invested in your brand journey. They have the most potential to champion your brand to their circles and, in turn, fuel your free publicity machinery.

Once you have pinpointed who your brand-led customers are, ask yourself if you have the right messaging and brand experience in place to facilitate that.

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2) Apply sales acceleration strategies

To build trust within your existing customer base and attract your beachhead market, delve into sales approaches that shift the focus to your customers’ challenges.

One such approach is the SPIN (situation, problem, implication, need–payoff) methodology. SPIN empowers your sales teams to be more solution-oriented and uncover problems that customers might not be aware of or problems that customers think cannot be resolved.

This way, sales teams can avoid being too “in your face” and, instead, add value to the interaction, so they are eventually enticed to buy.

Another strategy we recommend is to leverage multiple sales channels that focus on AARRR (acquisition, activation, retention, referral, and revenue) metrics. 

These metrics will help you understand what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong in terms of customer life cycles and allow you to maximise conversions.

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3) Say “no”, experiment, learn, and grow

You need to be able to say “no” to customer segments outside of your beachhead. As discussed briefly in the intro, it can be very tempting to accommodate customer requests.

In hyper-competitive environments, being first-to-market is key to cementing your place within your beachhead. Once you do that, you need to scale as quickly as possible to reach market trust and leadership.

If you give in to the noise, you risk getting distracted, complicating your product development process, and losing your footing within your beachhead.

So, how can you rise above distractions?

Stay focused on your goals. What do you want to achieve, and how can you bypass the barriers to make it a reality?

In this case, the goal is to have a deeper understanding of your beachhead’s more pressing and very specific needs. Of course, no one gets it right the first time.

The best you can do is to use the data in front of you to come up with viable strategies, experiment using online sales channels and continuous A/B testing, take note of what works and what doesn’t, and keep improving key ratios in terms of ads placement, promotion, price, product requirements, etc.

Once you arrive at the answers, you can use the data to tailor your products and services to attract, entice, and retain your beachhead market and exceed industry expectations for the long term.

Be patient. Stick to your mission and goals. And do not be afraid to let go of customers who do not add value to your bottom line for the time being.

Figuring out what works and what doesn’t when it comes to tapping into complex markets can drive even the most promising scale-ups astray. While they have the drive and the passion, most of the time, their expertise simply falls short.

As a scale-up consultancy, we have successfully helped businesses in targeting, capturing and retaining even the most saturated markets across numerous industries.

Partner with us today if you want us to do the same for you.

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