How to adapt your business to changing market?

In recent decade the business environment has changed dramatically. Marketing has become more than just putting a poster in front of the store, sales move mostly online, number of products and services has multiplied numerous times, so customers become more selective. Global economic changes become more frequent, so it becomes vital to be able to adopt to today’s market. If you feel that you are loosing your market share or that the market size is shrinking, so you feel it in the loss of the customers and in decrease of revenues, you should consider some of the possible following steps:

• change your niche - when the size of the market that you are in is decreasing, it’s best to change the market. But changing the market doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to go in the opposite way of the current market. Most of the times it’s good to stay in the same industry but just slightly focus on a different customers. For example, I am working in real estate and construction business, but I focus on residential buildings, so possible changes of my business could take my company in few directions. It’s possible to invest in a small family hotels, it’s possible to invest a luxury tourism villas, it’s possible to invest in business premises, or to invest in some sport facility for renting. So it wouldn’t be complete change of my niche, as I would still be able to use my knowledge gained in real estate business, but I would focus on different market and different customers. Certainly, if you feel that the niche you are in is completely diminishing, it’s best to change the niche completely. So it’s very important to be able to transfer your business to another market.
• change your way of selling - working in sales today is definitely ungrateful job. If it took ten potential buyers to sell one product, today it takes hundred of potential buyers to sell one product. Sometimes you become frustrated for working more and more and selling less then you used to. There is no strict formula that will help you enforce your sales, but there are few possibilities that will help you make changes in sales:

1. change the place you advertise - if you advertise on one site too long, customers that visit that site have probably seen your advert many times (actually, too many times), so try to consider another site, because probably you will reach the customers that never saw your advert.
2. use some other media – if you use TV, try using radio, if you you use Facebook, try using Twitter or YouTube. But one the most important changes that you can make in advertising online is to change from images to video or interactive content. Customers are becoming more and more demanding, so they like the feeling that they can find out all the information from the comfort of their chair. So it was great thing to present your product by showing it on pictures. But customers want more! Presenting your product on video, you can show your customer how to use the product and the customer can have much better insight to the product before buying it.
3. change your design – this is something that should be planed carefully. Changing design of your product or design of your presentations and advertises could affect people to have a feeling that there is something new about your company and product. But be careful! If you change your design, especially web design, try not to completely change the functionality of your site. People like the feeling that they understand something, so if your customers got used to some functionality of your web site and they like that functionality, don’t change it!

find ways to cut your costs – I know, this is hard one. Many entrepreneurs have gone through times when the profit margin was good enough, but many have later on experienced a decrease in profit margin. It’s a natural path of business development – if a profit margin is good, then many will try to take a piece of cake in that industry. So with a competition growth there is a decrease in prices and profit margin. Soon after a decrease of profit, unorganized companies close their doors, leaving others to compete. How to survive in that environment? The best way is to try to structure your processes and to cut your costs. To cut the costs the entrepreneur should revise every single cost that affects the cost of the product and should try to find other solutions that will cost less without loosing a quality of the product and service. Best way is to introduce some technology solutions that will enhance and quicken your operations, and that will free more time for dedicating to customers.

Sure, there are other ways to keep the pace with the changing market, but the important thing is that we and our company have to change with the external changes – we have to adapt.

Please feel free to comment or add any other ways that would help to keep the pace with current market changes.