Altitude Consultancy has been engaged to develop an exploratory strategy for a US based group to create a start-up broadcaster in the Latin American region. Regardless of what industry you are in, there are many stories and lessons that can be taken for any start-up in any industry, when moving into different, or brand new markets.

If you’re a broadcaster reading this, wanting to know strategies to grow your audience, reach or enter a new market, you may be interested in our sports consultancy and broadcasting services. We have experience in developing both new market, go-to-market and content strategies for sports and broadcasting. Click here to find out more.

Moving into a new market can be a relatively trick endeavour. What works in your existing markets, may not work in a different territory or region. Countless times we see groups fail to launch or encounter great difficulty in garnering interest, either by overshooting the mark, underestimating, or delivering the wrong messaging.

While dependant on the industry you are operating in, the first step we advise is to manage and temper your expectations. Your product/service/offering may be a hit where you currently operate, however when transitioning to a new playing field, you’re playing on their terms.

Your Market

The first thing to consider if no matter what you are selling, offering or providing, the market isn’t about your product first and foremost. It’s about people. Who are you selling to. Who is buying. Understanding firstly the target demographic in your existing successful regions is paramount. The next is to understand the motivation and drivers. Without this information, you are doomed to fail. Key things to factor in (with respect to your existing market):

• Key Drivers behind purchasing.
• Valuation of your product/service in your existing market.
• Demographics and motivators of your demographic.
• Contextual markers that drive value proposition and purchasing behaviour.

Next step is to analyse where you are going to

• Does the new market have consumer behaviour that is the same?
• Is the value that supports your existing market activity the same in the new market?
• How does the target demographic behave and engage in the new market?
• What are your competitors? How do they market, engage, and do they have the same target demographic?

These are very broad questions. To answer them, we typically commission a number of data driven studies and analyse the data to assess the efficacy of the product. This then leads to understanding the positioning, marketing, price strategy for your go-to-market strategy.

Without a true and deep understanding of where you are today in your successes, you stand no chance understanding how you can translate that success to a new market. This alone doesn’t ensure success. But without the correct information, you can’t accurately strategise for growth.

As they say, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.

Contextual Analysis

This is rather broad based, but context can differ based on the market itself. One of the largest contextual clues to take into account is the activity of your competitors. This stretches from how they engage with the market itself, all the way through to how their product differs.

Is the difference due to a point of difference in general, or is it contextually relevant to driving success with the specific product, or service offering.

Using the broadcasting scenario, why do broadcasters in the Australian market spend more money on the English Premier League TV rights over the Spanish La Liga? And why do broadcasters in the LATAM markets spend more on the Spanish La Liga over the EPL? This is a pretty simple question to answer, but looking at global data alone, you may draw the wrong conclusion. Understanding the context (while that example is straight forward), is key to understanding the drivers behind decisions you need to make regarding your product/service/offering’s core value proposition.

Contextually, the previous point’s demographic understanding makes answering the broadcasting question easier. But the demographic and market data makes understanding more complicated contextual questions easier. Analyse the data, understand the context. This will help you build your new go-to-market strategy.

Marketing

Marketing is an important core component of any business growth, or business in general. Knowing where to advertise, where to send your message is just as important as the creative and imagery. Far too often we see marketing used as a blunt instrument. You don’t use a mallet to crack open a nut.

Understanding the correct medium is important for both organic and paid social advertising. Digital is one of the most effective mediums to get your message across, but that doesn’t discount other sources. Understanding the demographic data, and contextual data leads to your overarching marketing strategy, and where you put your placements.

The world’s most stunning advertising video makes little headway if it’s on the wrong platforms.

A great example is Twitter is highly effective for fan engagement in the United States, however has less pull through and user interest for sports in the LATAM markets. Facebook however is a greater, more engaged source.

Depending on your industry, Twitter may have limited effectiveness. This can be easily deduced by analysing the marketing placements of your larger, corporate competitors. Where are they spending their money? Chances are where there are the most eyeballs.

Understand your demographic, understand the context, means you can understand where your target market lives, reads, and watches.

What’s next?

It’s important not to rush the rolling out of your new product/service or offering in any new market. By jumping the gun, you can make some very fatal decisions in your overall launch strategy, that may be too costly to roll back.

Being a start-up specialist consultancy, we have significant experience in launching products, companies, services and facilitating growth. This applies also to new market strategies and growing in new regions. We utilise teams across the world, active and knowledgable in each different global market to understand the best methods to strategise and launch.

The final piece of advice we will leave you with, is also the first piece of advice we gave you. Temper your expectations. You could be a hit in Japan, but that doesn’t immediately translate to success in the United Kingdom. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Interested in finding out what we can do for you? Click here to find out more.