Judy’s company produces a high quality water container serving the recreational market. When I arrived, Judy and her Sales Manager, Bill, were brainstorming about new product concepts for their served market. To achieve their growth goals, they needed to launch a new product that would capitalize on their success and be distinctive enough to appeal to their market.
One of their employees had recently told Bill about his friend who was using their key product in a non-critical lab application. Bill was so focused on the current challenge of adding a new product to increase their served market share that he forgot about this conversation. But over lunch with Judy the next day, he briefly mentioned this story. Judy immediately saw the opportunity! And before lunch was finished, Bill did too.
New products and services are successful because they fill an unmet need for a specific group of people. Judy and Bill knew their current customers’ needs well but they had not considered how their products might be used in related markets that they didn’t currently serve.
Recognizing that their recreational product might also be applied in a lab environment is a big leap so it’s unlikely that Judy or Bill would have thought about it if they hadn’t heard from their employee. But the story opened their minds to new possibilities and new markets for their current products. It also reminded them that each market, each buyer, has different unmet needs.
Not all prospective buyers are the same.
Each category of customer has different unmet needs. Judy and Bill met with some users of their product in the lab application. They gained a thorough understanding about their needs in the lab and why their product was valuable to these folks. This allowed them to articulate a compelling message to the lab market about how their products solved specific problems for this group.
They used this same process to identify other distinct market opportunities, and cataloged the unique problems, needs and potential solutions for each. Then they developed a targeted message for each segment of customers to address their unmet needs.
Rather than developing a new product, they prospered by finding new uses for their current products.
What other markets might you explore?
How will you learn about the unmet needs in these markets?
