I constantly observe in the middle a series of efforts by companies to increase their sales, advertisements in the newspaper, spots on the radio, flyers through the streets and even buy time on television, however, in some cases (most) It is evident that there is no strategy behind such advertising efforts which is really unfortunate since I have come across people very disappointed in the results of what they understand by marketing.
Kotler proposes an expansion matrix to identify the areas of opportunity and analyze which are the most convenient, this matrix can help us the next time we think about advertising something.
Increasing sales is not just about wanting to sell more, but about knowing specifically what I can sell and to whom I can sell it.
Let's look at the expansion matrix
Market penetration
In the matrix, market penetration refers to what we can do to increase sales with the customers we currently have through the products we currently have. This quadrant of the matrix applies when we have not yet used our current portfolio to 100% and there are basically two ways to increase sales in this quadrant: one is for our current clients to increase their purchase volume and the second is for them to increase the frequency of purchase.Thus, the promotions that we observe where they give us a ticket to participate in a raffle for every 100 pesos of purchase has the intention of increasing the volume of consumer purchases and the promotions that we see in some video clubs where a certain number is collected. of income before a certain date is intended to increase the frequency of consumption.
Market development
Once we have our current clients covered, we have a second possibility and this is that of market development, which does not mean anything other than selling the products or services that we currently have to a market that is not yet a client of us. For this we have two possibilities, one is to discover market niches not yet served and thus attract new customers who previously did not consume the product and the other is to start attracting a market that consumes the product but does not buy it from us, this is done especially when We know that our product surpasses that of the competition and we have sufficient and necessary arguments to make a sales proposal to this market.
Product development
In this quadrant we must think about offering modified or new products to current customers, this strategy can be seen in large companies with the variations that they constantly introduce in the market in terms of styles, sizes, presentations or flavors of products. You can also offer products that complement the one we already sell.
Diversification
This is definitely the last option since it is recommended when the previous possibilities have already been covered and it consists of offering different products to new markets. The suggestion is not to stray from the turn you are in and go to a market similar to the one you currently have in order to make use of existing relationships.
Obviously this is just a rough outline of what to take into account before starting to advertise. I invite you to make an account of your advertising efforts and reflect on whether when designing the advertising, when choosing the means of communication or the offered offer, did you know in which part of the matrix you were who you were addressing and what was the follow-up that this would have.
Regardless of the answers, I hope this material will be useful to you in making future decisions.
