To Grow or not to Grow, that is the question

Many people ask me: what is the biggest challenge in Growth Marketing? Where does the business get really complicated? I usually have one answer: it depends, which is also a way of avoiding the question. But in this case, that "it depends" has a reason.

At that moment, I always remember a lecture I gave to a bank where they asked me: why can't I be everything to my client? My answer was a question: what is "everything" and what is a client?

Growth Marketing is the same thing: you need to know what Growth and Marketing are in the context of your company, your needs. If you only operate in one market segment, all the others are growth opportunities. Now, what if you are already a market leader, where is your real opportunity for growth?

So, it depends on your market, your company, and the difficulty of expanding your operations. A few years ago, we entered a new segment that had no affinity with our traditional target. The product was in the same category, but the audience profile was totally different. We invested heavily in infrastructure and equipment. But that was the smallest investment: we had to win over a whole new target audience that didn't know the brand or didn't associate it with the product.

More recently, we began the challenge of growth in leadership. A few years ago, we started a strategy to dominate our market, more specifically, one of the segments in which we operate, to be the undisputed choice. It worked: we consolidated a leadership that wasn't obvious. Then came the challenge: and now, where are we going to grow?

If you already have a large share of a market, there's no point in looking around. Whoever is competing with you is behind. Important: I'm not talking about the typical attitude of arrogant leaders who think no one can catch up to them. I'm talking about looking for opportunities. If you are a leader, you probably already have the best opportunities.

When this happens, you have to develop three strategies:

Where I'm not but could be - look for new markets that you didn't operate in before, but that allow for economies of scale. Let's remember that we live in the era of liquid careers. This not only increases social mobility but also allows products and services to reach new audiences, forgotten in a more rigid structure.

What could destroy the market I've conquered – that's the challenge for any company that follows Pareto's law in its revenue: 80% (or more) coming from 20% (or less) of the products. A seismic shock in your market can knock you down, without any chance of getting back up.

Will this new market force you to rethink what the company is? This question isn't always easy to answer. Often, the company's brand is so associated with what it does that conquering new markets can force it to rethink who it is or wants to be in the future.

Assuming your management is efficient or competitive, these two factors can change everything in the company's trajectory. Everyone talks about what happened to Kodak and Xerox. In Kodak's case, the company chose not to bet on the new market, since it had already been a pioneer in its development. Poor management led the company to believe that its leadership would never be threatened. More or less like the fable of the hare and the tortoise.

In Xerox's case, it wasn't a problem of management or of not betting on a new market: it was the cost of being a pioneer. Something similar to what could happen now when the AI ​​bubble bursts: being the first sometimes has its disadvantages. Furthermore, the brand was so associated with a certain type of product that the challenge of entering a new segment with such a consolidated image was enormous. Let's remember that markets die suddenly: the warnings always speak of the future, which seems distant until it has already arrived. Remember the fax machine? Pagers? Blu-ray?

The foundation of solid growth is composed of efficient management, a keen vision of new markets, and a good dose of hypervigilance to question everything. Feeling safe or secure is halfway to chaos. When the market changes, it will be too late to signal.

Conquering new markets in a planned way is the best way to stay young.