UlTImATE SUccESS GUIdESo that would be the first point I’d like to address, you have to always
keep an eye on and monitor your consumer group, investigating every
possible trigger as if it was the one. In this case, a hugely important
number is your market share.
Take the time to figure out your market share as often as possible.
There’s a lot at stake here so don’t be lazy. Understandably, some indus-
tries are going to be easier to track than others, but the time invested in
tracking your market share is well worth it. If you need help monitor-
ing your market share you can find more information on the subject at:
http://www.Stayfirst.com/market-share.
Tracking your market share is important for a number of reasons, but
mainly it indicates when there is a need for some critical decision mak-
ing. I can only speak with certainty of branding-related issues, but I
suspect the formula I’m about to give you is universal:
A move of 5% - 9% in your market share per fiscal year in either
direction requires attention to either correct a mistake or adjust
to this new level accordingly. A loss of 20% in the market share
is not too late to take action and work out the issue at hand; but
anything beyond 40% loss is too late for corrections and is time
for a complete reinvention of the product or service.That said, once you do determine a slump in your market share, go ahead
and figure out what’s causing it. It may well be something internal like a
sales department having a passive-aggressive quarrel with your custom-
er service department, or external like retailers placing your products in
the wrong category. Either way you need to act and act quickly.
As an example, we had a prominent developer from central Russia ap-
proach us with declining market share for several consecutive years.
During our research we found that new emerging developers and con-
tractors were quickly saturating the market causing this developer some
serious pain. In this case the branding was at fault. It was old and out-
dated, hadn’t changed in over a decade and translated into a completely
irrelevant and outdated message to the buyer. They had lost (in total)
upwards of 20% by the time we heard their story.
We took on the challenge of full scale rebranding and even renaming
the company. New, modern condominiums that the company was build-
ing appealed to modern thinkers and movers, thus the name we chose,