Where will growth come from?
Are you asking or being asked this question?
New revenue can come from a variety of places; like new markets, new services, referrals from loyal customers, better marketing campaigns, or other strategies. To find answers that make sense for your organization, follow a reliable process that leads to thinking differently and focusing on what’s most important to your stakeholders.
Here are a few key points about that process.
Customer Insights. Who’s your Who? You’ll need to figure out which target audience is the best to focus more attention on. Objectively, you’ll need to figure out what’s really important to them. You need to prove that you really ‘get’ them and their needs. Do you know what issues are most important?
When you pinpoint the right audience and what’s really important, they’ll think you’ve read their mind. But really, it’s just that they were asked the right questions and feedback was viewed with fresh perspectives. This is market research. Which doesn’t have to be a long, drawn out process. It can include aggregating and analyzing your existing customer feedback, or asking new questions with new people or in new ways. This is the Voice of the Customer.
Next, you get to have fun inventing new sources of customer value. Creative Ideas. Maybe you need to tweak your offer (format, features, size, etc.) to better align with what’s more important. This is where creative thinking comes into play. But first, it helps to have a clear picture of what you’re really great at! Because that’s the superpower we want to leverage to create new value!
There’s a proven process for creating new value with the tools and methods of strategic innovation.
The process starts with customer insights, which are used in a structured session to uncover creative ideas worth pursuing. Next, you prioritize a set of best choices and plan forward action in increments - small, iterative steps, to test and validate your plans. Lastly, you need traction metrics to confirm the solution will produce the intended impact. These are the four I’s of Strategic Innovation: Insights, Ideas, Increments & Impact.
RECAP: There’s a 4-step process for finding and launching new sources of value.
1. Insights - find out what’s really important to buyers and ID your internal superpowers
2. Ideas - collaborative forum with creative prompts that juice new ways of thinking
3. Increments - test and validate with small forward action that reduces risk
4. Impact - identify traction metrics that show what’s working
If you want to learn more about how to get customer insights without a lot of fuss - or you want to spark ideas with your team - so you can solve a daunting riddle, then please reach out. Need someplace to start? Click here for free downloads.