Repositioning your business in the marketplace is no easy task. The innovative strategy that worked last year may no longer be valid in today’s environment. Sometimes, your staff can get so busy focusing on their day-to-day duties, they forget to think ahead and look toward the future. You’re not alone. One of the most respected motorcycle brands, Harley-Davidson, almost went bankrupt not just once, but twice. However, they turned it around and came back when they examined their approach to business.
Here are five tips to help you recalibrate your innovation strategy.
How Do You Operate?
Work on your business model. It’s not just about your customers, but all of the stakeholders in your organization, like your suppliers and employees. Consider the publicity that Chipotle received when they announced that they would stop using GMO ingredients in their food. This change impacts the way their brand is perceived among other fast food restaurants.
Focus on Your Customer
Create the environment that shows your customer what you’re doing to meet their demands. UPS highlighted how it serves customers in order to reposition itself against its rivals. Focus on the core values of your business and what you stand for. Talk to your consumers about their own needs. Then determine how you can bring those two things together in a message that benefits everyone.
Creativity Matters
Bring in creativity to your planning sessions. One of the oldest brands in England, Burberry, found its brand associated with gangs. The company repositioned itself in the luxury clothing market with a creative campaign that rebranded itself. It took new ideas from people in every department, working together to build the foundation that was the impetus to the change. Don’t work with the same people in the same teams. Switch it up.
Look at Your Competitors
Figure out how to set your business apart from your competitors. You may have forgotten that at one time, Target was considered just a low-brow discount store. Now, they are the second largest discount retailer in the United States and pull in the yuppie crowd that Wal-Mart doesn’t. They improved their brand by offering a higher quality product and using those high-profile brands in their marketing message. By making their brand distinctive against their competitors, they grew their company.
Use the Tools Available to You
Utilize social media effectively. Look at Old Spice, a brand that many thought was past its prime. A unique social media campaign revitalized the product and made it fresh and hip. The fans were engaged and interested, but it wasn’t the marketing department within the company that thought up the content, it was a marketing agency brought it to assist. Use the experts that are available to help you create innovation.
Recalibrate Strategies
Recalibrate Strategies help companies grow their business. We apply proven business systems to recalibrate their business and their brands by collaboratively creating a success blueprint. We facilitate a process that harnesses insights, generates new ideas and provides a strategic roadmap. Our founder and lead consultant has 30+ years of experience as a CEO, entrepreneur and marketing expert with exceptional leadership and facilitation skills.
Susan Spaulding, Recalibrate Strategies
816-560-5416
susan@recalibratestrategies.com
www.recalibratestrategies.com
Twitter: @Spaulding_Susan
www.linkedin.com/in/recalibratestrategies
Engage: the Power and Profit of Facilitating Collaboration, an e-Book that contains key ingredients to help you achieve business results, whether you are a professional facilitator, corporate executive or budding entrepreneur.
The Power and Profit of Knowledge, a primer on market research for small business.
Recalibrate: A Strategic Guide for Accelerated Growth, a book based on interviews with business executives from various industries, sizes and geographies and four tenets of Recalibration – Relevance, Differentiation, Engagement and Expression.