How to Create a New Product That Serves Two Business Markets
- 1). Look for an existing product or service that every business needs and try to find a way to improve or supplement one of these. Examples are power, real estate, staffing or accounting services. Perhaps there is some expertise you can offer in these areas that nobody else can, or there is a new product you can bring to market that will make any of these areas cheaper or easier for businesses from any market.
- 2). Look for a product that can be offered to two distinct marketplaces without any changes to the nature of the product itself. You need to uncover two different demands that can be met with exactly the same item. This will enable you to minimize labor, product development and other costs. For example, could you sell the same product to businesses and directly to consumers? Specific examples here would be industrial cleaning products that are also suitable for use in the home, computer hardware that is suited to both the office and the home, supplements that appeal to professional athletes and amateur sports people alike, or financial products that can be used to mortgage business purchases as well as homes.
- 3). Research your markets. Carry out market research, such as questionnaires or focus groups, to determine what the likely response to your product will be from both its potential markets. Challenge your respondents to think of changes they would like made to the product. Note any places in which the responses overlap. If there are opportunities to reduce costs in bringing the product to market by avoiding doing every single task twice, you should do so.
- 4). Launch your product. You will need to tailor your advertising and marketing activities to the two respective markets, altering the media selection and advertising message as necessary. Draw on your market research to choose selling points relevant to each marketplace, bearing in mind that what might appeal to one audience will be irrelevant or even detrimental to the other. Build or purchase two databases of potential purchasers, one for each marketplace. Communicate regularly with these databases with news, updates and offers about your product.
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