By: Rob Schade
Do you define your market around your product or the technology in it?
Many companies do. It’s easy and convenient to explain, for example, that your company is in the drivetrain market, or the lithium-ion battery market.
But for the purposes of long-term growth and innovation, this can be a tragic mistake. Defining your market this way:
1
Leaves money on the table.
This product-based market overly narrows your focus and limits your prospects.
2
Leaves you vulnerable to disruption.
Many companies today find themselves threatened by digital disruptors that are innovating around the broader customer experience.
But there is a way to ease this threat of disruption—while also broadening your market opportunity.
Instead of defining your marketing around your product or technology, define your market around the customer’s Job-to-be-Done.
Focusing on the underlying reason your customer uses your product—rather than the product itself—allows you to:
Play in a bigger market
Build a disruption-proof advantage
Reduce organizational complexity—and improve the customer experience
Let’s take a look at how.
Instead of defining your marketing around your product or technology, define your market around the customer’s job to be done.
What it means to define your market around a job
Defining your market around a Job-to-be-Done looks like this:
A Market =
A Group of People
+
The Job They’re Trying to Get Done
For example:
[Caregivers] who are trying to [care for seniors in their home]