Beating market leaders doesn’t always mean going up against an industry juggernaut. There are markets where no brand has established a mighty presence, so you may have a much better chance at coming out on top, thanks to the more level playing field.
For smaller brands, the first step of the website development process it’s always going to be to create a business case exploring the market they’re looking to breach. The great thing about being a smaller brand is that you can go through this process much faster than any colossal brand, for the reasons detailed above. This also means you can retreat from a market quickly if you feel a Goliath looming.
The trick is to test the waters in a market where none of the potential competitors have a strong presence. Invest more where you see potential and take things one step at a time. Remember, you can always pivot.
Here are the two most notable advantages of entering a low-contest market:
- There’s a potential for exponential growth if you start off on the right foot.
- You can take the other competitors by surprise as they battle each other out for the top step on the ladder.
The « cloak and dagger » approach is the best practice here. If you can remain emotional until you’ve built up a decent amount of momentum, you’ll be in a strong position when you finally take your rivals head-on.
All this talk of low-competition markets may have you at the edge of your seat, but you won’t get far unless you know where to look. Again, we’re afraid there are no shortcuts here. You’ll need to do old-fashioned research and use whatever data you already have to find the markets with the highest potential.
Use Desk Research to Find a Promising Market
To start with, map out all the markets your business could potentially cater to, and perform meticulous research of the competition within those markets using the Serpstat tool as explained above.
If the biggest brands on the scene seem to be showing low levels of competitiveness, you might be in with a shot. However, a lack of elite players doesn’t quite mean you’re in the clear just yet. There could still be lots of successful brands that you can’t outperform without a significant degree of effort.
Presuming that this is the case, your best bet may be to leave this market together and look for a more straightforward path to the top.
In case you already have some data about which demographics like your products or services, make sure to use it to your advantage. Check your analytics platform for markets that convert well and see if you can improve your market share there.
Localize High-Performing Content to Serve a High-Potential Market
You often don’t need to spend too much time looking for topics to rank for in a new market. All you need to do is create a localized version of the same content that worked well in another market, and you’ll probably get great results.
The less competition, the better, because it is easier to have the best content available, which in turn means you’ll rank more quickly
