– Marketing dominance strategies

In this category of strategies, you see the world and the market in terms of market share; you know your market share, classify yourself as a leader, challenger, follower or nicher. Then you plan your marketing strategy accordingly.

Leader: you have market dominance, you need to stress that you are the dominant business in your market because you are the best.

Challenger: you are the next big thing, you should point out that the industry leader has gotten too big to care about customers, that you will change how things are going in the industry. You should project an image of being the next edgy thing to hit the market.

Follower: you should consolidate your position never directly challenging the leaders while making alliances in the market. You wait for your opportunity to be a challenger or a leader.

Nicher: you concentrate on your niche, taking care not to venture out unless you are confident of your odds outside of your niche.

– Innovation strategies

Here it is all about who is on the cutting edge, who churns out the new products and technologies before anyone else. You are a pioneer, close follower or late follower.

Pioneer: You concentrate on being the one with the newest, hottest products around. You promise your customers will get the new technology before anyone else does.

Close follower: You wait for other to pioneer in different direction, and when they are on to something, you quickly adopt it, improve it and make it your own.

Late follower: You adopt only the most stable of technology, you stress to your customers that your products will be stable, tried and tested, with no bugs or last minute recalls.

– Growth strategies

When operating under growth strategies, your focus should be on how to make your business grow. You use:

Horizontal integration: You try to expand by acquiring or starting new business in the same field as your main business, this way you control a bigger market share, and sideline the competition.

Vertical integration: You try to acquire or start businesses that supply your current business or sell its products. This way you can have a stable production and delivery structure.

Diversification: You try to conquer new markets with new products, expending in unexpected direction where you predict that there are great profits there.

Intensification: You add new features to your existing products. You release new versions of your products. Trying to consolidate then expand your market position.