Are You Trying to Win a Market or Create One?

By Sarah Williams, Founder of Leading Culture | Business Growth Strategist

I saw a guy riding a unicycle the other day.

Not something you see every day.

And, as often happens, my brain immediately disappeared down a completely unrelated rabbit hole.

I started wondering how many people in the world are actually proficient at riding a unicycle. I’m assuming it’s a relatively small number. Partly because riding a unicycle looks incredibly difficult. And partly because, for most people, learning to ride one isn’t exactly going to lead to a new career.

Which means learning to unicycle has to compete for that increasingly precious part of our lives called leisure time.

But then I noticed this wasn’t a traditional unicycle.

It was motorised.

And suddenly I wasn’t thinking about the guy on the unicycle anymore.

I was thinking about the company that made it.

How do you grow a market for motorised unicycles?

It’s an interesting business problem.

Presumably there is an existing market of people who already ride unicycles. If you’re selling to them, your marketing job is relatively straightforward. You need to convince them that your motorised version is better, more fun, faster, easier, or somehow more desirable than whatever they’re currently using.

You’re competing for existing demand.
But what happens when you’ve sold to the people who already want one?

If the existing market isn’t big enough to support your growth ambitions, you have another problem entirely.

You have to create more unicyclists.

And that means you’re no longer simply marketing your product.

You have to market unicycling.

You need to give people a reason to consider doing something they previously had absolutely no intention of doing. Maybe you position it around fitness. Maybe recreation. Maybe adventure. Maybe commuting.

Whatever you choose, you first have to convince people that the activity itself is worth their time, money, and attention before you can convince them that your particular unicycle is the one they should buy.

That’s a very different marketing challenge.

Are you capturing demand or creating it?

It got me thinking about the businesses I work with and one of the fundamental questions behind growth strategy.

Where is your growth actually going to come from?

At its simplest, there are two very different possibilities. You can capture more of the demand that already exists.

Or you can create demand that doesn’t exist yet.

If you’re capturing existing demand, you might grow by taking market share from competitors, moving into another geographic market, developing new products for existing customers, or finding ways for customers to buy more frequently or spend more with you.

The customer already understands the problem. They already recognise the category. They may even already be looking for a solution. Your job is to convince them to choose you.

Creating demand is different. Now you have to convince someone that there is something worth paying attention to in the first place. And that often means education has to happen before conversion.

Your competition might not be who you think it is

This is where the unicycle example gets even more interesting.

Imagine the manufacturer decides the big opportunity is to promote unicycling as a fantastic form of exercise. Who are they competing against?

Other unicycle companies? Not really.

They’re now competing with

And they’re competing for something even more scarce than money.

Time.

If they position the unicycle as recreation, the competitive landscape changes again. Now they’re competing against everything else I could choose to do with a Saturday afternoon.

That changes the strategic conversation considerably.

Sometimes "we need better marketing" isn't the problem

Businesses will often look at disappointing growth and conclude they need better marketing. More content. Better ads. A new campaign. More leads.

But sometimes the problem sits much further upstream.

If people are already looking for what you sell, better marketing may well help you capture a greater share of that demand. But if they aren't looking for it, you have a different job to do.

You have to build the category. Educate the market. Create the belief. Give people a reason to change their behaviour. Only then can you persuade them to buy from you.

That doesn't mean creating a market is a bad strategy. Some extraordinary businesses have been built by doing exactly that. But it is a different strategy. And usually a much harder one.

So before you decide you need another marketing campaign, perhaps there’s a more fundamental question worth answering:

Are you trying to win a market, or are you trying to create one?

Because knowing which game you're playing might completely change how you choose to grow.