It’s no secret that businesses need to find ways to engage with their customers more personally. As a result, consumers are actively looking for businesses that understand them and cater to their needs. One way to do this is through white space analysis—a process designed to identify unmet customer needs and provide solutions.
Many studies have shown that reselling to existing customers is five times cheaper than acquiring a new customer. So, after finding the gap in consumer needs and fulfillment, you can resell, cross-sell, and upsell your existing customers instead of looking for new ones.
This blog post will take you through the basics of white space analysis and how it works.
What is white space analysis?
White space analysis is a technique that can be used to identify unmet customer needs and address them. With white space analysis, businesses can better target their marketing efforts and create more effective communication strategies.
White space analysis can be used in several ways, such as for product development, marketing planning, advertising strategy, and customer service.
How does it work?
Although conducting manual white space analysis is possible, it is not recommended. Many businesses today are turning to CRMs or other consumer data platforms to carry out accurate and current white space analysis. These systems assist in capturing the entire customer database and analyzing it according to specific parameters and then curating the data according to the parameters.
At last, the results from white space analysis can give valuable data into the areas to focus on in the future to boost sales and improve ROI.
Step-by-step process of white space analysis
To find white space in your business, you must be aware of your consumer market, future trends, industry, and competitors.
You’ll benefit from the knowledge you have gathered from market research and make the most of the new opportunities.
Below are the steps to look for white space opportunities:
1. Create a white-space overview
To create an overview, you must understand your existing customers’ investments in your business. First, initiate the identification of the products they’ve already purchased. Next, make a list of your research and categorize them by accounts, product type, time, industry, etc., to better understand your company’s offerings to that customer. If your customer base is huge, prioritize them by the most profitable accounts.
2. Look for accounts for different buying centers
Here, buying centers means divisions, functions, regions, etc., that independently purchase your products or services. Determining discrete buying centers needs an extensive understanding of the account’s decision-making procedures, power centers, organizational hierarchies, budget distribution, etc. Then, explore opportunities (open and closed) to find the correct accounts to follow and the correct products to meet their needs.
3. Determine white space opportunities
After identifying the account’s buying centers and your offerings to them, look for possible gaps. Create a table in which columns have your offerings and rows have the account’s buying centers. Mark all cells such as ‘Closed-Won,’ ‘Closed-Lost,’ and ‘Active’ opportunities. These terms vary by setup. Targeting, selling, closing or qualifying, target, expand, and maintain are some preferred terms you can use. Specifying opportunities data gives you a visual overview of the last steps.
4. Analyze the finding
At the last step of the analysis, you must examine each offering’s significance to the account and its buying centers. Your offerings won’t match with all accounts and buying centers. Focus on relevant competitions. You can include competitor analysis while performing white space analysis for a better understanding of your position in the market.
5. Look for the white space opportunity
With the white space analysis you just finished and the valuable data you’ve generated, you can now define.
Based on the white space analysis you just completed and the insightful data it generated, you can now easily establish a competitive position and locate any untapped potential business growth at this point.
Summary
Businesses need to figure out ways to interact with customers more personally and address their unaddressed needs. This can be done using white space analysis. With the help of white space analysis, businesses can more effectively focus their marketing campaigns and develop efficient communication strategies.
Before developing a white space overview, you must comprehend your current consumers’ investments in your business. Then, to maximize them, you must map out the account’s purchase centers and seek fresh white space opportunities. At last, examine each offering’s applicability to the account and its buying centers.