What is Market Shaping?
The challenge when launching a new product or innovation is that the market may not be ready to embrace it – the market needs to be developed, shaped and activated. The first step in shaping the market is to conduct a market landscape analysis, focused on understanding the various stakeholders in the marketplace. These stakeholder insights are then used to build a market development plan with a core narrative and stakeholder engagement activities specifically designed to help prepare and shape the market. Market shaping is the execution of the market development plan, including the implementation of campaigns, the engagement of external stakeholders, and metrics that evaluate the resulting changes in the market.
Implementing a
Market Shaping Strategy
During market development planning, we develop the story we want to tell and define the behavior change or awareness change that we want to create. Now, in the market shaping phase, we put that message out in the world. We get in front of stakeholders and begin to move them down a path to understanding what the product or innovation is, as well as how to use it, what its benefits are, and what behaviors need to change to maximize those benefits.
Market shaping includes a variety of planned activities and strategies, such as marketing campaigns, investor presentations, public service announcements, speaking engagements, and other stakeholder communication efforts that are running simultaneously to target various stakeholder groups.
The core narrative is translated into audience-specific creative execution and we ensure these efforts are carefully coordinated with a focus on message discipline and compelling calls to action. That said, market shaping is also opportunistic. It’s about being mindful of all the external stakeholder events, forums and gatherings happening in the marketplace, and seizing those opportunities to get in front of and engage with stakeholders, as well.
Measuring the Success
of Market Shaping
To measure the ROI of a market shaping strategy, we first establish the changes we think we can expect in the market over time. These expectations and goals are informed by the research and data we collect during the market landscape analysis phase, and form a checklist against which we can measure our success going forward. In some instances, that measurement may be as simple as noting a policy change or other desired outcome has been achieved. In other cases, it may require the use of surveys and research to measure the change in market perspective.
We conduct evaluation activities with two goals in mind: to track our success over time and to learn what works and what doesn’t work in inspiring change in the market ecosystem.
Ultimately, a successful market shaping strategy is one that increases stakeholder awareness, drives behavior change, and opens up the market’s willingness to embrace change. When the market is primed and ready for a new product or innovation, the timeframe for adoption is sped up significantly.