Find your Gap!

“Marketing is one way a firm can consistently think about its future: what you want to do, for whom, where you want to do it, what kind of fee you can command, what standards you want to adhere to. Marketing is more than an activity; it is an orientation. Architecture, education, communication, business, service, marketing, added together they equal survival,” 

– Joan Capelin- marketing maven – New York

If you have a business, you also have the desire to grow your business. As Laura Lake describes, typically, there are four ways to effectively grow your business:

1. Acquiring more customers 
2. Persuading each customer to buy more products 
3. Persuading each customer to buy more expensive products 
4. Persuading each customer to buy more profitable products.

Image Copyrights: Bansri Pandey

For small design firms, the first two options are usually more feasible and profitable. Although, depending on the type and target of your firm, you may also choose the other options. Most architecture firms focus on building good relationship with their existing customers, which helps them to persuade clients to buy their services for future projects. To do this, the architect sometimes lowers their fees, do certain tasks without fee or take more responsibilities than they were originally assigned to. This approach is also risky when you lose one of your important clients due to some circumstances. Thus, it is always advisable for start-up small design firms don't focus only on existing customers, but to try acquiring more customers too, giving them a larger customer base to choose from. 

Identifying the Gap:

Design is a vast but porous field with many hidden opportunities and gaps to be filled. It is every designer’s dream to find a good market niche that isn’t already being served by their competitors. But, how do we find such a gap? 

It can be easier than you think. ‘A gap in the market’ or ‘niche’ is a way of describing a situation where a problem in the given domain is not resolved correctly. And for an entrepreneur, innovation in such a situation is a vast opportunity. It is not what you sell that determines your market; it is what the prospects will buy. 

Ask yourself these following set of questions, which may give a direction to find your niche market: 

1. What are the new emerging trends  nationwide/worldwide? 

2. What your personal and professional strengths? 

3. What are the problems in the profession you are focusing? 

4. What do your clients need? What services do they desire? 

5. How much access do you have to people, products and resources in this domain? 

6. Is there a market that your competitors are not competing in? Is there a market for such specialization? 

7. What are the growth opportunities in this field for next 3-5 years?

During this exercise, sometimes you are going to come up with new ideas (new technology, new market segment, innovative working method, pricing etc) that may have potential to create better solutions but it is also likely that you may not have enough resources (money, time, people) to make it viable. And sometimes, you will find yourself looking at something you could really do. And those are the ideas you need to research further. Have patience at this point and start your building ideas using your past experience, market research and feedback of the people you work with. 

Unlike, old times, today in the rapidly changing time, authorities and professional institutes are liberal and no restrictions are imposed on you regarding marketing, as long as you add dignity and remain true to your profession. 

Feel free to think. 

Use your creativity to find new effective solutions to current problems. 

Challenge yourself and build on your strengths. 

These are the keys to find the right market and opportunities for your firm. 

Further Reading: 

[1] Book: Meldrum, M., McDonald, M. (2007). ‘Marketing in a Nutshell’. Elsevier Ltd.
[2] E-Article: Hunt for Business 

[3]E-Article: Market Gap Analysis

Next Blog: Finding the Client