The Ansoff matrix model is a classic marketing model featured in our free top marketing models guide.
Although developed in the 1960s, Ansoff is still useful for considering, at a top level, the strategic initiatives that a business is taking to increase its competitiveness in a sector through identifying new revenue opportunities.
This new research based on the views of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) in large US organizations is interesting since it translates the theory of Ansoff into practice, showing how businesses are investing in the four quadrants of Ansoff.
You can see that a market penetration strategy of selling existing products or services into existing markets has the largest investment. This is building on existing strengths and is fine, with the proviso that sufficient investment is going into other areas to support future growth - that is developing the product and service or developing new markets. The benchmark that this provides is that around one quarter of spending / budget is going into product and service development and perhaps surprisingly low, around 10–15% is going into market development. Diversification into entirely new products and markets is surprisingly high at around 10%
The research also considers factors which are important for driving the activities shown on Ansoff:
This chart shows clearly that although the importance of martech and data are often stressed when discussing digital transformation, it is having the right skills or talent for market and product development that are most important. Of course, getting agreement amongst stakeholders as part of business strategy development is also vital as is having the right businss model to support product and market development
By Dave Chaffey
Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.
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