Every dominating company on the market would like to remain such forever without any effort, but it is impossible. It’s always harder to be a leader and to set new trends than to be a #2 company and follow the existing fashion and tendencies. Each leader has to protect his market share and position on the market by means of different strategies, which we are going to discuss in this article.

New consumers

Each product category has the potential of consumers’ acquisition. Mainly, those are the people who didn’t know about the product, its features and advantages or couldn’t afford it due to high prices or bad distribution. In this case sampling and price promos work the best to remove the barrier of the first trial. The company may also develop new products to meet the needs of those people, who don’t buy the existing ones due to some reasons. The leaders of the market usually develop a strong promotion strategy for their goods and their communication budgets are huge. Advertising also builds product awareness and loyalty as well as persuades to make the first trial.

New ways of product usage

The market development can be motivated by the creation of the new ways to use the products. For example, people have a habit of eating cereals for breakfast. The marketers may set new trends of eating cereals with fruits and fresh juice for breakfast, stating that it is healthier and helps to vary the food ration.

Market share protection

The strongest tool that helps to protect the market share is innovations. The leader has to be creative and smart in order to be fast in using all the consumer insights in its products and to be able to set new trends. The competition environment has to constantly be checked and the leader has to be aware of all the launches and innovations of the other players as they will definitely affect his sales. The leader has to be proactive and not reactive and he has to lead, which is quite a challenge.

Counterattack

The majority of leaders of the market prefer the tactics of the constant fight, to answer to any attack by a stronger attack. They consider, that they should always reply to the dumping of their competitors, strong promotional campaigns, attacks on the distribution channels etc. The competitive advantage of the leader is that he has all the strategic reserves and can choose the most favorable moment for the counterattack. Another method of the counter attack is to enter the main territory of the enemy and make him defend himself instead of developing new products.

Those were only few types of marketing strategies of the leader. Many more are coming in the next articles.