Page 1 of 1

Lateral Marketing and its Operating Principle

Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2024 7:22 am
by Mimaktsa10
Lateral marketing is the creation of a set of creative methods for promoting goods (services) or presenting a product in a new, supplemented quality for successful competition in the market.

The essence of lateral marketing
Lateral marketing is an addition to traditional marketing, but not its replacement. In literature, you can find another name for lateral marketing - "side". The term very accurately defines the principle of this method, because in order to create an innovative product, you need to set new goals, formulate completely different questions and look at the product from the outside. The use of lateral thinking in marketing was proposed in the 60s of the last century by the guru of management and marketing Edward de Bono.

The essence of lateral marketing

Lateral marketing is most often used to create a non-standard, creative product or service that is potentially in demand by the consumer, based on an existing product. Although this method can also generate completely new products.

The main goal of the method is to create a new market antarctica email list 5644 contact leads for the transformed product and monopolize it until competing products appear .

A classic example of lateral marketing is Ferrero's Kinder Surprise. The combination of unexpected products in one: chocolate and a toy, as well as its original form, allowed them to create a new market, be the first, and still hold its lion's share, despite the emergence of a huge number of analogues, including inexpensive ones.

What are the goals of lateral marketing?
Identify additional needs that can be met by modifying an existing product.
Find out whether it is possible to attract more customers if the product (service) is modified.
Analyze the features of competing products targeting the same market segment.
Consider what new products can be derived from an existing product.
Conduct an analysis of additional values ​​that can be offered to existing customers.
Investigate what replacement could be superior to the competing product.
Lateral Marketing Process
To apply a lateral marketing strategy, you need to focus on the product and determine the level at which changes will occur: market, product or indicators (price, place, promotion channels, etc.), and only then begin to analyze possible changes.

Lateral Marketing Process

How does the process of creating a new product work:

They choose a product or service that sells or is difficult to compete with.
They determine the emphasis and divide the components of vertical marketing into levels (product, market, marketing tools).
A lateral shift occurs (de Bono technology). The process consists of six operations (replacement, exclusion, combination, reverse order, hyperbolization, inversion), during which creative thinking is applied and new ideas are generated (even absurd concepts).
The obtained results are analyzed and processed. The gap is connected and a new logical chain is built, leading to the transformation of the object. For example, positive aspects, relevance for consumers are assessed, the process of purchasing and promoting the product, the possibility of using the product are presented.
This method seems complicated and even impossible in words, but practice shows that the use of lateral marketing gives excellent results – the generated new product enters the market and is successfully sold.

Despite the fact that a new product requires investments in production and promotion, the economic result from the use of lateral thinking can exceed all marketers' expectations many times over.

Join us and choose thousands of products for wholesale and dropshipping from Ukrainian suppliers for your business, upload products to your online store!