Yellow Pages Going Online In Middle East

The goal of the project was to develop a comprehensive market strategy for an online classifieds player in the Middle East. The firm wanted to expand to a new geography and RedSeer developed a market strategy for them, entailing all the necessary elements; identifying the market landscape, benchmarking the competitors, the unit economics of the business in the geography and investment and financial needs.

To start with the analysis, we followed a six-step plan. The first step was to conduct a macroeconomic analysis of the market identifying the market potential for the industry in the target geography. Further, to develop an effective marketing strategy, it was important to understand the exact vision of the management team. The second step was to conduct a brainstorming session to establish the vision and key indicators to achieve the goal. The next step was to understand the landscape of the target market to identify the characteristics of the players already operating. By conducting in depth discussions with our experts in the field, we were able to understand the competitors and what is unique about them. We also looked at other market features such as current product ranges and respective prevailing prices. Feedback from customers in the region helped us perform a need gap analysis, identifying the potential growth areas in the market. Lastly, we identified the critical factors for each step along the business value chain – building, growing and consolidating relevant to the target market and areas to work on across Sales & Marketing, Product, Monetization and Customer Care; both intensive and non-intensive.

After gathering data and thorough research on the above-mentioned pointers, we developed a go-to-market strategy for our client. It was built on four pillars – Foundation, Operations, Market-facing and Strategy. We addressed problems across all facets of business like sales, customer communication and experience, branding and advertisement, roll out & launch plans and product pricing. We also developed a detailed financial plan for the client, to establish the key indicators in target areas of business over time. We created an investor pitch for the client as well, based on the market inputs. We also conducted workshops with the senior leadership to share the detailed insights and financial plan.

Our recommendations covered every facet of a business, starting from identifying products, pricing entering the market, controlling customer experience and improving internal processes to maximize efficiency in the latter stages. The findings and recommendations were used by the client to put into action a go-to-market strategy for the new geography. Our research helped the client identify the market potential and accordingly pitch investors.

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