Route to Market Strategy

 Route to Market Strategy

Due to the nature of my business as a commission-based writing service, I feel that I can rather quickly eliminate a number of different route to market strategies. It'll be pretty much impossible for me to set up my business in any kind of physical shop, as it could take me a lot of time to actually complete a product for a customer (as I have to spend time planning, communicating with the customer and actually creating the story). Additionally, the final product isn't physical in any way, leading to there being no real point in having my business operate via a physical shop. With this in mind, I won't be considering any kind of market strategy that involves a physical shop-front, whether pop-up or permanent.

Additionally, according to the Entrepeneur's Handbook website (which lists a number of different suggested route to market strategies), it'll be quite unlikely that I can get my business under the noses of my customers through a trade show, as the article states "it's also fantastic for selling services which require a face-to-face sale." Not only does my business model not require face-to-face sales at all, but it also cannot operate with them due to the problems mentioned earlier (wait times, no physical product to give, etc.) This inability to operate through face-to-face means eliminates almost all of the route to market strategies listed by this website: selling via mail catalogues, selling to wholesalers/retailers (as they can't realistically stock a commission service) and sales agents (as it'll just end up being a man in the middle, wasting time when the customer could just come directly to me).

With all this in mind, I feel that the best route to market strategy for my enterprise would be operating through an online store/website. Due to the digital nature of my product and the wait times needed for me to actually make the final story, I believe it only makes sense to have an online system. Therefore, customers would be able to contact me with their briefs via email or call (most likely email, seeing as I'm not overly comfortable with phone calls). We can then discuss the details of the commission such as the length of the story, the characters, genres, settings, etc. Once this is all discussed, I can give a price and ask for a deposit of the price up-front so that I don't get scammed out of any money. Once this is done, I'll begin writing the story, with regular updates to my customer about the progress of the story (maybe with watermarked snippets). Eventually, I'll finish the story and ask for the rest of the payment before sending them the story.

This RTM strategy works best for me due to the fact that it doesn't require any kind of face-to-face meeting and it allows for easy communication and transferral of the digital product - the finished story. Additionally, it'll be quite simple for customers to simply go through my website, find my contact details and then ask me for a commission. Another bonus of operating through a website is that I can promote the website on various different platforms, such as my business social media and on websites such as Etsy. Unlike promoting a physical store's location, customers will be able to see the website link that I've promoted and instantly access it, giving me an edge over those having to promote their own physical stores.

There are some downsides, however. Due to the nature of operating online like this, all of the responsibility is immediately on me: marketing, managing the sale, communicating with the customer, managing potential refunds and so on. Depending on the amount of customers I have, this could leave me ending up unbelievably overwhelmed and stressed. Additionally, quite a few customers (myself included, a lot of the time) are anxious about buying products online from websites that aren't super well known such as Amazon, due to the potential risk of scams or fraud. This is especially a problem for my business, as I ask for a deposit up-front which could seem shady to some people. The only real way to get around this issue is to simply make my customers feel comfortable and trust me, as well as relying on the customers who don't get quite so nervous purchasing online.

In conclusion, I feel that the best method for my RTM strategy would be selling my products online as I can easily communicate and get my product to the customer and have many different routes of marketing my website instantly to my target demographic.