When a company decides to enter new channels, such as marketplaces or additional sales channels, it is important to formulate hypotheses about how this will affect the business. Hypotheses about distribution channels .
These may be hypotheses about:
- distribution channels – how different local marketing email list distribution channels for a product can affect its sales;
- a specific channel and its impact on the value of the sales process;
- similar products;
- the existence of established practices and purchasing habits;
- price and complexity of the product;
- how much users currently spend to solve their problems;
- consumer spending not on the first purchase, but throughout the entire period of use of the product: how much the consumer will spend on maintenance or additions to the product in the long term;
- whether your product was free or $1 —how changes in price might affect how the product is perceived and how it is sold.
Example: “If we promote our services this request led him to create through webinars and online events, we can expand our reach and attract 25% more high-quality leads from our target audience.”
The process of forming hypotheses
Start with a conceptual idea that should be discussed with key stakeholders – the product manager, the marketing and sales teams, as well as those involved in production and service.
After that, run the hypothesis through several stages of testing at the level of:
- Problems: Check if your target audience has a real problem that your hypothesis aims to solve.If the problem is not relevant to customers, it is useless.
- Solutions: Assess how effectively your proposed solution solves the identified problem. This will help you understand whether your product is suitable for meeting customer needs.If you cannot overcome difficulties due to fresh list lack of funds, this does not always mean that the solution should be sought in extremes.
For example, selling a kidney is a solution, but this is clearly not the best option. Therefore, it is important to solve the problem not only in an effective way, but also in a safe way.
- Implementation: Analyze how feasible it is to implement the proposed solution given resource, time and cost constraints.This test will provide an opportunity to verify the practicality and viability of the hypothesis in real conditions.
In addition to testing, hypothesis evaluation can also be used quarterly.
In some companies, hypotheses are developed every 3 months. For this purpose, a team of experts is assembled to discuss and analyze the proposed ideas.
Hypotheses are evaluated according to several criteria, such as:
- idea – how it relates to the overall strategy;
- impact on the outcome – what effect the hypothesis can have;
- implementation complexity – how difficult it is to implement;
- belief in success – how high is the probability of getting a positive result;
- amount – what is the expected financial return.
Evaluating quarterly will help you focus on the most important areas and not waste time on less effective ideas.
How to work with hypotheses
- Define a goal. For example, if your current revenue is 100 million rubles/month, and you want to increase it, set a goal to reach 120 million by implementing the hypothesis.
- Develop an action plan. For each hypothesis, create a detailed plan that specifies the resources needed, the steps involved, and the potential risks and obstacles. It is important to understand that any experiment may not yield the expected results.
- Evaluate the results. After implementing the hypothesis, it is important to regularly analyze what result was obtained and how it compares to the expected. Draw conclusions about what worked and what did not.
- Don’t forget about solutions that are already working. Often, companies focus only on testing new hypotheses and forget about what is already bringing results. It is important to support and develop successful initiatives without losing focus on what works.
- Maintain focus on the end result. Testing hypotheses for the sake of testing hypotheses is ineffective. Make sure your hypotheses are aimed at achieving specific goals and solving real problems, rather than simply creating more tests without a clear understanding of the outcome.