1. Beachhead Strategy
By Peter Baskerville
27/06/2019

2. What is a beachhead?

3. Why do we need a beachhead?
Competitor defence
New entrants are a threat to existing
Easiest and best business - taken and defended
Established systems
Attack the weakest point
Mitigate your own weakness
“Under the radar”

4. Why do we need a beachhead?
Customer unaware
Ignorant of your benefits
Scared of the unknown – you’re the unknown
Have established habits and preferences – they’re OK.
Need an appropriate introduction – trusted association

5. Product strategies - beachhead
Early market traction and product acceptance is vital.
Interim macro strategy
existing partner, embedded, existing products, established distributors, Freemium, endorsement, customer development, buying existing & changing incrementally
Pivot is very likely so keep commitments small and attitude flexible
Work - known to unknown

6. Top 10 Beachhead Strategies
1 - Build Momentum
Taking actions that make the business appear successful from the customer’s point of view and so create a desire to engage.
2 - Become the topic of conversation
Taking actions designed to get your target market talking about you in a positive way. The goal is to gate-crash their everyday conversations.

7. Top 10 Beachhead Strategies
3 - Work with your earlyvangelists
These early adopters take great delight in giving referrals that will reflects positively on themselves as opinion leaders, cutting edge, switched-on and with-it observers or being acknowledged as possessing good judgment.
4 - Create memorable experiences
Taking actions to create experiences way beyond what your customer would expect from your competitors in the same situation.

8. Top 10 Beachhead Strategies
5 - Create addictions
Taking actions to promote products or services that your customers could become highly addicted to.
6 - Break habits and break through
Taking actions to break the habit of your target market who habitually go to your competitor but do so without starting a war.

9. Top 10 Beachhead Strategies
7 - Remove barriers
Taking actions that make it easy for the customer to engage with you and your products, without them feeling the pressure of commitment.
8 - Linkup with the locals
Taking actions that support those activities conducted by other businesses and community groups in your target area.

10. Top 10 Beachhead Strategies
9 - Concentrate on the main event
Taking actions to commit all your resources to achieving a few high level objectives and to simply ignore the rest.
10 - Exploit the unforeseen opportunities
Taking actions to exploit the unforeseen opportunities that materialize during the implementation phase.