Hop the boundaries of traditional marketing and get your own buyers!

There is a paralyzing power of preconception that stops the entrepreneur from moving ahead in a business  that he has conceived by way of idea, but is afraid to implement because of the competition and his inability to break new ground in an industry that appears to be overcrowded or dominated by the big companies. When an upstart finds itself in this situation, there is need for a new definition of embryo business opportunities. How can I start my business on a new trend and get the customers I deserve? A strategy that has been defined as Boundary Hopping, inspired by Andrew and Mary Bragg, comes into relevance here so as to ensure that the new company or business is able to find its own customers in the competitive environment, work out new processes, and differentiate its market so as to discover a way to make profit. Boundary hopping can therefore be described as a innovative strategy that enables a company redefine business in an environment where conventional mindsets are powerful but can be transformed
Boundary hopping asks: What is missing,rather than what can be improved incrementally. Such areas that are exploited include ease of use,, low costs as well as speed and accuracy. Six key concepts come to mind:
1. Substitutes as boundary hopping. In a sector where some products or services are regarded as being exclusive to some organizations or groups, a boundary hopper would provide and opportunity which could be easier to use in some respect or even less expensive. Substituting silo thinking or tunnel vision for wider perspectives and unconventional lines, new trends of products are created.
2. Differentiating your products through the perspective of price and performance(the product is more expensive but it also performs better than the cheaper options). Airplanes,automobiles, wristwatches, stereos and cameras. The list is endless. There are high performing expensive options as well as less expensive moderately performing items. Depending on what side of the divide we find ourselves for the marketing of products or services, we can cut our niche and command the attention of a whole different number of buyers.
3. Yet another strategy is to look for the non conventional part of the buyer chain and use them as access to a larger market. In ever sector in which a product or service is marketed, there are "influencers", people who command the attention of a large number of others and can influence their purchasing habits. If we can secure the attention of influencers then we are sure to find that there will be a corollary effect on the prospective buyers. Medical doctors for drugs and nutritional products, Eye doctors for glasses etc.
4. Complimentary products and services: Some products and services go together. Even where they don't go together we can strategically pair them for sale to boost or merge markets for the sale of products that are not really similar. Certain fast food restaurants were offering a burger and coke for certain fee at the turn of the century. But this matching of products and services has been found in strategic mergers of sausages and soft drinks, food restaurants located right within shopping malls or even going to the extent of having food corners in department stores. Futuristically, we may see the gradual removal of the compact disc from our media markets. The Long Player Record and Cassettes and cartridges  have gone out of wide circulation.  The CD might be the next product to be extinct. It could be replaced by flash drives and memory discs which are more portable and can contain more documents. These storage devices could be the next usage for the sale of music, movies, books and even magazines which we wish to carry around with us.
5. Functional and emotional appeal to buyers is the ability to connect our product or service with imaginary attributes which are not always wholly authentic. We neither refer to lies or deceit in this, but marketing from a boundary hopping perspective requires that we create "a feel good situation" that would enable a whole trend of buyers identify with the product or service on an entirely different level. For a long time, Guinness stout has been linked to strength for the young enterprising man. Does it really give strength? For young child bearing mother its been marketed by word of mouth to contain nutrients and minerals that are good for a baby. Is this really true? Boundary hoppers can copy this strategy and find emotional and functional appeals to the people that would likely purchase their product. The idea is to find areas that have not been exploited.
6. Time: Boundary hoppers have to be people who can spot, analyze and actualize trends.  This practice would enable them create trends of their own. Time can be used in the sense that early starters of a product or service that is new often have the advantage of reaping the benefits of that product. If you break fallow ground by selling a product or service that is desired, yet not readily available in an environment, you are likely to attract a stream of buyers that could be exclusive to your product for a while. Time barriers can be broken in the sense that you are slightly ahead of others, you are marketing a product in several time zones in the world at once, possibly using the internet or cable TV or buying up products that you for see being needed in the near future to sell at a better price.
Boundary hoppers are thinking people who look beyond the immediate environment and time and seek to market their products or services to an audience that might could have been created by trends that they initiated or trends that they recognized as new, but unfolding.

The article is inspired by extraneous marketing and work conditions in Nigeria and  Andrew and Mary Bragg as well as  Professors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne who are professors of strategy.