Ansoff Matrix Meeting Template Overview

“Great products are engineered when product managers truly understand the desired outcomes by actively listening to people, not users.” – Michael Fountain, Director of Product at Apptentive

An Ansoff Matrix template is a fantastic addition to any Ansoff Matrix meeting. If you’re unsure, an Ansoff Matrix meeting refers to a meeting that utilizes the Ansoff Matrix tool, which assists companies in analyzing and planning their growth strategies. You may have heard this tool referred to as a Product or Market Expansion Grid, and it calculates the growth rate by multiplying earning retention rate by return on equity.

How often your company holds Ansoff Matrix meetings depends on your company’s current financial and growth state. In general, these meetings can happen once quarterly. There are many strategies to broadly discuss regarding Ansoff Matrix, including market penetration, market development, product development, and diversification. 

Your marketing and development teams should be in attendance, and sales, if necessary. Also, this is a meeting that upper management and even CEOs might not want to miss, so if they can’t be there in person due to other commitments, have someone put together a brief of the meeting minutes for them. 

Ansoff Matrix meetings are important because they highlight the findings of a very intuitive tool for calculating the success of your business’s current path. This tool shows you where to make changes and gives you the information to select your approach and plan for risks.

How to Run an Effective Ansoff Matrix Meeting

As always, we recommend heavy preparation when preparing for a meeting. When it comes to an Ansoff Matrix meeting, you’ll want to ensure that you know how to use the tool and plug your company information into it correctly. Financial gain is the most important part of any business, and when properly implemented, the Ansoff Matrix can help us make targeted predictions. 

To run a meeting effectively, you have to organize yourself entirely before it begins. That means gaining a complete understanding of the Ansoff Matrix and the quadrants within. You’ll want to do your best to fill out each quadrant and growth strategy section and figure out what might work best for your company before your presentation at the meeting.

You’ll want to have the information polished and prepared to present to attendees so that they can assist in choosing the right path forward that will fuel the most growth. Ansoff Matrix meetings often need to leave room for discussion, so while you’re utilizing your market product grid templates, be sure that you leave time for discussion on each quadrant.

What’s inside Ansoff Matrix Template:

The sections of the Ansoff Matrix template also make up the sections of the meeting template. Remember to be as detailed as possible.

1 🚀 Market penetration

Market penetration is the least risky of the four growth strategies and focuses on trying to make a product you already have more appealing to your target demographic. Instead of changing the product, you’d focus on changing the marketing strategies. 

You could brainstorm about running promotions, lowering prices, or changing how you run distribution. You’ll want to head toward whatever attracts new buyers and increases sales.

How can we increase our product’s market share with a market penetration strategy?

• Can we launch a new marketing campaign?
• Can we offer a special price promotion?
• Can we start a partnership?

2 🔨 Product development

“Only move forward with creating a product that will be ‘above the bar.’”

– Brian Lawley, CEO, and founder of the 280 Group

Product development focuses on creating new products for your existing customer base, and its intention is for new offerings to generate, or re-generate, interest in your company. There are many ways for businesses to approach product development, so you’ll have some leeway when choosing the right path for you. 

For product development, you might develop a new product or service, partner with another business, or acquire a competitor. This quadrant requires extensive research and the input of your development team, as manufacturing new products is not only risky but expensive too. However, if done correctly, the new revenue stream is hard to resist.

Brainstorm ways to develop a new product to cater to the existing market.

• Can we offer a new version of the product?
• Could we offer bundles or packages?
• Can we expand our service offering?

3 🛒 Market development

Market development embraces the concept of moving your current products toward a new market and typically happens when market penetration isn’t working. You could open stores in new locations, move to international markets, or try targeting a new audience.

The idea here is to give your products new exposure, and you’ll want to hear what your team has to say regarding this path. You already know that there’s an interest in your products, but it’s time to brainstorm how you can drum up more interest.

Discuss ideas and tactics to cater to a different customer segment.

• Can we launch into a new geographic market?
• Can we launch a new sales channel?
• Can we target a different demographic?

4🦄 Diversification

If you’ve exhausted the other three strategies, it’s time for you and your team to discuss diversification. This quadrant of the Ansoff Matrix is the riskiest because it means creating a new product for a whole new market. Essentially, this strategy starts your business over from scratch in the sense of product development and finding demand.

You don’t have to develop products entirely different from the ones you already offer; instead, start by encouraging your team to brainstorm similar products. When you begin in the same wheelhouse, you can use your current expertise to spark consumer interest in your new product line. 

Ideate how to introduce a new product into a new market.

• What new products can we launch?
• What new geographic areas or markets do we want to access?
• How will we approach both things and why?