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How to Conduct a Market Analysis the Right Way

When you start a business, do you just wing it? Or, do you take time to plan and research your strategies before you jump into the market? If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you probably prepare your business before taking the plunge.

Before diving into a market or switching up a strategy, you need to do thorough research. Otherwise, your business could quickly sink.

If you want to stay afloat in the business world, you need to know how to conduct a market analysis.

What is a market analysis?

A market analysis is the process of gathering information about a market within an industry. Your analysis studies the dynamics of a market and what makes potential customers tick.

A market analysis may seem complex, but it’s necessary if you want to lead your business in the direction of success.

When you conduct a market analysis, you learn the following:

Your market analysis can make or break your startup. Analyzing markets helps you reduce risks because you can better understand your customers and market conditions.

Your analysis also helps you clarify what makes you different from the competition. That way, you know what makes you stand out. Or, you know what you need to do to set yourself apart.

Whether you’re starting a venture, introducing a new product, or growing your small business, market research can help take you to the next level.

How to conduct a market analysis: 7 steps

Conducting and writing a market analysis takes time and lots of research. It’s not something you can whip up overnight. To help guide you through your market assessment journey, follow the seven market analysis steps below.

1. Determine the purpose of your study

There are many reasons why businesses might conduct market research. You may use them to assess business risks (e.g., threats), reduce issues, or create opportunities.

You can look at past problems to decrease future risks. And, analyze past successes to see what you need to continue to do in the future.

Before starting any market research, determine whether the analysis is for internal or external purposes. Internal purposes include things like improving cash flow or business operations. External purposes include trying convince lenders to give you a business loan.

Your analysis is a critical part of your small business plan. It shows lenders that you know your industry like the back of your hand and that your business has growth potential.

The kind of research you conduct varies depending on your analysis’ purpose. For example, say you conduct a study for internal purposes. Because it’s for internal purposes, you likely won’t need to collect as much data as you would with an external purpose.

Make sure you determine whether your study will be internal, external, or both before proceeding with your research.

2. Look at your industry’s outlook

In your analysis, outline the current state of your industry. Include where the industry is heading using metrics such as size, trends, and projected growth. Be sure to have relevant data to back up your claims.

This section will let investors or lenders see that you’ve done your homework on your business’s industry. And, it will show them whether or not your industry is worth their time and money.

3. Pinpoint target customers

The truth is, not every person will be your customer. But that’s OK! When you analyze the market, you must determine who your potential customers are. This part of the process is called a target market analysis.

You need to fully understand who your customers are and where they come from. Your research should paint a clear picture of your potential customers. Look at things like:

Once you narrow down who your customers are, find out their needs, interests, personalities, and demographics.

Consider also creating customer personas based on your research. Many businesses have multiple customer personas. After you compile different customers’ characteristics, build different personas to represent your typical customers.

Pinpointing your target market can help you better cater to future customers and market more efficiently.

As your business grows, your potential customers may evolve or change. Revisit your target market from time to time to ensure they still fit your business.

4. Compare your competition

To further analyze the market, you need to understand your competition. And, you must know who your competitors are trying to target.

Take the time to research what other businesses are out there. Look at things like your competition’s offerings, location, targeted customers, and disadvantages in the market.

Make a list of all of your main competitors. Go through each one on the list and determine their strengths and weaknesses (SWOT analysis). What does their business have that you don’t? Why would a customer pick a competitor’s business over yours? Do they pose any threat to your business?

Once you outline your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, rank them from most to least threatening. Then, determine your startup’s advantages and marketing position.

5. Gather additional data

Information is your greatest ally when it comes to conducting a market analysis. The more information you gather and have, the better off your business will be.

The data you have should be unbiased, relevant, and factual. You should be able to back up your research and make decisions based on accurate information.

Use credible sources to gather additional data. You can take advantage of different resources, such as:

6. Analyze your findings

After you analyze the market, it’s time to take a look at your findings. Lay out all of your research and organize it using different sections. Include sections for your purpose, target market, and competition.

Here are some other things you should include in your findings:

Based on your research, you will be able to forecast other things for your business, such as your cash flow cycle, gross margin, and customers’ buying habits.

7. Put your analysis into action

Conducting a market analysis might seem like a daunting task, but your business will thank you for it later.

Sure, you’ll spend a good chunk of time working on your marketing analysis. But, it’s well worth it. Don’t put all that extensive research to waste. Put your analysis into action.

For internal purposes, look at how you can use your findings to improve your business. Use your analysis to see if you can make any of your business processes more efficient.

If you conducted an analysis for external purposes, be prepared to speak with lenders about your research and conclusions.

Don’t just box up your analysis and pack it away for “later.” Revisit your market analysis every now and then for necessary tweaking.

A market analysis starts with keeping a close eye on your books. Streamline your accounting process with Patriot’s accounting software. Easily record income and expenses to keep your business on track. What are you waiting for? Get started with your self-guided demo today!

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This article has been updated from its original publication date of August 22, 2012.

This is not intended as legal advice; for more information, please click here.

How to Conduct a Market Analysis for Your Business

A market analysis can help you identify how to better position your business to be competitive and serve your customers.

Understanding your customer base is one of the first key steps to success in business. Without knowing who your customers are, what they want and how they want to get it from you, your business could struggle to come up with an effective marketing strategy. This is where a market analysis comes in. A market analysis can be a time-intensive process, but it is straightforward and easy to do on your own in seven steps.

What is a market analysis?

A market analysis is a thorough assessment of a market within a specific industry. With this analysis, you will study the dynamics of your market, such as volume and value, potential customer segments, buying patterns, competition, and other important factors. A thorough marketing analysis should answer the following questions:

Key takeaway: A market analysis is a thorough assessment of a market within an industry.

What are the benefits of running a marketing analysis?

A marketing analysis can reduce risk, identify emerging trends, and help project revenue. You can use a marketing analysis at several stages of your business, and it can even be beneficial to conduct one every year to keep up to date with any major changes in the market.

A detailed market analysis will usually be part of your business plan, since it gives you a greater understanding of your audience and competition, helping you build a more targeted marketing strategy.

These are some other major benefits of conducting a market analysis:

Key takeaway: A market analysis can benefit your business in many ways, especially if you conduct regular analyses to make sure you have current information for your marketing efforts.

How to conduct a market analysis

While conducting a marketing analysis is not a complicated process, it does take a lot of dedicated research, so be prepared to devote significant time to the process.

These are the seven steps of conducting a market analysis:

1. Determine your purpose.

There are many reasons you may be conducting a market analysis, such as to gauge your competition or understand a new market. Whatever your reason, it’s important to determine it right away to keep you on track throughout the process. Start by deciding whether your purpose is internal – like improving your cash flow or business operations – or external, like seeking a business loan. Your purpose will dictate the type and amount of research you will do.

2. Research the state of the industry.

It’s vital to include a detailed outline of the current state of your industry. Include where the industry seems to be heading, using metrics such as size, trends and projected growth, with plenty of data to support your findings. You can also conduct a comparative market analysis to help you find your competitive advantage within your specific market.

3. Identify your target customer.

Not everyone in the world will be your customer, and it would be a waste of your time trying to get everyone interested in your product. Instead, decide who is most likely to want your product using a target market analysis and focus your efforts there. You want to understand your market size, who your customers are, where they come from, and what might influence their buying decisions, looking at factors like these:

During your research, you might consider creating a customer profile or persona that reflects your ideal customer to serve as a model for your marketing efforts.

4. Understand your competition.

To be successful, you need a good understanding of your competitors, including their market saturation, what they do differently from you, and their strengths, weaknesses and advantages in the market. Start by listing all your main competitors, then go through that list and conduct a SWOT analysis of each competitor. What does that business have that you don’t? What would lead a customer to choose that business over yours? Put yourself in the customer’s shoes.

Then, rank your list of competitors from most to least threatening, and decide on a timeline to conduct regular SWOT analyses on your most threatening competitors.

5. Gather additional data.

With marketing analyses, information is your friend – you can never have too much data. It is important that the data you use is credible and factual, so be cautious of where you get your numbers. These are some reputable business data resources:

6. Analyze your data.

After you collect all the information you can and verify that it is accurate, you need to analyze the data to make it useful to you. Organize your research into sections that make sense to you, but try to include ones for your purpose, target market and competition.

These are the main elements your research should include:

7. Put your analysis to work.

Once you’ve done the work to create a market analysis, it’s time to actually make it work for you. Internally, look for where you can use your research and findings to improve your business. Have you seen other businesses doing things that you’d like to implement in your own organization? Are there ways to make your marketing strategies more effective?

If you conducted your analysis for external purposes, organize your research and data into an easily readable and digestible document to make it easier to share with lenders.

Be sure to retain all of your information and research for your next analysis, and consider making a calendar reminder each year so that you stay on top of your market.

Key takeaway: There are seven steps to conducting a market analysis. Start by identifying your purpose to keep your research focused.

How to Write the Market Analysis Section of a Business Plan

Say you’re planning to launch a new product or enter a new market. How do you know what will work and what won’t? How do you ideate strategies to survive and thrive in a competitive business environment? Luckily, market analysis helps answer these questions.

After all, stepping into the world of business without proper knowledge and insight can leave you vulnerable to uncertainties and competitive pressure. A robust market analysis can help you reduce risk and ensure profitability.

In this article, we’ll see what is a market analysis, why you should conduct it, and all the steps needed to do so.

What Is Market Analysis?

Market analysis is the qualitative and quantitative study of your external business environment. It gives a complete overview of your industry and its dynamics. With market analysis, you can predict how your industry will evolve and its effects on your company over time.

What Is the Purpose of Market Analysis?

Market analysis provides you with useful insights into what works and what doesn’t. It also helps you discover untapped areas in the market and strategize to stand out from your competitors.

Without the data from market analysis, you’re more likely to make decisions based on assumptions increasing the risk of potential failure. Market analysis plays a key role in identifying where your solution falls short.

It helps you answer the following questions:

How Do You Collect Data for Market Analysis?

Your market analysis is valuable only if you have factual data to back up your claims. For this, there are two broad sources you can use to collect data for market research: primary and secondary.

However, the info you need might not always be readily available. In such cases, you can consider hiring a third-party data analytics company if you have the budget for it.

Although it can be expensive, this will enrich your analysis with accurate information. You can then use this info to gain a competitive edge over your rivals and capture a greater market share.

How to Do a Market Analysis?

Depending on the purpose and extent of your research, your market analysis can be lengthy and costly or brief and inexpensive. Regardless, there are seven steps involved in conducting a market analysis.

Step 1: State the objectives of your market analysis

Before you begin, specify the purposes of your analysis. It decides the scope of your research, keeps you on track, and helps you stick to your budget.

These are some of the reasons why you need to conduct a market analysis:

Step 2: Study your industry’s outlook

In this step, you describe the current state of your industry and make predictions on how it might change in the future. You can collect this data using metrics such as market size, projected growth, industry life cycle, and trends.

Through this data, you can understand how these changes will affect your product or service. This is especially important if you are applying for a loan or seeking funding. It also helps you forecast demand for your products to ensure profitability.

Step 3: Identify your target audience

Once you’ve outlined your industry, you identify the people most likely to buy your products and services. Even though your product might be suitable for everyone, there is a high possibility that not all of them will be your customers due to many reasons.

When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one. – Meredith Hill

To identify your ideal customer, you can gather data through surveys, focus groups, interviews, etc. Then, you can filter out the results based on demographics such as:

Example: If you plan on setting up a fast-food restaurant, your ideal customer would be someone who:

Step 4: Analyze your competitors

One of the factors that directly impact your business is competition. There are two types of competitors you will be facing in the market.

Direct competitors: These competitors offer similar solutions as you do. For instance, Pizza Hut is a direct competitor to Domino’s Pizza since both sell pizza as their primary product.

Indirect competitors: These competitors offer alternate solutions that act as substitutes for your solutions. For instance, Burger King is an indirect competitor to Domino’s Pizza since both sell fast food.

On top of identifying your competitors, you should also understand how they do business. You can do this by:

Step 5: Calculate your market share

Your market share is the portion of the total market sales you’re responsible for. It’s the part of the market that you make up. Calculating your estimated market share, also called sales forecasting, is an important step as it will define the viability of your business venture.

If your estimated market share is not big enough, chances are your business idea might not be profitable enough to pursue due to inadequate sales. You can forecast your market share using these metrics:

TAM (Total available market): It represents the total demand available in the market. In other words, it is the maximum amount of sales or revenue the market has to offer.

SAM (Serviceable available market): It represents the segment of TAM that you can obtain with your solution within your limitations. These limitations can be geographical location, business model, type of product, etc.

SOM (Serviceable obtainable market): It represents the segment of SAM that you can capture after considering your competitors, customer preference, production capabilities, etc.

SOM is your estimated market share. Once you have calculated it, you can actualize it via suitable pricing strategies.

Example: You’re planning to set up a small pizza place somewhere in your city but you’re unsure whether it’ll be profitable. Through research, you forecast sales and gather the following data:

From the above information, you identified that your:

Step 6: Know the regulations and restrictions

Before entering a new market or starting a new business, you need to know the regulations and restrictions in your industry. Understanding these can help you stay out of legal pitfalls and inspire confidence in prospective investors. Some of the regulations you need to know are:

Step 7: Organize and implement the data

Great job, you have completed the research part of the analysis. Now, it’s time to make sense of all the data you’ve gathered. Organize all the data and write a market analysis section to include in your business plan.

Follow this structure to organize and record your data:

Once you’re done writing the market analysis section, use this data to advance your strategic marketing process and devise a marketing plan.

Discover Blind Spots in Your Industry With a Market Analysis

You can’t scale a business on guesswork; you need reliable data to back every step you take in your business roadmap. As we saw above, market analysis is the perfect tool for this purpose. It helps you identify gaps in the market, overcome threats, and understand industry dynamics.

Conduct market analysis regularly to stay on top of the industry trends and gain a competitive edge in an ever-changing business environment.

How to Conduct a Market Analysis in 4 Steps — 2022 Guide

Posted February 5, 2021 By Noah Parsons

Understanding your customers is the key to success for any startup. If you don’t have a deep understanding of who your customers are, you’ll have trouble developing products that truly fit their needs, and you’ll struggle to develop a successful marketing strategy.

This is where a market analysis comes in. It may sound like a daunting and complex process, but fortunately, it’s not.

What is a market analysis?

It helps you understand the volume and value of the market, potential customer segments and their buying patterns, the position of your competition, and the overall economic environment, including barriers to entry, and industry regulations.

Why you should conduct a market analysis

Whether you are writing a Lean Plan or putting together a detailed business plan for a bank or other investor, a solid market analysis is expected. But, don’t just do a market analysis because you’re developing a plan. Do it because it will help you build a smarter strategy for growing your business.

Once you have in-depth knowledge of your market, you’ll be better positioned to develop products and services that your customers are going to love. And while diving into market research may seem like a daunting task it can be broken up into four simple elements:

How to conduct a market analysis

Now, let’s go into each step in more detail so you know exactly what you need for your market analysis.

1. Industry overview

In this step, you’ll describe your industry and discuss the direction that it’s headed. You’ll want to include key industry metrics such as size, trends, and projected growth.

Industry research and analysis is different than market research. When you’re researching your industry, you’re looking at all of the businesses like yours. This is different than market research, where you are learning about your customers.

Your industry overview shows investors that you understand the larger landscape that you are competing in. More importantly, it helps you understand if there’s going to be more demand for your products in the future and how competitive the industry is likely to be.

For example, if you are selling mobile phones, you’ll want to know if the demand for mobile phones is growing or shrinking. If you’re opening a restaurant, you’ll want to understand the larger trends of dining out. Are people eating at restaurants more and more over time? Or is the market potentially shrinking as consumers take advantage of grocery delivery services?

2. Define your target market

Your target market is the most important section of your industry analysis. This is where you explain who your ideal customer is.

You may find that through the course of your analysis, that you identify different types of customers. When you have more than one type of customer, you do what’s called market segmentation. This is where you group similar types of customers into segments and describe the attributes of each segment.

You’ll need to start broadly and refine your research by defining the following elements.

Market size

Demographics

Describe your customer’s typical age, gender, education, income, and more. If you could paint a picture of your perfect customer, this is where you’ll describe what they look like.

Location

Where are your customers located? A specific country, region, state, city, county, you’ll want to describe that here. You may even find that your customer base is segmented based on location which can help you determine where you’ll be doing business.

Psychographics

It’s here that you need to get inside the mindset of your customers, know their needs, and how they’ll react. What are your customers’ likes and dislikes? How do they live? What’s their personality?

This piece can even help you better approach analyzing the competition.

Behaviors

This is essentially an extension of some of your psychographic information. Explain how your customers shop for and purchase products like yours.

Trends

Customer behavior is always changing. If there are trends that you’ve noticed with your target market, detail them here.

3. Competition

When you are analyzing the competition, you should take a look at the following areas.

Direct competition

These are companies that are offering very similar products and services. Your potential customers are probably currently buying from these companies.

Indirect competitors

Think of indirect competition as alternative solutions to the problem you are solving. This is particularly useful and important for companies that are inventing brand new products or services. For example, the first online task management software wasn’t competing with other online task managers—it was competing with paper planners, sticky notes, and other analog to-do lists.

How you’re different

You don’t want to be the same as the competition. Make sure to discuss how your company, product, or service is different than what the competition is offering. For a common business type, such as hair salons, your differentiation might be location, hours, types of services, ambiance, or price.

Barriers to entry

Describe what protections you have in place to prevent new companies from competing with you. Maybe you have a great location, or perhaps you have patents that help protect your business.

The best way to research your competition is to talk to your prospective customers and ask them who they are currently buying from and what alternate solutions they are using to solve the problem you are solving. Of course, spending some time on Google to figure out what else is out there is a great idea as well.

4. Pricing and forecast

The final step in a market analysis is to figure out your pricing and create a sales forecast to better understand what portion of the market you think you can get.

Pricing your product or service

First, think about your pricing. Of course, you should ensure that your price is more than what it costs you to make and deliver your product or service. But, beyond that, think about the message that your price sends to consumers.

Customers usually link high prices to quality. But, if you are pricing on the higher end of the spectrum, you need to make sure the rest of your marketing is also signaling that you are delivering a high-quality product or service. From what your business looks like to its logo and customer service experience, high-prices should come with a high-quality experience during the entire sales process.

On the other end of the spectrum, maybe you’re competing as a low-priced alternative to other products or businesses. If that’s the case, make sure your marketing and other messaging are also delivering that same, unified message.

Forecasting for initial sales volume

Once you have an idea of your pricing, think about how much you expect to sell. Your industry research will come into play here as you think about how much of the overall market you expect to capture. For example, if you’re opening a new type of grocery store, you’ll want to know how much people spend on groceries in your area. Your forecast should reflect a realistic portion of that total spend. It’s probably not realistic to gain 50 percent of the market within your first year.

When you build your forecast, use it as a goal for your business and track your actual sales compared to what you had hoped you would sell. Tools like LivePlan can help you automatically compare your forecast to your accounting data, so it’s easy to do. But, even if you use a spreadsheet, tracking your progress will help you adjust your business strategy quickly so that you can do more of what’s working and less of what isn’t.

Prepare your business with a market analysis

Creating a good market analysis is a very worthwhile exercise. It will help you uncover your blind spots and prepare you to compete with other businesses. More importantly, it will help you understand your customers so you can deliver the best possible service to them.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2018 and updated for 2021.

What Is Market Analysis & How To Do It?

Marketing without market analysis is like driving with your eyes closed!

Whether you want to start a new venture or want to make changes to the existing one, the first and the foremost step would be getting well acquainted with the ever-changing, surrounding market scenarios. This requires a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the market or what in technical terms is known as market analysis.

What is Market Analysis?

Market analysis is the qualitative and quantitative assessment of the current market.

It is the study of changing dynamism of various factors that affect the growth of the market. Analysing the market allows a business to fully understand the behaviour of a market in order to develop a proper business plan that caters to the present needs.

With the help of market analysis, you can get valuable insights into the information of a specific kind of market and can accordingly develop strategies. It also helps you to understand the needs of your customers in a better way. It provides you with a well- rounded picture of the market that you will eventually be operating in.

How To Do Market Analysis?

All said and done, conducting market analysis takes lots of time and research. It is not something that can be achieved overnight. To guide you through your market- assessment journey, here are some of the steps given below:

Identify the Purpose of Analysis

Before beginning market analysis, you first need to find out whether the analysis if for internal or external purposes. Internal purposes are improving cash flows or business operations and external purposes include convincing lenders to give you a business loan. The kind of research varies accordingly with the purpose. So, make sure whether your study will be internal, external or both.

Analyse The Industry

Industry analysis gives an idea about the industry size, growth rate, trends, and other intricacies of the industry you operate in.

Market Size

Start with calculating the total and achievable market size as it will help you set realistic goals and design a viable business plan.
TAM SAM SOM is calculated to understand the market size better –

Growth Rate of the Market

Before making an investment, you need to analyse a market’s growth rate. This is because you will get an idea of how long that particular market will last and accordingly you can decide the amount of investment you would like to make in that market.

This is usually calculated by subtracting the market size for year one from the market size for year two. The result is then divided by the market size for year one and multiply by 100 to convert to a percentage.

Industry Trends

Market trends help you determine the direction of the wave in which the market is currently moving. Having knowledge about the latest trends help you to decide what kind of product you should sell. Your focus should be on grabbing customer attention by introducing the products that they would like to buy and spend their money on. Market trends can change any day. That is why you must keep an eye on them in order to conduct a successful market analysis.

Industry Profitability

Before getting into a business you need to analyze the profitability of the market. If the market has high profitability then you invest in it, otherwise, it would be a waste of time and capital. Things like buyer power, supplier power, barriers to entry etc have to be considered to calculate the profitability of a market.

Analyse The Target Customer

Not everyone is your potential customer and that’s completely fine! When you analyse a market, you must determine who your customers are. To do this, you need to develop a customer persona and understand his –

This process is called target audience analysis. As your business grows, your potential customers may change. Therefore, you need to revisit your target market from time to time to make sure they still fit your business.

Do A Competitor Analysis

Once the market and the customer are analysed, the next step is to analyse the existing players in the market and the business strategies they use. Doing this results in identification of opportunities and threats that needs to be taken care of.

Competitor analysis is important to build an understanding of how the existing market operates and how potential customers rate the competition. This competition is often divided into three types –

Once you’ve identified the competition, use perceptual maps, market charts, etc. to define their share and position, and also the position that you can occupy in the market.

Conduct a SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis helps you determine your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Use a SWOT analysis to establish goals for your business and do this on regular intervals.

In fact, you should conduct a SWOT analysis not only for your business but for your competitor’s business too. This will help you identify what their business has that yours lacks. Accordingly, you can determine your current market position and predict what your position in the future might be.

Forecast The Opportunities

Don’t just box up your analysis and pack it away for “later”. Do not put all the extensive research to waste. The last and the most important step is to take action and use your market analysis to get to the result of what you were looking for.

Importance of Market Analysis

Market Analysis is important because it gives you the ability to uncover opportunities within a market; to know what your customers think of your product, and improves your communication with them. While there are many reasons why a market analysis is necessary, let’s focus on the top three:

It Puts Customers First

Theodore Levitt once said, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.” Once you realize the reason the customers are hiring your services for, you will then be able to identify who your real competitors are! Market Analysis allows you to modify your services according to your customers’ needs, after clearly identifying your competitors.

It Makes Companies to Look Inward

It is quite difficult to look at your product or service critically, given the amount of time and money you have invested in it. Market analysis forces companies to look inward, with an objective perspective. It forces the companies to consider how their product makes their customers feel and the reason why they would want to buy it.

It Helps You Determine Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Your USP is that feature of your product or service that differentiates it from other similar products in the market. Market analysis helps you determine your USP which is crucial for building a sustainable business model.

Bottom-Line?

When you conduct market analysis you discover a lot of things. You get to know who your present customers are and who can be the prospective ones. You learn where you are spending your time and money and what worth is it adding to your business. Also, you get a chance to do some major sleuthing on your competitors. Moreover, and most importantly you learn about your flaws and at the same time find solutions to fix them. Market analysis is learning the most you can about the market and then using that knowledge to your advantage and therefore, your analysis should be thorough, clear and comprehensive.

Go On, Tell Us What You Think!

Did we miss something? Come on! Tell us what you think about our article on market analysis in the comments section.

A keen researcher of marketing, social entrepreneurship trends, and literature. Anannya is an experienced startup writer, business developer, and digital marketer.