To conduct a thorough Market Analysis, you must cover various topics. In this article, we’ll discuss several important ones — and what you should include in each. A market analysis assesses any given market, including qualitative and quantitative research.
Conducting a thorough market analysis as a key piece of your business plan ensures that you know everything there is to know about your market. Coincidentally, it reassures any current or future investors that you know what you’re doing, that you’ve done your homework and that you’re the right entrepreneur to address the gap in this particular market.
How to Conduct a Market Analysis
But — to conduct a thorough market analysis — you need to cover a wide range of topics. Before diving into the specifics, remember that market analysis is about learning the most about your market at its core. You’ll discover who your customers will be — and how many are out there! You’ll poke around and learn where they’re spending their money and how much they want to dish out for a product like yours. Oh, and you’ll also do some major sleuthing on your competitors.
Read More: Market Research on a Limited Budget: 5 Easy Ways.
Top 10 Topics to cover in your Market Analysis
- Industry Description and Outlook: What does the industry in which your startup or small business exists look like? Be sure to include size, trends, life cycle, and any projected growth. It’s good to start with an industry description and outlook because it gives the rest of your market analysis a solid, broad view to start from.
- Demographics and Segmentation: If your startup or small business targets more than one market segment, you need to outline that in the demographics and segmentation section. Start with demographics and then examine other possible segments. Some to consider include geographic segmentation (where do people live) and behavioural segmentation (what are specific, relevant actions people take).
- Target Market: If the industry description is the broad view a market analysis starts from, then the target market is the view from a microscope. This is where you’ll determine and lay out exactly who your product is for. Be specific. A target market description should include the market size as well as a specific user persona. When developing a user persona, create an actual person. What’s their name? How old are they? What do they do for work? Do they have a family? The specifics will help you narrow down exactly who you’re targeting and will help you outline more general demographics for your target market.
- Total Addressable Market (TAM): The total addressable market (TAM) explains how much potential your startup has for growing. Investors want to know you’re solving a painful problem in a giant market. They want to invest in good companies that can have huge outcomes to make up for all the bad investments they might have made. They’re thinking, “If this startup isn’t going after a big enough market, it won’t be able to create an exponential outcome for me.” TAM asks, “How many people could potentially use this product?” It doesn’t mean how many people will use your product. This is the question you’ll get asked the most; the answers are often the most wrong. We’ll get to that later. The problem starts when people don’t realize they are using different terms interchangeably. Are you being asked how many people could potentially use your product or how many people will use your product? Nearly every person on the planet may have the ability to watch Netflix, but that doesn’t mean the TAM for Netflix is the entire population of Earth!
- Market Need: A market need is about determining the drivers of demand for your product. Why do your potential customers need your product? What will drive them to spend their money on it? In this section, you’re going to look at the current behaviours of your target market and outline how those behaviours prove that they’ll be interested in spending money on your product. Market need is not your competitive analysis, but it does help to look at your competition to determine how people are already behaving. It also helps because you can find gaps in the market — needs that aren’t currently being filled that your company can fulfil.
- Market Test Results: If you’ve been able to conduct market tests — or if you have access to market test results that have been conducted by someone else — you should write them up in the market test results section. What conclusions did you come to after running your tests or researching? How did you get to those conclusions? Do you have any experts who can back you up?
- Competition: An important part of a market analysis is determining who’s already on the field. Who are your competitors? Outline their strengths and weaknesses. Once you’ve determined those, you’ll be able to use them to determine your startup’s advantage and marketing position.
- How Much Will Customers Pay? You need to be able to give an estimate of how much customers will pay for your project. Imagine if you were an investor and you got a pitch for a product that was essentially a ballpoint pen, and the founder was trying to claim that people would be willing to pay R40,000 for it. You’d throw that pitch away, right? So, be realistic. Do your research. Examine the market. See what people are already paying for similar products and peg your price in the same range. You don’t want to undervalue your product — but you don’t want to overvalue it.
- Barriers to Entry: The barriers to entry section of your market analysis is about what prevents a competitor from taking over your position in the market and what makes you the best person and your company the best company to do what you do. You need to be able to answer the question of what prevents a competitor from opening up and taking a large portion — or the entirety — of your market away from you. You also need to explain why you’ll be successful in this market. What are the specific barriers to entry for your competitors? Consider things like technology required, regulations in your market, the investment needed, access to resources, brand visibility, and location, depending on your business and market.
- Regulation: What regulations are required for your market? Explain what they are and the steps you’ll take to remain compliant with them.
