Developing a Market Analysis - 4 Proven Strategies
How well do you know your market? Does your
competition know the market better than you do? One way to
get ahead of the competition is to get to know and understand
the market better than they do. How? You can do this by developing
a market analysis.
Strategy 1: Solicit Informal Feedback from Your Customers
Developing a market analysis does not need
to be complicated and can start with a simple inquiry to your
customers about how they feel about doing business with you.
You can learn valuable insights about your business that you
may not even realize, or thought of yourself. These can then
be worked into your marketing
plan.
Strategy 2: Survey Your Existing Customers
A good way to gauge your performance is to
survey your existing customers. Ask them specific questions
about your business and get them to rate your performance. It's
a good idea to give them quick questions to be rated on a sliding
numeric scale and several open ended questions that ask them
more directly for their opinion. When you conduct a formal survey,
be sure to evaluate the results and use them to improve your
marketing plan.
Strategy 3: Conduct Your Own Research
Do you wonder what you competitors are doing?
With the power of the Internet you have the ability to gather
valuable information at the tips of your fingers. You can go
and compare your positioning, often your prices and your marketing
approach to those of your competitors. This gives you important
feedback on how to improve your own marketing
strategy.
Strategy 4: Get Outside Assistance
Sometimes when you conduct your own research
you might sense people are holding back. Often it's true that
your customers are reluctant to tell you exactly what they think,
especially if it might be somewhat negative. One way to allow
them more candor, is to allow them to give anonymous feedback
on the surveys you conduct. Another great way to get people
to open up is to use an outside service to conduct surveys,
or focus groups for you. Customers will often open up to someone
not affiliated with your company and give them a much more honest
evaluation of your company.
Conducting market analysis can give you
the information you need to get ahead of your competition.
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