The first fundamental point for a good market analysis is the identification of the right target to turn to: the questions to be asked to identify it correctly
Identifying the right target for potential customers is the starting point for any self- respecting market analysis. To start with the right foot, however, it is necessary first to identify the right questions to ask.
What is or who is the target customer?
Whatever your business idea, it should be addressed to a specific group of potential customers. When you propose your product or service, you do it thinking of them. When you think about your marketing and sales strategies, you do it by using a language and by tapping on certain strings, in order to hit that part of the audience exactly.
It is the segment of customers that you have identified and chosen because you think it is the most suitable to incorporate your idea and, above all, to desire it.
This way of thinking will influence all of your decisions and will provide you with a point of reference for your whole business project. For this reason, you cannot simply rely on hypotheses and suppositions. You must define your target market, and to do so you will need to carry out careful research to make sure you turn to the right niche and optimize your time and resources.
From the target to the market: When do a market research?
It is highly advisable to do a market research well before launching your product on the market. In fact, research will help you better define your project and possibly modify your product / service and your strategy before investing your resources in wrong choices.
You can allow yourself to make changes and changes of route at the beginning of your path without taking on great risks, while doing it in a more advanced stage can lead to big problems and heavy consequences for your business.
But it is not enough to do it one-off. Even if your business has been running for years, it is good to continue to monitor and update the target market, to maintain contact with customers and to find new ones.
What will you get from a market research?
Having defined your target market will provide you with three important information:
Is there a market?
For your business to be profitable and sustainable, there must be enough demand for the product or service you want to offer. Is there already a market that interests your product / service category? If the answer is affirmative, at what market share can you aspire?
Who is the market constituted by?
You understand that there are potential customers for you. Now you have to go into detail, and better understand who these people are.
Which age group will you address? What kind? Are they people with specific interests or activities? Are they people who prefer to spend to get more quality or who instead are aiming for savings?
Simply put, you need to do a demographic analysis to identify your target customer.
How do your target customers think?
Once you have identified your target customers, you will need to understand what their behaviors are and how they make their choices. In other words, you need to find out their question drivers.
- What are their priorities? This information will help you promote the benefits of your product that your customers consider most relevant.
- What are their purchase preferences? Shops? Shopping centers? Internet? Be sure to distribute your product through the right channels.
- What are they influenced by? Where do they inform you? Orient your communication and your marketing strategy using the media to which your target customers refer.
Are there magazines, blogs or other media or people acting as influencers on your target? Try to get in touch with them so they review and recommend your product.
Where to find information on your target market?
Many of the information you may need, such as demographics, statistics, reports, are easily available online. The important thing is to check the sources, make sure that they are reliable and updated data, but above all that they are authoritative.
It will also be useful to consult marketing sites and portals, or those that target particular market targets – and therefore those that interest you most directly – and consult news and press releases from companies that already operate in that particular sector.
Once the essential data is collected, it will be time to come into direct contact with your potential customers. Listen to their opinions, learn to reason like them, and understand what their real needs are. Interact with them, do field research, use interviews and surveys to get to know them as best you can. You can also use social media, subscribing to groups and following thematic pages, or even analyzing the comments left by users on articles concerning your industry. This will also allow you to identify the influencers most followed, which you can try to contact by presenting your business idea and listening to their opinions on the matter.
Targeted Marketing: An Example
Imagine that you run a video production business, and that you offer videos of weddings and events. Your client base will consist of engaged couples about to marry and / or waiting to give birth. However, this is still a very large slice of the market, so I have to restrict the field so that you can concentrate your marketing resources.
For example, targeting a sub-group as unmarried couples, between 25 and 35 years old and with a double income located within a maximum radius of 80 km from your study. Having a double income is easier than they can and want to spend money to get a video, and you can easily reach them.
But you can do more: try to understand what interests an audience between 25 and 35 years. What are their buying habits? What environments do they frequent? Where and how do they inform you? From whom and through which channels are they influenced? For example there could be a profile on Instagram particularly followed by this type of audience, which you could follow in turn trying to make sure you share or directly publish some photos or videos with your credits.
