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There is a great deal of competition across all industries, and with the ever-changing world of technology, analytics and data have become a powerful way for businesses to navigate their ships across the market. However, it is not always clear what insights can benefit you in creating the best sales and marketing strategies for your business. Hubspot in their marketing statistics article shows that according to research done in 2019, 63.57% of the companies actively invest time in search engine optimization. This is due to the fact that Google search is a prominent step in the buyers' decision-making process. No matter your industry or company size, there are few things you can look out for to analyze your market better and build a powerful marketing strategy. This post will take you through: What It Means to Analyze the Market Why is It Important to Analyze the Market Techniques to Build a Strong Marketing Strategy Define Your Business Goals Analyze Your Market Size Identify Trends and Growth Rates in Your Market Identify Target Audience Competitive Analysis Create Your SMART Goals Analyze Your Tactics What It Means To Analyze The Market? Market analysis is a procedure both quantitative and qualitative, allowing you to assess your market. It looks into such things as: Size of the Market Customer Segments and Buying Patterns Analyzing Trends Competitive Analysis External and Internal Factors impacting the Market and its Businesses Why is It Important to Analyze the Market? Market analysis can be considered the most critical part of your business. When done effectively, it can help you gain valuable insights into your business. It allows you to understand your customers, identify their buying trends, and solve their problems. This is important because the key to a successful marketing strategy is to solve customers’ needs and put forth the right solution to their problems. A happy customer is a returning customer. Marketing analysis also can help you with understanding your competitors correctly. Who is coming to the market? Who is gaining power in the market? How reactive are your competitors when you launch a new product? Market analysis can help you answer all those questions and more. Techniques to Build a Strong Marketing Strategy 1. Define Your Business Goals Defining your business objectives is a critical step that trickles down to identifying your marketing and sales objectives. To determine your business objectives, first, you have to understand your market better. While there are many ways to understand your market behavior, I have selected environmental PESTEL analysis to help you in this journey. Companies use PESTEL Analysis (political, economic, social, and technological, environmental, legal) to assess the market climate and understand external factors that can influence the business’ operations to gain a competitive edge. 2. Analyze Your Market Size Your market size can be identified as the total number of buyers and sellers within your market. To calculate your market size, you have first to understand the target customers. Then, an evaluation of your market size will allow you to estimate the size of your audience, sales volume, and revenue. There are many ways to perform this analysis, such as utilizing data firms such as Nielsen or Statista to understand the market better. 3. Identify Trends and Growth Rates in Your Market It is never easy to keep up with the market. However, it is crucial to acknowledge your ever-changing circumstances and keep up to date and avoid competitors gaining over you. There are several steps you can take to ensure you stay ahead of the curve. For example, you may take steps to keep track of the industry influencers and publications, absorb up-to-date industry trends reports, and utilize your digital analytics tools to capture information and create an inference. Now it’s time to capture the market growth trends. These trends are signs of increased market size within a specific period. How you measure that, you might ask… You can utilize the same tools mentioned above to realize Y-o-Y shifts in the market, the number of existing customers, and finally, the number of completed purchases per customer. It is essential to look at both the internal and external trends. Once this is done, we can utilize the data in the prioritization of business and marketing objectives. We will cover this section in more detail in later articles. 4. Identify Target Audience For the next step, we have to identify our target audience. Who are your potential customers? How does your buyers' persona look like? For this, you will conduct some basic market research to identify and segment the audience based on the following: Age Location Title Goals Challenges Interests Pain points Influential events Identifying the customers' will help you with the next step of your market research: to determine your direct and indirect competitors and analyze your competitive landscape. 5. Competitive Analysis It is vital to consider competitors when performing market research. They are an essential part of your consideration because they offer substitute solutions to your target audience. For competitive analysis, you must consider the following: Competitive positioning Market share Competitor’s offerings Pricing To better understand your competitors and position your brand correctly, you can use Porter’s Fiver Forces Analysis. Porter’s Five evaluates the opportunities and risks associated with the industry based on the following five factors: Supplier Power Buyer’s Power Threat of substitute The threat of new entry Market competitiveness Each of the components mentioned above will create a better vision of your competitive landscape. 6. Create Your SMART Goals Now that you have your data gathered, it is time to set up the goals. SMART goals are your roadmap. As you need a compass to navigate the unknown waters, you will need a clear roadmap to guide your business to success. These goals must be identified first before we can discuss ROI (return on investment). SMART goals are to help guide you through your goal-setting tasks. SMART stands for: Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timely Hence, your SMART goal should have all these characteristics embedded. For example, you can set your goal to increase your Facebook followers by 20% in three months or improving your website visits by 20% M-o-M. It has to be achievable and relevant to your business. You have completed another milestone! Now you are ready to set up your tactics to achieve your goals. 7. Analyze Your Tactics Now that you know your SMART goals, it is time to analyze your tactics. Are your tactics in alignment with your goals? Analyze your: Marketing channels Your content Your budget Everything has to be set for success. For example, if your goal is to increase website traffic by 20% M-o-M, you need to increase the traffic sent to your website and delivering educational content to keep the user engaged on your site. If your goal is to increase your social media followers, maybe you want to increase your engagement by changing your content style or setting up a monthly giveaway. But also keep the budget in mind when modifying your tactics. Final Thoughts This article discussed ways to analyze your market, set up goals, and create a powerful marketing strategy. We have covered: What It Means to Analyze the Market Why is It Important to Analyze the Market Techniques to Build a Strong Marketing Strategy Define Your Business Goals Analyze Your Market Size Identify Trends and Growth Rates in Your Market Identify Target Audience Competitive Analysis Create Your SMART Goals Analyze Your Tactics Marketing strategy is essential to your business because, if done right, it helps increase your sales. In addition, if you find the ideal way to target your customers and bring forth the best solution to their problems, you will reduce marketing costs while increasing your established growth and long-term sustainability. In my opinion, knowing the customer is the most critical step in establishing a solid foundation for your marketing. They are the ones that can help you experience growth. This growth will only happen by providing the customer with significant experience (customer service, user experience, providing the right solution), all three of which can be summarized in your marketing and communication strategy.

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