When a business is started, it is essential to know whether there is a market and, if there, if we place on it or, on the contrary, has high barriers to entry or simply saturated.
In short, we must make a market study, for which we have two main options, paid for it and turn to an agency or specialist consultant or we ourselves who we get down to work.
If the latter option is why we decided to do it must be according to the following recommendations.
Steps to conduct a market study
- Gather information
Internet in this work acts as a facilitator since we have lots of information, usually free that will allow us to do this work with little effort but surely giving her a long time.
As main sources of information relevant articles and reports on the situation in your sector, statistics and data, censuses are. Visits the websites of business associations in your industry, the Ministry and government agencies, for the sector in your Autonomous Community, national and regional statistical offices and the Chambers of Commerce and Industry. For this work, we must not forget that it is very important to monitor corporate web of companies in the sector and direct competitors as we will provide information its commercial strategy (product, price, communication, offers) and its relevance.
- Direct observation
Observe what is happening in the market. For example, customers watching the local competition in their socioeconomic characteristics, most demanded products, impulses and motivations of purchase. Equally, this should be done in your own business and if the conditions are applied mystery shopping technique that lets you know the quality of service that really offer.
- Competitive Analysis
It is to identify who is doing well and who is not, which helps to identify business opportunities, key success factors and market trends. If possible, it is desirable to make a site visit to your main competitors to perform a task of observation based on the variables we are interested in analyzing such as range of products or services offered, customer support, customer service, policy price, etc.
- Define your target customer
If you have made a good market research, you can define what types of customers make it and divide them into related groups. Have to choose the target customer, that or those groups that you want to run a priority to adapt your marketing actions after their characteristics and consumer behavior.
These are the parts that a market study conducted by specialized companies analyzed for the service, you usually pay 2,000 dollars upwards so interested weigh whether to do by ourselves or outsource.