Market analysis is an essential tool for any business, because it allows you to understand the context. This helps us understand the market in which we operate, how we have entered it, how others have entered it, and the customers who turn to us.
This is how we can seize opportunities and make strategic decisions.
Understanding the context therefore becomes the key to employing energy and resources in making sensible choices, which bring results, growth and satisfaction. In fact, very often various problems, especially of activities that operate in the digital world, are attributable to blurring of the lenses.
For example, there are those who offer bargain discounts in a new market, immediately attracting many people but then finding themselves suddenly forced to raise prices and lose customers. Or there are those who invest time and money in sponsorships that have communication solutions chosen only for personal taste but distant from the reference market. These examples seem extreme, but when you act as a group without a clear overall goal, it takes very little to lose control of the situation. And the effects can ruin a business or nip a brand in the bud.
Instead, let's see how to act to seize the opportunities that a market can offer us... or perhaps that we can offer them.
Content index
The gist of market analysis
Market analysis consists of systematic evaluations of data and information relating to sectors, markets, customers and certain activities.
The purposes are:
- provide a detailed overview of the trends, dynamics and opportunities of a market;
- identify customers, their needs and preferences;
- monitor and understand the competition;
- understand the relationships between our business, competitors and the market;
- make decisions about production, distribution, pricing, marketing and communication.
Conduct effective market analysis
We are talking about a broad spectrum tool that can be conducted with different methods, specific parameters and objectives. However, the criteria to be followed to conduct an effective market analysis remain unchanged.
In the meantime, before starting, it is necessary to clearly establish the objectives, and it is not a trivial matter. In fact, only some data really indicate what you are looking for. So you need to know precisely where to go and see, what to consider and what to discard.
Data collection and crossing
The data comes in part from surveys, interviews or focus groups, which can provide first-hand insights from customers. This way you get to know their preferences, purchasing behavior and specific needs.
Another part of the data typically comes from industry reports, official statistics, surveys and other information that can be viewed in databases such as Telemachus, which is connected to the Chamber of Commerce. Then there are tools and platforms that monitor web traffic and keywords (like Trends o Ahrefs), as well as sales of a single e-commerce and interactions on a linked social page.
All this information, once collected, is crossed to notice useful correlations to analyze.
Analysis and action
Now from these data and their correlations patterns are interpreted and trends observed. In particular, we study the competition that is more successful than us. From the visible results we derive the marketing strategies you apply, the operational and logistical choices, the language and form of your communication, the prices and offers you make, how much you earn, what kind of customers you have and which ones seem to be more loyal and why .
We have already collected customer information, we have monitored our and others web traffic, search engine rankings and sales of ecommerce connected to social pages, of which we can see traffic and interactions.
Then we can draw conclusions and act to create our place in a market, from all points of view.
So we structure interesting proposals, we personalize products and services, we work on SEO, we balance prices, we sponsor in a targeted manner and adopt effective communication, and we take care of our own social pages to create real engagement.
In essence, we invest time and resources in a focused manner to obtain the best performance with the least amount of use possible.
In conclusion, scout out the niches and look at other markets
Thanks to the market analysis, interesting niches can also be identified.
It is not a road to be underestimated.
In fact, if on the one hand the richest and most popular markets seem promising, on the other (especially online) they are so competitive as to become exhausting. Tight competition makes everything difficult, but it is also true that it indicates demand. And the more demand there is, the more there are possibilities for it to be varied. This means that within a large market it is possible to identify niches from which to profit, potentially and at certain times, with reduced competition.
For this purpose, markets, products or individual activities in other countries can also be studied.
All this helps to fulfill one of the most ambitious objectives of a market analysis: to deeply understand a context not only to act accordingly, but to have an active influence on its dynamics.
