5 Critical Ways Of Understanding Your Market

In the world of marketing, there is nothing more important than understanding your audience and the market you serve. Every penny spent on commercials or websites will be wasted if its not meaningful to the intended audience. No need to panic! We break down the five most effect and critical ways to understanding your market.

1. Know Your Market Size

The market place is ever evolving and the buyers hold all the power. The first step to implementing a successful marketing strategy is knowing your market size. Knowing your market size helps you determine where the biggest group of your customers is the key ingredient to profitability. If the addressable market you’re going after is too small, the likelihood of achieving the success you really want in your available market is going to be much harder than it needs to be. Remember, it’s always easier to fish in a crowded vs. an empty pond.

2. Understanding Your Competitive Advantage

While you may think the two are independent, knowing your market size is the first step in understanding your competitive advantage, the heart of your business. This means really understanding what your product or service does to make your customers life better or easier. What makes you unique to your competitors? In an era where the digital world is so accessible, just being the cheapest isn’t always enough.

3. Primary vs. Secondary Research

Do your research. In this day in age, there is really no excuse to not doing your homework, especially with so many Alexa’s in everyone’s living rooms. Knowing where both primary and secondary research will help you expand your business can be easily implemented from an innovative marketing strategy.

Primary research involves more of a direct response from your target audience, ie online surveys, phone interviews, or anything to gather organic details about the challenges your customer faces.

Secondary research is any public records or data that you have at your disposal. It can be a great resource when trying to understand your competitors and how they operate in the same marketplace. Any industry insight or market reports can enable you to draw conclusions about what buyers want right now.

4. Consumer Behavior Trends

Never make assumptions. Pay attention to the ever- changing consumer behavior trends. This will require regular tracking of the implemented marketing strategies and the overall market status of your industry as a whole. Ok don’t worry, well break that down a little further. Consumer behavior trends can be best described as the way people buy things on a particular day. The digital world and social media is constantly influencing what your buyers are seeing and what they have access to on a daily basis. If you want to know what happens when you ignore consumer trends in the marketplace, just compare the Netflix vs. Blockbuster story.