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A good market analysis helps you review the strength of your business by examining your potential customer base. You should examine not only those people who currently use the product or service in question but also a wider group of those people you might be able to reach. When you define your customer base for the market analysis, you should be as open-minded as possible. Expand your view of who your business might reach. Use the market analysis to help identify advertising needs. For example, suppose you have an idea for some new athletic gear. Your first thoughts for your customers might be teens or young, active adults. However, you should expand your thinking and consider how you might market to older customers and encourage them to exercise more. You need to examine whether the market for your product or service is increasing, decreasing or resting stable. Look at sales or contracts of other similar companies over the past six to twelve months. Their results can provide some indication of what you may expect. When evaluating your new business idea, you should discount the results that you review from other companies. Expect that your new business will have startup costs and other expenses that will make your results less positive than those of an existing company. The chamber of commerce has resources to help you evaluate the potential strength of your business. You should be able to get information about the local markets, population trends up or down, age groups and demographics, and contacts in similar business types. For example, your local chamber of commerce may have periodic networking meetings of local business owners. You could use such meetings to talk with other people in similar businesses, learn about the community, and get some insights into how your business may fare. Business does imply competition, but you may also find a great deal of support from people who are not in direct competition with your new idea. You can get information about your potential customer base from census statistics, labor reports and other government sources. A good source for this information is www.census.gov. This source combines information from a variety of government agencies. You can search based on your location or chosen demographics. At the Census Bureau website, for example, you can find tables of data specifically designed to help U.S. businesses, including data about birth and death rates, employment and unemployment, and other important figures.
Identify your potential customer base. Analyze the trend of the market. Visit the local chamber of commerce. Review available government statistics.