sample of market size in business plan

Target Market Examples

Elon Glucklich

7 min. read

Updated April 24, 2024

Imagine your dream is to own a diner.

You have restaurant experience and a great location in mind – you just need the bank to approve your loan to get started.

But the bank has questions. A big one it wants answered is: who is your target market?

It might be tempting just to say, “hungry diners.” But you’ll need to dig deeper to truly define your target market . 

In this article, we’ll use this diner scenario to walk through the market research process and illustrate what the final result could look like.

• Questions about your target market

Before you even set foot in the bank, you should already have asked – and taken steps to answer – several key questions about your target market.

Let’s call our example business the Bplans Diner. Where is that perfect location you’ve found for the diner? Is it in a densely populated urban area, suburban neighborhood, or rural?

What are your hours of operation? Some diners cater to a breakfast crowd, while others might offer 24-hour dining to be a favorite among night owls. When you expect your peak hours could help determine whether you should expect to sell more omelets or hamburgers.

What’s the area’s median income, and what types of businesses or institutions are nearby? This information will help you determine pricing and marketing strategies for your diner. For instance, if your diner is located in a business district, you may want to offer lunch specials. But if it’s near a college or university, you might want to offer student discounts.

This is what a thorough target market analysis looks like, providing key insights and data to pinpoint the specific groups of customers most likely to patronize your diner. Gathering all of this information may sound intimidating, but it’s really just a matter of doing research. If you need help and guidance, check out our complete guide to conducting market research for your business . 

Let’s look at an example of a target market analysis for this diner. Then, we’ll break it down and discuss each element in detail.

• Example of a target market analysis

As you can see, the target market analysis follows the basic market segmentation process of splitting out potential customers into their demographic, geographic, psychographic and behavioral traits.

Next, let’s take a look at each in more detail. Afterward, we’ll look at how you can harness your target market analysis into actual business strategies.

• Demographic

You may have noticed that the demographic analysis in our example is very broad – 18 to 65 years old, including students, workers, and some seniors.

Finding your target market isn’t always about identifying a narrow demographic to cater to. In the case of a restaurant, it makes sense to focus on the geographic location and who currently frequents the area (more on that in the next section).

A different approach may be needed for a technology product that’s sold online. In that case, narrowing the demographic focus to specific age ranges or needs would be much more important than where the business is located.

In the case of the diner, we reached our decision by conducting a demographic analysis, examining the age ranges, occupations, and other concrete data points about potential customers near the proposed location (Reminder: we didn’t do this for the Bplans Diner, we’re just providing an example). 

There are several ways to go about collecting this information for your business. The most straightforward is to get out in the neighborhood, take a look around and talk to people. Are you mostly seeing students, or families? Are there a lot of office workers in the area? 

You can also look up data from the U.S. Census Bureau , which includes population, age, income and other useful information, often down to the neighborhood level.

After conducting this research, one valuable step is to create a detailed customer persona that represents the typical customer you expect for your business (we provide an example of a customer persona for the diner further down in this article).

While the demographic analysis considers the type of people who might frequent your business, the geographic analysis considers the characteristics of the neighborhood itself. 

Our target market analysis for Bplans Diner noted that we plan to operate in an urban area near a university with heavy foot traffic and expect a fair amount of late-night diners.

A key reason for examining the geographic makeup of your businesses is to size up your competition. If there’s already a popular diner in the area you plan to target, getting customers could be a major challenge. But if there’s a lack of dining options or no one is serving diner-style food, you’re more likely to be successful. Determining the size of your market will help you create reasonable revenue projections. 

We also mentioned the plan for Bplans Diner to cater to a late-night crowd. Examining the geographic makeup of the neighborhood will help you determine if there are the kinds of businesses – bars, music venues, or businesses such as hospitals where people are working all hours – to justify targeting this group.

• Psychographic

You know the demographics and geographic characteristics of your market. Now it’s time to consider the attitudes and values of your potential customers.

The psychographic analysis helps to understand the lifestyle of potential customers and how that might affect their preferences as consumers. If many of your potential customers are health-conscious, for instance, you’ll want to ensure your diner provides options like salads or gluten-free menu items. But if most customers are families looking for a place to bring their children, it may be important to keep classic items like hamburgers and french fries on the menu.

The best way to understand your potential customers’ attitudes is to get out and talk to them. Customer interviews are among the most powerful methods of validating a business idea , since you’ll get honest, real-time feedback from the kinds of people your business would depend on.

Finally, the behavioral analysis expands on customer psychographics by examining what customers do, given their values. This is another place where it’s worth considering the broad demographics of the diner’s target market – 18 to 65 years old, split among students, workers, and seniors.

They may all want the diner’s food, but their behaviors will vary widely. College students might be looking for a late-night study spot, or a place to meet up with friends for dinner before a concert or sporting event. But workers and seniors might be more interested in breakfast or lunch specials. 

Each of these behaviors gives a business owner valuable information to target individual segments of their target audience. For instance, you might want to play popular music in the evenings to get young diners ready for a night out on the town. But you’ll want a quieter ambiance at the time of day when seniors are most likely to come in. The environment can be adjusted based on when certain customers frequent the business.

Addressing behavioral aspects like buying motivations and concerns of your potential customers will also help you effectively market your diner. For example, you could create marketing campaigns based on student discounts, late-night specials, or a family-friendly atmosphere, depending on your customers’ behaviors.

• Connecting a target market analysis to business strategy

So far, we’ve touched on each of the components of a target market analysis for a diner: customer demographics, geographics, psychographics, and behaviors. (It’s also important to conduct an industry analysis to understand competitive and macroeconomic forces affecting your planning.)

With the target market analysis complete, you’re better equipped to demonstrate a thorough understanding of your customers to a lender.

Here are a few insights a business owner could use for the Bplans Diner, developed through the above analysis.

• Bplans Diner Competitive Analysis

Market Trends: Growing demand for late-night food options, increasing preference for healthy dining options.

Competitor Strengths and Weaknesses:

Competitor A: Strong brand but limited menu options.

Competitor B: Wide variety of options but lacking in ambiance.

• Bplans Diner Marketing Strategy

Product Differentiation: Offering a diverse menu that caters to various preferences, including healthy options.

Positioning: Establishing Bplans Diner as a reliable, quality, 24-hour dining option in the region.

Promotion: Utilizing social media to announce special night-time deals and promotions.

• Get started with your business plan template

A target market analysis is a key part of any business plan. But it’s just one piece. At Bplans, we take some of the pain out of business planning. We’ve developed a free business planning template to help reduce entrepreneurs’ time to create a full, lender-ready business plan. Bplans has also collected over 550 free sample business plans across numerous industries. Find a plan in your industry to get inspiration for your plan.

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Elon is a marketing specialist at Palo Alto Software, working with consultants, accountants, business instructors and others who use LivePlan at scale. He has a bachelor's degree in journalism and an MBA from the University of Oregon.

Table of Contents

Related Articles

4 Min. Read

How to Define Your Target Market

3 Min. Read

How to Use TAM, SAM, SOM to Determine Market Size

10 Min. Read

How to Create a Detailed User or Buyer Persona

8 Min. Read

How to Conduct an Industry Analysis

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How to Write a Market Analysis for a Business Plan

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A lot of preparation goes into starting a business before you can open your doors to the public or launch your online store. One of your first steps should be to write a business plan . A business plan will serve as your roadmap when building your business.

Within your business plan, there’s an important section you should pay careful attention to: your market analysis. Your market analysis helps you understand your target market and how you can thrive within it.

Simply put, your market analysis shows that you’ve done your research. It also contributes to your marketing strategy by defining your target customer and researching their buying habits. Overall, a market analysis will yield invaluable data if you have limited knowledge about your market, the market has fierce competition, and if you require a business loan. In this guide, we'll explore how to conduct your own market analysis.

How to conduct a market analysis: A step-by-step guide

In your market analysis, you can expect to cover the following:

Industry outlook

Target market

Market value

Competition

Barriers to entry

Let’s dive into an in-depth look into each section:

Step 1: Define your objective

Before you begin your market analysis, it’s important to define your objective for writing a market analysis. Are you writing it for internal purposes or for external purposes?

If you were doing a market analysis for internal purposes, you might be brainstorming new products to launch or adjusting your marketing tactics. An example of an external purpose might be that you need a market analysis to get approved for a business loan .

The comprehensiveness of your market analysis will depend on your objective. If you’re preparing for a new product launch, you might focus more heavily on researching the competition. A market analysis for a loan approval would require heavy data and research into market size and growth, share potential, and pricing.

Step 2: Provide an industry outlook

An industry outlook is a general direction of where your industry is heading. Lenders want to know whether you’re targeting a growing industry or declining industry. For example, if you’re looking to sell VCRs in 2020, it’s unlikely that your business will succeed.

Starting your market analysis with an industry outlook offers a preliminary view of the market and what to expect in your market analysis. When writing this section, you'll want to include:

Market size

Are you chasing big markets or are you targeting very niche markets? If you’re targeting a niche market, are there enough customers to support your business and buy your product?

Product life cycle

If you develop a product, what will its life cycle look like? Lenders want an overview of how your product will come into fruition after it’s developed and launched. In this section, you can discuss your product’s:

Research and development

Projected growth

How do you see your company performing over time? Calculating your year-over-year growth will help you and lenders see how your business has grown thus far. Calculating your projected growth shows how your business will fare in future projected market conditions.

Step 3: Determine your target market

This section of your market analysis is dedicated to your potential customer. Who is your ideal target customer? How can you cater your product to serve them specifically?

Don’t make the mistake of wanting to sell your product to everybody. Your target customer should be specific. For example, if you’re selling mittens, you wouldn’t want to market to warmer climates like Hawaii. You should target customers who live in colder regions. The more nuanced your target market is, the more information you’ll have to inform your business and marketing strategy.

With that in mind, your target market section should include the following points:

Demographics

This is where you leave nothing to mystery about your ideal customer. You want to know every aspect of your customer so you can best serve them. Dedicate time to researching the following demographics:

Income level

Create a customer persona

Creating a customer persona can help you better understand your customer. It can be easier to market to a person than data on paper. You can give this persona a name, background, and job. Mold this persona into your target customer.

What are your customer’s pain points? How do these pain points influence how they buy products? What matters most to them? Why do they choose one brand over another?

Research and supporting material

Information without data are just claims. To add credibility to your market analysis, you need to include data. Some methods for collecting data include:

Target group surveys

Focus groups

Reading reviews

Feedback surveys

You can also consult resources online. For example, the U.S. Census Bureau can help you find demographics in calculating your market share. The U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Small Business Administration also offer general data that can help you research your target industry.

Step 4: Calculate market value

You can use either top-down analysis or bottom-up analysis to calculate an estimate of your market value.

A top-down analysis tends to be the easier option of the two. It requires for you to calculate the entire market and then estimate how much of a share you expect your business to get. For example, let’s assume your target market consists of 100,000 people. If you’re optimistic and manage to get 1% of that market, you can expect to make 1,000 sales.

A bottom-up analysis is more data-driven and requires more research. You calculate the individual factors of your business and then estimate how high you can scale them to arrive at a projected market share. Some factors to consider when doing a bottom-up analysis include:

Where products are sold

Who your competition is

The price per unit

How many consumers you expect to reach

The average amount a customer would buy over time

While a bottom-up analysis requires more data than a top-down analysis, you can usually arrive at a more accurate calculation.

Step 5: Get to know your competition

Before you start a business, you need to research the level of competition within your market. Are there certain companies getting the lion’s share of the market? How can you position yourself to stand out from the competition?

There are two types of competitors that you should be aware of: direct competitors and indirect competitors.

Direct competitors are other businesses who sell the same product as you. If you and the company across town both sell apples, you are direct competitors.

An indirect competitor sells a different but similar product to yours. If that company across town sells oranges instead, they are an indirect competitor. Apples and oranges are different but they still target a similar market: people who eat fruits.

Also, here are some questions you want to answer when writing this section of your market analysis:

What are your competitor’s strengths?

What are your competitor’s weaknesses?

How can you cover your competitor’s weaknesses in your own business?

How can you solve the same problems better or differently than your competitors?

How can you leverage technology to better serve your customers?

How big of a threat are your competitors if you open your business?

Step 6: Identify your barriers

Writing a market analysis can help you identify some glaring barriers to starting your business. Researching these barriers will help you avoid any costly legal or business mistakes down the line. Some entry barriers to address in your marketing analysis include:

Technology: How rapid is technology advancing and can it render your product obsolete within the next five years?

Branding: You need to establish your brand identity to stand out in a saturated market.

Cost of entry: Startup costs, like renting a space and hiring employees, are expensive. Also, specialty equipment often comes with hefty price tags. (Consider researching equipment financing to help finance these purchases.)

Location: You need to secure a prime location if you’re opening a physical store.

Competition: A market with fierce competition can be a steep uphill battle (like attempting to go toe-to-toe with Apple or Amazon).

Step 7: Know the regulations

When starting a business, it’s your responsibility to research governmental and state business regulations within your market. Some regulations to keep in mind include (but aren’t limited to):

Employment and labor laws

Advertising

Environmental regulations

If you’re a newer entrepreneur and this is your first business, this part can be daunting so you might want to consult with a business attorney. A legal professional will help you identify the legal requirements specific to your business. You can also check online legal help sites like LegalZoom or Rocket Lawyer.

Tips when writing your market analysis

We wouldn’t be surprised if you feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information needed in a market analysis. Keep in mind, though, this research is key to launching a successful business. You don’t want to cut corners, but here are a few tips to help you out when writing your market analysis:

Use visual aids

Nobody likes 30 pages of nothing but text. Using visual aids can break up those text blocks, making your market analysis more visually appealing. When discussing statistics and metrics, charts and graphs will help you better communicate your data.

Include a summary

If you’ve ever read an article from an academic journal, you’ll notice that writers include an abstract that offers the reader a preview.

Use this same tactic when writing your market analysis. It will prime the reader of your market highlights before they dive into the hard data.

Get to the point

It’s better to keep your market analysis concise than to stuff it with fluff and repetition. You’ll want to present your data, analyze it, and then tie it back into how your business can thrive within your target market.

Revisit your market analysis regularly

Markets are always changing and it's important that your business changes with your target market. Revisiting your market analysis ensures that your business operations align with changing market conditions. The best businesses are the ones that can adapt.

Why should you write a market analysis?

Your market analysis helps you look at factors within your market to determine if it’s a good fit for your business model. A market analysis will help you:

1. Learn how to analyze the market need

Markets are always shifting and it’s a good idea to identify current and projected market conditions. These trends will help you understand the size of your market and whether there are paying customers waiting for you. Doing a market analysis helps you confirm that your target market is a lucrative market.

2. Learn about your customers

The best way to serve your customer is to understand them. A market analysis will examine your customer’s buying habits, pain points, and desires. This information will aid you in developing a business that addresses those points.

3. Get approved for a business loan

Starting a business, especially if it’s your first one, requires startup funding. A good first step is to apply for a business loan with your bank or other financial institution.

A thorough market analysis shows that you’re professional, prepared, and worth the investment from lenders. This preparation inspires confidence within the lender that you can build a business and repay the loan.

4. Beat the competition

Your research will offer valuable insight and certain advantages that the competition might not have. For example, thoroughly understanding your customer’s pain points and desires will help you develop a superior product or service than your competitors. If your business is already up and running, an updated market analysis can upgrade your marketing strategy or help you launch a new product.

Final thoughts

There is a saying that the first step to cutting down a tree is to sharpen an axe. In other words, preparation is the key to success. In business, preparation increases the chances that your business will succeed, even in a competitive market.

The market analysis section of your business plan separates the entrepreneurs who have done their homework from those who haven’t. Now that you’ve learned how to write a market analysis, it’s time for you to sharpen your axe and grow a successful business. And keep in mind, if you need help crafting your business plan, you can always turn to business plan software or a free template to help you stay organized.

This article originally appeared on JustBusiness, a subsidiary of NerdWallet.

The 2 Simple & Straightforward Methods for Market Sizing Your Business

Published: September 21, 2023

When you’re considering a new venture, one of the first things you should do is determine whether there is a valuable market for it.

Discover the methods to calculate your market size and accurately measure your business’ revenue potential .

Keep reading, or jump to the section you’re looking for:

What is market sizing?

Market sizing terms to know, how to calculate market size, market sizing methods.

Market sizing is the process of finding how big your product's audience or revenue could be. So, market size is the total number of potential buyers for a product or service and the potential revenue reach based on that population size.

When market sizing, you're calculating customer numbers to measure the growth potential of your business.

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Why is market size important?

There are several reasons why every business should spend time sizing its market:

• Market sizing helps you figure out if your product is a worthy investment. Say you have a great idea for a product but there are only 100 people who would buy it. From there, you can decide if that population size is worth the cost of manufacturing, production, distribution, and more for your product.
• Market sizing helps you estimate profit and potential for growth. If you know how many people your business has the potential to reach, you can estimate how much revenue you can generate. This is valuable for both business owners as well as investors.
• Market size defines who you’re marketing to and what their needs are. No business can succeed without marketing. Knowing your market size is the first step in understanding your target market and their needs.
• Market sizing helps your business make better decisions. Understanding your market landscape, gaps, and opportunities will inform your decision-making. It can also help you set more realistic goals, assign resources, and refine your strategies.
• Market sizing helps your business minimize risk. Starting or expanding a business is inherently risky. Understanding your market can help you anticipate and prepare for challenges.

Market Size vs. Market Value

Market size is the total potential demand for a product or service. This number usually calculates the number of potential customers, units sold, or revenue generated. So, market size is an estimate of the overall market reach.

Market value refers to the financial worth or estimated market capitalization of a company or industry. It’s a measure of perceived value. It can give you an idea of how much a company could sell for in a given market.

In summary, market size focuses on the potential market opportunity, while market value is the financial value of an individual company or an entire market.

Before diving into how to figure out your market size, there are a few helpful terms you should get to know.

TAM stands for Total Addressable Market. This number is the maximum potential revenue or customer base that a company could achieve if it were to capture 100% of market share.

SAM stands for Serviceable Addressable Market. SAM is a part of the TAM that aligns with the company's resources, capabilities, and target customers.

SOM stands for Serviceable Obtainable Market. SOM is the part of the SAM that a company can get at its current scale. This figure may consider marketing and sales strategies, competitive positioning, and product demand.

Check out this post to learn more about TAM, SAM, and SOM and how to calculate them.

Target Market

A target market is a specific group of customers, industries, or segments that a company focuses on. It's the customer segment that's most likely to show interest, purchase, and appreciate a company's products or services.

Penetration Rate

Penetration rate refers to the percentage of a target market that a company has successfully captured. It shows the level of market share reached by a company in a specific market segment or overall market.

If you're a new business, you can calculate penetration rate by dividing your total customers by the number of potential customers in the target market. Then, multiply the result by 100 to get the percentage.

Learn more about market penetration here.

Market Segmentation

Market segmentation is the process of dividing the total market into distinct groups or segments. Usually, the people in these segments have common characteristics, needs, or behaviors.

Segmenting the market can help you better understand your target customers. It can also help you tailor business strategies, like marketing , to meet specific segment needs.

Value Proposition

A value proposition is the unique benefits that a company offers to its target customers. It differentiates a company's product or service from competitors and creates value for customers.

Understanding the value proposition is crucial in market sizing. This is because it can help you find the specific customer segments that will find the most value in your offer.

Try one of these free value proposition templates to draft your value proposition.

• Start with your total addressable market.
• Find a group of customers to focus on within that target market.
• Figure out how many of those customers are likely to buy your product.
• Multiply that customer number by estimated penetration rate.

While calculating market size takes only a few steps, it's a crucial process. The steps below will help you understand the potential demand and revenue opportunities for your business.

1. Start with your total addressable market.

You can calculate your TAM by multiplying the total customers in a market by the annual value per customer. But before calculating, make sure you take a look at the tips below:

• Define your product or service. While developing a product can be quick, growing a business around a product is more complex. It's important to clearly understand your product or service and how it solves a problem or meets a need in the market.
• Find your market category. Some products fall within more than one industry or market category. This is the first step that will narrow your TAM. So, think carefully about what you expect customers to compare your offer to.
• Conduct market research. Gather relevant data and information about your potential users. If you're new to market research, check out this free market research kit , with research and planning templates.
• Analyze the competition. Conduct competitive analysis to figure out the market share and unique value of your top competitors.
• Define your total addressable market. With the research and analysis you've pulled together, create a realistic TAM estimate.

2. Find a group of customers to focus on within that target market.

Dig into the tips below to quantify the top customers in your market:

• Create your ideal buyer persona. Use the Make My Persona tool to outline the characteristics, demographics, and behaviors of your ideal customers.
• Segment your target market. Start dividing your target market into distinct segments. You might base segments on factors like age, location, interests, or buying behavior.
• Continue market research. Continue collecting data and insights about each segment. This will help you understand how big each segment is, as well as their needs, preferences, pain points, and purchasing habits. Your ongoing market research might include surveys, interviews, focus groups, or analyzing existing market research.
• Set pricing for your product or service. For some products, pricing is a deciding purchase factor. So, if you haven't already, set pricing or a price range for your products.
• Assess segments of your market and prioritize . Think about each segment's size, growth potential, and competition. It's also a good idea to think about how each segment aligns with your company's capabilities and resources. In short, don't just focus on segments that offer the most attractive opportunities. Make sure they align with your strengths and needs.
• Refine your buyer personas. With your prioritized segments, take another look at your ideal customer profile. This will give you a more useful buyer persona for your marketing and sales strategies.
• Confirm your SAM with market testing. Test your target segments with a product or service pilot group, measuring their responses and feedback.

3. Figure out how many of those customers are likely to buy your product.

This step will narrow your scope more intensely on the customers who need exactly what you have to offer. These are the people who are looking for you or a clear alternative to your competitors. To quantify this group:

• Create a customer journey map. From awareness to purchase, this process can help you map out the ideal customer path. From how you expect customers to discover your products to the blockers that might keep them from clicking buy, this step is useful for market sizing and beyond. Use these customer journey templates if you're new to this process.
• Estimate conversion rates. Use historical data, industry benchmarks, or industry research to estimate conversion rates. This can help you quantify expected numbers of leads, prospects, and customers in each segment.
• Figure out buyer intent. Create a ranking or score for each segment to measure their likelihood of purchasing your product. This can help you prioritize segments with the highest conversion potential.
• Create a SOM estimate with your data. The research above will add credibility to your market size estimate. It can also help guide your growth strategies.

4. Multiply that customer number by estimated penetration rate.

To calculate penetration rate, divide the SOM you calculated above by your TAM, then multiply by 100.

Once you have a calculation for your market size, you'll want to make sure you can trust that number. Keep your market sizing current with these tips:

• Confirm your data is accurate and reliable. As you complete your research, use reliable sources such as industry reports, market studies, or government databases. Also, check to ensure the data you're referencing is up to date.
• Keep up with market growth, seasonality, industry trends, tech advancements, regulatory changes, and economic conditions. These factors can affect both market size and customer demand.
• Review and update your market size estimates regularly. Market conditions change over time. Plan regular reviews of your market size, then update your calculations with new or relevant data.

There are two simple methods for market sizing your business. These straightforward processes can help you use data to gauge market size.

Top Down Approach

The first is a top-down approach, in which you start by looking at the market as a whole, then refine it to get an accurate market size. That would look like starting from your total addressable market and filtering from there.

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Market Size for a Business Plan – 2 Methods to Gauge It

In order to estimate how much in sales your startup can hope for, you’re going to have to estimate the market size for your product/service(s). This is critical for your startup because it will give you an idea of your business’ potential. It will also help you plan for capacity-related issues.

2 approaches to estimating the market size for a business plan

I cover this topic more in-depth in a post on market size and growth rate on my sister site, InvestSomeMoney.com.

The context there is focused on investing your money in a publicly-traded company. Though that’s a little different than what we are doing here, the fundamental principles remain the same.

The goal is to determine how many potential customers there are for a business and how much they are willing to spend. In order to do that, we can employ two general methods. These methods are a top-down analysis and a bottom-up approach to understand market size and growth.

One way to think about this is that a bottom-up approach uses multiplication and a top-down analysis uses division to arrive at an estimated market size.

After writing on this subject several times, I’ve come up with another way to think about these methods. I think a bottom-up approach should look internally, at things like unit size and capacity. A top-down analysis should look externally at things like demographics and market research.

Looking at this from these two different perspectives opens the door for further analysis. When you’re done, you should know whether you can expect to be capacity constrained or demand constrained. You’ll also start to flesh out some ideas that will help you further into your business plan.

If you do an analysis with both approaches, you can compare the results. For instance, if your bottom-up approach is higher, you’ll know that you could have excess capacity issues. You need to consider scaling that back or otherwise expanding your product/service offering to drum up additional demand.

Conversely, if your top-down analysis reveals that demand is in excess of capacity, then you are leaving money on the table. Time to start thinking about what you can do to scale up and capture as much of the market as possible.

Let’s start by taking a look at a bottom-up approach to estimating the market size for a business plan.

Bottom-up approach example

On my sister site, InvestSomeMoney.com, I researched three real-life examples of a bottom up market sizing approach . In those examples, you’ll see that they sometimes mix in a little top-down analysis with their bottom-up approach and vice versa. There’s no rule against doing that, but I would rather look at things from two totally different perspectives.

When using a bottom-up approach, try to start with the most simplistic piece of firm information you can get your hands on. Then, start to build on it with other information, or the best guess you can muster.

You can think of a bottom-up approach as one that focuses on how much and how often customers will buy.

This information might be something you have internally. Or, it might be from the information you found by researching online. Start with a single “serving size” of your product/service. Then, think about how often a customer would buy. Work your way up from there.

A bottom-up approach for my business plan

As mentioned in earlier posts about business plans – I’m building one as I write these. My theoretical product is an all-natural topical hair loss treatment.

In the post linked above, I performed something of a top-down analysis of market size for a business plan. I later discovered that I was operating with incomplete information .

There’s still a lot to consider regarding packaging volume and dosage. That will require more thought. But, for the time being, I’m going to estimate the volume of a one month’s supply and the daily dosage to be the same as Rogaine. If that changes as I progress with my business plan, I can easily circle back to this and plug in different numbers.

With Rogaine as my benchmark, I know that a dosage of my product would be 1 mL. The product would be used twice a day. My product would come in 2 oz (60 ml) bottles. Each bottle would be one month’s supply, as I said.

Thinking about capacity

Okay. Now that I have a grasp on the package size – what about blending and packaging? If this idea were to come to fruition, I don’t picture myself blending batches in my bathtub and filling bottles with a ladle and a funnel. I would need access to some sort of industrial equipment.

Fortunately, a quick internet search shows that there is no shortage of contract blenders and packagers out there. Especially for food and supplements. What it costs, remains to be seen. That’s an issue for another time. For now, I just want to get an idea of how much I could manufacture.

This company claims it can blend 1.25 million pounds per workday. We’ll assume, for now, this represents the average contract blender/packager. What does that translate into in terms of 2 oz bottles?

First of all, I wouldn’t need all 26 of their kettles. Only one, tops, especially at startup. So, if we divide the 1.25 million pounds by 26, we get a per kettle capacity of about 48,000 lbs per day.

Pounds are a weight unit of measure (UOM) and ounces are a volume UOM. To make the conversion, we’re going to have to do some more estimating.

Water weighs a little over 8 lbs/gallon. We’ll assume my product has roughly the same density.

8 lbs ÷ 128 oz (per gallon) = .0625 lbs/oz. With each bottle containing 2 oz, we know that it’ll weigh approximately .125 lbs/bottle.

This means that with one of this company’s kettles, I could blend 384,615 bottles worth of product per day. 96.5 million bottles per year. At an approximate sales price of $7.50 per bottle, that translates into nearly $725 million in revenue per year.

Okay, I’ve looked at things from a bottom-up, capacity-focused approach. Let’s now consider a top-down, demographic-focused analysis.

Top-down analysis

Not surprisingly, I also wrote a post on InvestSomeMoney.com with examples of a top-down analysis to determine market size for a business plan . When you read through it, you might notice that some of the examples use Census data (or something similar). They take big chunks of information and start narrowing down their market from there.

Which brings us to three important terms for performing a top-down analysis. These are:

Total addressable market (TAM) Serviceable available market (SAM) and Serviceable obtainable market (SOM)

A SOM is a fraction of the SAM. In turn, a SAM is part of the TAM.

The TAM can be thought of as every potential customer that you can reach geographically. The SAM is what’s left when you niche down a little into the population that is a good fit for your unique selling proposition. Finally, the SOM represents the percentage of the SAM you can realistically expect to take.

It’s unlikely that you will ever capture 100% of the SAM. Even in a specific niche, you can’t be everything to everyone. That’s alright, though. The goal of this exercise is to make realistic estimates so that you have a sound business plan to work from.

When doing a top-down analysis, start with a large population or an overall industry size. From there, narrow down your customer until you arrive at your SOM. It helps to have a “customer avatar” in mind before starting a top-down analysis so you know where to niche down to.

I would suggest you perform a business plan demand analysis first to get a crystal clear picture of what that avatar is. You might think you know it intuitively. But you might be surprised at what you find – like I was!

A top-down analysis for my business plan

I know that not every person in the U.S. (much less the world) is going to want or need an all-natural topical supplement for hair loss. Who might though???

I’ll refer back to my handy-dandy business plan demand analysis (linked above) to see what I can find.

Here, I’m reminded of the ages that men and women first started experiencing hair loss. I’m reminded of the percentage that has sought any sort of treatment. Finally, I’m given an idea of what types of treatment they have tried.

A quick visit to Data.Census.Gov and I find table S0101, which gives me the U.S. population by age and sex. I customize and filter the table real quick. Then, I copy and paste the data I need into my spreadsheet.

Next step is to narrow these numbers down. I’ll use the “regular” numbers and the pessimistic numbers from sensitivity analysis from my business plan demand workbook .

I want to know the percentage of men who have had hair loss and tried any sort of treatment. Then, I want to go deeper and estimate the number that has found supplements to be effective. I’ll do this for both the most-likely and the worst-case scenarios. On the women’s side, I’ll do, more or less, the same thing.

TAM and SAM

You’ll see that I didn’t use the same age ranges for men and women. I assumed that males would start experiencing hair loss earlier, but would also stop caring about it earlier too.

The age range for males in my TAM was 20 – 54. For females, it was 25 – 59. This translates into a TAM of 151 million people in the U.S.

For the SAM, my worst-case scenario estimated that .9% of the male population in the target age ranges would be part of my market. 1.54% of females in the target age ranges were also assumed to be part of my market. This translated into a worst-case SAM of 1.8 million people.

As for my most-likely SAM, I estimated that 1.41% of males and 2.4% of females in the target age ranges were potential customers. This resulted in a SAM of 2.88 million people. Over a million more potential customers.

SOM is tricky.

Who’s to say what percentage of the SAM my company could capture? Obviously, it would start at 0% and work its way up from there. Where would it stop though?

It will depend, in part, on the number of companies vying for this niche. As I often do, I will refer to the Pareto principle. The Pareto principle states that 20% of the inputs will be responsible for 80% of the outputs. Put another way, 20% of the companies will have roughly 80% of the market share.

I’ll refer back, again, to my post on business plan demand. In it, I found three direct substitutions for my topical hair loss product. I won’t include Minoxidil (Rogaine) in that group, because of its unnatural chemistry.

Again, without getting too mired in math, I estimate that there are approximately thirty companies in the topical hair loss supplement space. This was a quick and dirty estimate based on the results of an internet search.

Six of those thirty companies probably control 80% of the market. That leaves 4.2% (1 ÷ 24) of the remaining 20% as my short-term SOM. Obviously, if my product were to take off, that amount could grow considerably and could approach the SAM.

What that means as far as the market size is 15K people worst-case and 24K people most-likely. At 12 bottles purchased per year, this translates into 184K and 287.5K bottles per year respectively.

Here’s a look at the spreadsheet breaking that all down:

Comparing a bottom-up and top-down analysis when determining market size for a business plan

Obviously, a couple hundred thousand bottles (top-down) is a far cry from 96.5 million (bottom-up). So, it would appear I will not be capacity constrained in the near future. In fact, as this startup moves forward, I need to make sure I’m not over-buying capacity. Those huge fixed costs could kill my business before it has a chance to get off the ground.

Speaking of fixed costs, the information from this analysis has given me good data to build my pro forma financials – when that time comes.

Now, at some point in the future, selling my product internationally could be an option. However, in this tiny niche, it is unlikely that I’ll ever need that much capacity for this one product.

Market size for a business plan

What were there factors I didn’t consider (but should have) when estimating my potential market size?

How might you have approached this differently?

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How to estimate market size: Business and marketing planning for startups

Sizing the market is a necessary task for business and marketing planning, and budgeting for all startups, especially those that seek third-party financing such as venture capital (VC). Even though their investment philosophies may differ, most VCs and angel investors would like to know that they are investing in a market with a large potential size (typically, at least $1 billion).

Understanding your market potential

Even if you do not seek external financing, understanding your market potential is essential for a range of different strategic decisions, in areas such as:

• Product development
• Partnering and distribution
• Organizational design and critical employee skills

Starting point for estimating market size: Know the problem you are solving

The starting point for estimating market size is to understand the problem you solve for customers and the potential value your product generates for them. This is an aspect that many startup founders in the innovation community tend to overlook, since they get excited about the product they’ve developed without thinking about how it benefits their audience.

Depending on your technology, you may have to choose which customer problem to solve first. If this is the case, completing the exercise below may help you better grasp the market size for each application. This will make it easier to prioritize which problem to solve first.

Exercise: Estimating market size

This exercise consists of five steps to help you estimate the total market potential for a product. In each step, we build on a health innovation case study that assumes the problem we solve relates to patient safety in hospitals.

Step 1. Define your target customer

All early-stage entrepreneurs and startups must define their target customer .

Your target customer equals the person or company for whom your technology solves a specific problem. To define your target customer you must:

• Determine who your target customer is.
• Create a profile of your typical/expected target customer.

Given the importance of defining your target customer, it is crucial to set aside enough time to do a proper analysis of this first step.

Case study: We have analyzed patient-safety procedures in a few hospitals. We have determined that our innovative technology would generate the most value in the largest hospitals (the top 25%, ranked by size).

Step 2. Estimate the number of target customers

Estimate the total number of target customers in the market—companies who have a profile similar to that of your target customer.

If you’re a startup venture in Ontario or another Canadian province, you can use industry databases such as those offered by Statistics Canada, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis or Hoovers to help you quantify your market.

Case study: By studying publicly available sources, we have found out that in our target group there are 1,300 hospitals in Canada and the United States.

Step 3. Determine your penetration rate

Refine your market size by assuming a penetration rate for your category of product. The penetration rate is a function of the nature of your product. Assume a high penetration rate if your category of product is mission-critical or mandated through regulation; assume a low penetration rate for products with a specialized purpose.

Example: penetration rates of computers versus business intelligence systems:

• Computers, word-processing and internet: It is almost impossible today to operate a business in the developed world without a computer that has word-processing capabilities and is connected to the internet. While the penetration of those three technologies has not quite reached 100%, it is close enough to use that assumption for business growth and planning.
• Business intelligence systems: In theory, most companies would benefit from having a business intelligence system – a type of software that is used to manage and analyze data about finance, sales, and marketing activities, in addition to more specialized purposes. In practice, however, few ventures have the combination of the scale, skills and business practices required to make business intelligence systems a worthwhile investment.This limits the penetration rate to very large organizations that make up maybe less than 1% of all businesses in the developed world. Nevertheless, while 1% may not sound like a lot, it still represents a much larger number of target customers than a new startup could effectively pursue.

Case study: We have studied the factors that drive improvement in patient safety across North America, and found that it depends on provincial and state regulations. Based on areas where patient-safety regulations are strict, we can assume a penetration rate of 70% for our technology .

Step 4. Calculate the potential market size: Volume and value

Market volume.

To find the overall market potential (that is, the potential market volume), multiply your number of target customers by the penetration rate (see steps 2 and 3 above).

Case study : Using our fictitious example, where the number of target customers is 1,300 and the penetration rate is assumed to be 70%, the potential market volume would be calculated as follows:

1,300 hospitals × 70% = 910 hospitals

Market value

To calculate the monetary value of the market, multiply the market volume by your average value (that is, price expectations).

Case study: We assume each sale to a hospital will yield an average value of $2.5 million. To find the market value, we calculate the following:

910 hospitals × $ 2.5 million = $ 2.275 billion

5. Apply the market-size data

Following these steps to estimate your market size (value) is by no means an exact science. Still, there are ways to maximize the effectiveness of this exercise:

• At the time you make your first estimate, examine each assumption you make and what would cause it to change. To factor in the risks of change, calculate best-case and worst-case scenarios in addition to your expected scenario.
• Over time, monitor the accuracy of your initial assumptions and whether you need to modify them.

Case study: Our patient-safety technology may appeal to hospitals of a smaller size than initially assumed, especially if new regulations mandate tighter patient-safety procedures from all hospitals. While such a change would more than double the number of hospitals in our target market, smaller hospitals would not be able to pay as much, in turn driving the expected average price per sale down to $2 million.

Note: This exercise aims at estimating the total market potential for a product. It is important for startups to recognize that both early adopters and laggards are included in those numbers. While early adopters will likely be your customers in years 1 and 2, the laggards may not enter the market until year 20 or later. In terms of our case study, this would mean that the size of the market in year 1 would be about $100 million if early adopters comprise 5% of the overall hospital market for patient safety. For a more detailed understanding of how markets develop, read the article Technology adoption lifecycle .

The highlights

• Define your target customer
• Estimate the number of target customers
• Determine your penetration rate
• Calculate the potential market size: Volume and value
• Apply the market-size data
• The starting point? Understand the customer problem you solve and the potential value you generate.

Summary: These five steps outline how to estimate a market size—essential when making strategic decisions (e.g, business and marketing planning) and seeking third-party financing (e.g., venture capital).

Researching a market? Our free online course Introduction to Market Sizing offers a practical 30-minute primer on market research and calculating market size.

Want to learn how to understand and talk to your customers? Join us for our next cohort of the Customer Development Immersive.

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How to Write a Market Analysis for a Business Plan?

Free Market Analysis Kit

• April 11, 2024

13 Min Read

Market analysis is the foundation upon which the success of your business relies.

Whether you are a seasoned entrepreneur planning to enter a new geographical market or an emerging startup struggling to place together your business plan—a thorough understanding of the market, customers, and competitors is essential for a business to thrive successfully. 

Now, writing a market analysis for your business plan is quite a challenge. But with this step-by-step guide, we have made the entire process quite simple and easy to follow. 

Also, get tips to write this section and our curated market analysis example for a business plan. 

Ready to dive in? Let’s get started.

What is Market Analysis?

Market analysis is a detailed analysis of your business’s target market and the competitive landscape within a specific industry. It is an important section of your business plan offering a thorough insight into the state of the industry, the potential target market, and your business’s competition.

A well-targeted market analysis forms the base upon which the foundation of your business relies. It assures the readers that you have a thorough understanding of the market you are about to enter.

Why should you Conduct Market Analysis?

Wondering how market analysis will contribute to the success of your business? Well, check these benefits of conducting a comprehensive market analysis for your business:

1. Reduces the risk

Instead of operating on instincts and gut feelings, market research enables you to make decisions based on data and analysis. When you know with surety what works and what doesn’t, you will make decisions that are more likely to succeed than fail.

To summarize, having an in-depth market analysis will reduce the risks associated with starting a business in a thriving marketplace.

2. Identifies emerging trends

A market analysis identifies emerging market trends and patterns and thereby helps you stay at the top of the competition. Not only the trends, but you can also identify challenges that may potentially arise in your business and design a pivot plan.

3. Assist in product development

A detailed analysis of the target market, industry, and competitors helps you create the product that the customer will be willing to buy. The analysis will not only assist in product development, but also with pricing, marketing, and sales strategies to ensure thriving business conditions.

4. Optimize your target market

Your business is not for everyone and the sooner you realize this the better. A target market analysis helps in understanding who your potential customers are and accordingly strategize your marketing efforts to attract them.

5. Establishes evaluation benchmarks

Market analysis benefits your business by offering evaluation metrics and KPIs. Such metrics help in measuring a company’s performance and its edge over the competitors.

Lastly, a thorough market analysis is quintessential if you are planning to secure funds. As a matter of fact, it is non-negotiable.

Now that you know how important having a market analysis section is, let’s learn a detailed way of conducting such analysis.

How to Simplify Your Market Analysis?

Market analysis is a broad concept covering a wide range of details. There’s no denying that it is a tiring task requiring extremely dedicated efforts.

From understanding the purpose of research to undertaking surveys, gathering data, and converting it into worthy analysis—the research itself is a lot for an individual to cover.

Upmetrics market analysis tool kit includes a variety of guidebooks and templates that will help you with target customer analysis , surveys, and competitor surveys.

The documents will guide you in a strategic direction to conduct qualitative research and analysis. They are well-crafted and quite simple to follow even for someone with no prior experience at market analysis.

Got it? No more side talking, let’s get straight to what you are here for.

How to Conduct a Market Analysis?

Conducting thorough market research and analysis could be a hassle, but not with this easy-to-follow 7-step guide. Let’s get over it.

1. Determine your objective

When you write a business plan , market analysis is going to be one prominent component.

However, it is important to know the clear objective of conducting such analysis before you kickstart.

For instance, are you planning to acquire funding from investors or are you conducting this research to test the viability of your business idea? Are you looking to add a new product segment to your business or are you looking to expand in other states and countries?

That being said, the purpose of your market analysis will determine the extent and scope of research essential for your business.

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2. Conduct an Industry Analysis

In this part of your analysis, you will highlight the state of the current industry and show where it seems to be moving. Investors would want to know if the industry is growing or declining, so present accordingly.

This section should include metrics for market size, projected growth, average market growth rate,  product life cycle, and market trends.

Ensure that you gather data from highly authoritative sites like the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Bureau of Economic Analysis, and industry publications to make your analysis.

To make this section enriching and meaningful, begin with a macro industry overview and then drill down to your specific market and business offering as thorough details as possible.

3. Identify your target audience

This section of your market analysis is dedicated to your potential target customers.

And, although your product might be suitable for everyone, there is a high possibility that not all of them will be your customers due to many reasons.

It is therefore better to target a specific category of customers to grow your business effectively and efficiently.

Now, you can begin by creating a buyer’s persona of your ideal customer describing their demographic and psychographic details. This includes talking about the age, gender, location, income, occupation, needs, pain points, problems, and spending capacity of your target customer.

You can conduct surveys, interviews, and focus groups, and gather data from high-end sources to get essential details for a customer profile.

However, make sure that you dig into details to make this section resourceful for business planning and strategizing.

4. Analyze your competitors

Competitive analysis is the most important aspect of your market analysis highlighting the state of the competitive landscape, potential business competitors, and your competitive edge in the market.

Now, a business may have direct as well as indirect competitors. And while indirect competition won’t affect your business directly, it definitely would have an impact on your market share.

To begin this section, identify your top competitors and list them down.

Conduct a SWOT analysis of your top competitors and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses against your business.

Identify their USPs, study their market strategies, understand how they pose a threat to your business, and ideate strategies to leverage their weaknesses.

Don’t undervalue or overestimate your competitors. Instead, focus on offering a realistic state of competition to the readers.

Additionally, readers also want to know your strengths and how you will leverage a competitive edge over your competitors. Ensure that this section highlights your edge in terms of pricing, product, market share, target customer, or anything else.

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5. Calculate your market share

The analysis section of your business plan must also include details of your market share.

If your estimated market share is not big enough, chances are your business idea might not be profitable enough to pursue further.

Now, you can use these proven metrics to forecast your market share:

TAM (Total available market)

It represents the total demand available in the market. In other words, it is the maximum amount of sales or revenue the market has to offer.

SAM (Serviceable available market)

It represents the segment of TAM that you can obtain with your solution within your limitations. These limitations can be geographical location, business model, type of product, etc.

SOM (Serviceable obtainable market)

It represents the segment of SAM that you can realistically capture after considering your competitors, customer preferences, production capabilities, etc.

SOM is your estimated market share. Once you have calculated it, you can actualize it via suitable pricing strategies.

Apart from this method, you can also use other approaches like top-down, bottom-up, and triangulation to estimate your market share.

However, whatever method you use, ensure that the projections are realistic and attainable.

6. Know the regulations and restrictions

Before entering a new market or starting a new business , you need to know the regulations and restrictions in your industry.

Understanding these can help you stay out of legal pitfalls and inspire confidence in prospective investors.

Some of the regulations you need to know are:

• Government policies
• Tax regulations
• Trade policies
• Employment laws
• Environmental regulations
• Security and privacy
• Protection of intellectual properties

Include these details in your market analysis section to help readers understand the risk value and federal regulations associated with your business.

7. Organize and implement the data

After completing your research, it’s now time to make sense of all the data you’ve gathered.

There is no strict structure when it comes to organizing your market analysis. However, ensure that your analysis includes specific sections for objective, target market, and competition.

Focus on creating an easy-to-digest and visually appealing analysis section to help the readers gather essential essence.

Now, it’s a waste if you are not putting all this research to some use. Identify the business areas where you can implement your research be it product development, exploring the new market, or business operations, and develop strategies accordingly.

All in all lay the foundation of a successful business with a thorough and insightful market analysis. And, you can do it by having an organized market analysis section in your business plan.

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Tips to Write Your Market Analysis

After conducting thorough market research, it is important to present that information strategically in a business plan to help the readers get meaningful insights.

Well, here are a few tips to help you write the market analysis for a business plan.

1. Stay in context

Remember the objective of your market analysis and stick to it. Keeping the context in mind, identify what essential information to present and back them up with high-end sources.

Also, tie your data with essential analysis to show how your business would survive and thrive in the market.

2. Add visual graphics

No one prefers shifting through pages of pure text content. Graphics and visuals make your market analysis easy to absorb and understand. You are more likely to capture readers with visual attractiveness rather than risk their attention with pure textual content.

3. Offer an engaging summary

Offer readers a quick overview of your detailed market analysis by including a summarizing text. A summary will help readers gather a macro perspective before diving deep into hard facts and figures.

4. Avoid fluff and repetition

Ensure that everything you present in your market analysis section holds a meaning. Avoid adding inessential and fluff information.

To best identify whether or not the information is essential for the reader, ask this simple question: Will the reader learn something about my business’s market or its customers from this information?

If not, the information is most likely inessential. And, those were some quick tips to ensure effective market analysis for your business plan.

Market Analysis in a Business Plan Example

Before we conclude, check out this market analysis example from Upmetrics’ sample yoga studio business plan.

Business Name: Lotus Harmony

Location: Green Valley

Core Objective for Market Analysis

Our goal for the market analysis at Lotus Harmony is straightforward: to deeply understand what the Green Valley community seeks in yoga and wellness. We’ll closely look at local demand and the competitive scene, shaping our services to precisely meet community needs. This approach promises to make Lotus Harmony a distinct and beloved wellness destination in our neighborhood.

Industry Overview of the Green Valley Yoga Market

Market Size:

Green Valley is home to nearly 1M yoga enthusiasts, predominantly aged 25-45. This demographic suggests a robust market for yoga and wellness, ripe for a studio that offers diverse and inclusive programs.

Projected Growth:

The yoga community is expected to grow by 5% annually over the next five years. This growth is driven by an increasing interest in holistic health, presenting a fertile ground for a new yoga studio to thrive.

Market Trends:

A rising trend is the demand for comprehensive wellness services, including mindfulness and nutrition, alongside traditional yoga. Specialized classes like prenatal yoga are also gaining popularity, signaling opportunities for niche offerings.

By tapping into these insights, a new yoga studio in Green Valley can strategically position itself as a premier wellness destination, catering to the evolving needs of the community.

Target Market Analysis for Lotus Harmony

Lotus Harmony Yoga Studio’s ideal customers are mainly Urban Millennials and Gen Z (ages 18-35) who prioritize:

• Wellness and mindfulness as part of their lifestyle.
• Affordable, holistic health experiences blending physical and mental well-being.
• Convenience with flexible class schedules and online access.
• Community and sustainability, preferring spaces that offer personal growth and eco-consciousness.
• A welcoming atmosphere that supports inclusivity and connection.

Competitive Landscape for Lotus Harmony

Lotus Harmony’s success relies on understanding consumer preferences and income, securing prime locations, attracting patrons, and offering quality services. Competing with gyms, wellness centers, and home fitness, it positions itself as a holistic wellness choice, aiming to stand out in Green Valley’s wellness scene.

Market Share for Lotus Harmony

Regulatory Requirements for Lotus Harmony

Here are a few aspects of legal compliance essential for Lotus Harmony:

• Business Registration and Licensing
• Zoning and Land Use Permits
• Health and Safety Compliance
• Professional Liability Insurance
• Instructor Certifications
• Building Safety Certificates
• Accessibility Compliance
• Tax Registration

Final Thoughts

It takes an extremely dedicated effort to undertake market research and craft it into a compelling analysis. However, it’s a worthy business planning effort that will set a cornerstone of success for your business.

Don’t worry. You don’t need to spend days figuring out what and how to write your market analysis. Upmetrics, an AI-powered business planning app , will help you write your overall business plan in less than an hour.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the 4 c's of marketing analysis.

The 4 C’s of marketing analysis are customer, cost, convenience, and communication which would together determine whether the company would succeed or fail in the long run.

Is SWOT analysis a market analysis?

SWOT analysis is a small but important tool for market research that would determine the success of a business or its edge over other businesses based on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

How long does a market analysis take?

Market analysis can take anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks, given that secondary sources of data are easily available. However, for complex large-scale projects, analysis can take up to months to complete.

What are the three core components of a market analysis?

The three most crucial components of a market analysis are the study of market size and market share, target market determination, and competitor analysis.

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Upmetrics is the #1 business planning software that helps entrepreneurs and business owners create investment-ready business plans using AI. We regularly share business planning insights on our blog. Check out the Upmetrics blog for such interesting reads. Read more

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How to Write a Market Analysis: Guidelines & Templates

Written by: Unenabasi Ekeruke

Whether you're starting a new business or improving existing business processes, you’ll need a detailed market analysis. Not having a proper assessment of your market will make it difficult, if not impossible, to achieve your business goals.

On top of that, you'll end up leaving money, customers and growth opportunities on the table. And your competitors will grasp it.

A market analysis tells you everything you need to know about your industry, competitors, customers that directly affect the growth of your business.

According to Think with Google , 40% of marketers leverage consumer research to make decisions. Getting it right with market analysis helps you make sound decisions, putting you a step ahead of your competitors.

Conducting a market analysis might appear daunting and complex. We've created this guide to discuss what a market analysis is, the components of market analysis and templates to help you create your own.

Let's get to it.

Here’s a short selection of 8 easy-to-edit market analysis templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more templates below:

Table of Contents

What is a market analysis.

• Benefits of a Market Analysis

What Are the Components of a Market Analysis?

9 market analysis templates, how to conduct a market analysis.

• Get to Work: Create Market Analysis with Visme
• A market analysis is a detailed assessment of the market for a product, service or business.
• Market analysis are vital for making informed decisions, staying up to date with emerging trends, developing the right offerings for your market, forecasting potential revenue and gauging business performance.
• A market analysis is composed of an industry description and outlook, a market description, market trends, a competitive analysis, key success factors, market projections and environmental factors.
• To conduct an analysis of the market, you must define your objective, identify your target market, gather competitor data, assess market trends, do a SWOT analysis and summarize the findings into a market analysis document.
• Take advantage of all the business features available in the editor to create your market analysis.
• Access an extensive library of templates , integrated analytics, collaboration and workflow features, plus millions of design assets right at your fingertips to streamline your business process.

A market analysis is an assessment of the industry or market for a product, service, or business. This analysis gives you an overview of all the elements that affect your specific market. Analyzing your market or industry helps you:

• Assess the attractiveness of the market
• Uncover opportunities for growth
• Develop strategies to overcome obstacles and edge out the competition
• Better position your business to serve customers right

A market analysis isn't just for writing business plans or marketing plans . It can be conducted as part of activities for launching new products or services, diversifying into new industries, or revamping your current business strategy.

For example, let's say you're looking for a gap in the market to create a new product or service. A thorough market analysis can point you in the right direction of what's most in demand.

A market analysis isn't a one-time event. If you want your efforts to be successful, keep your market knowledge up-to-date using a marketing dashboard .

You can use a marketing analysis at different stages of your business. It can be helpful to conduct it once or twice a year to keep up to date with major changes in the market.

With a detailed marketing analysis, you can gather valuable insights into:

• The size of the market in terms of value and volume
• Potential customer segments
• Demand for products or services and buying patterns
• The purchasing habits of customers
• Barriers to entry
• Regulations
• Competition (including their strengths and weaknesses)
• The overall market dynamics that influence the prices of products
• Forces affecting the behaviors of industry players and customers

5 Benefits of a Market Analysis

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A market analysis is valuable to your marketing deck . It provides a core understanding of your market and puts your business in the driving seat for success.

Here are some of the other reasons you need a market analysis for your business.

1. Make Informed Decisions

A market analysis gives you insight into market trends, competitors and key success factors. You're able to spot risks, threats and opportunities for growth. This information helps you develop a targeted business strategy and make the right decisions to drive growth.

2. Stay Up to Date With Emerging Trends

By conducting market analysis, you can stay on top of industry trends and see what your competitors aren't seeing. Taking advantage of this information puts you a step ahead of other players in your industry.

3. Develop the Right Offerings for Your Market

Market research and analysis involve listening to the market and communicating with customers. While conducting market analysis, you want to identify these things.

• Who or what influences their purchase decisions?
• What do they expect from brands?
• Why do customers choose your products over those of your competition?
• How do your customers use your products and how do they meet their needs?
• Does your product have the right product-market fit ?

You are better positioned to provide targeted solutions when you have a firm grasp of what customers want. Plus, you can use that information to tailor your business's offerings to your customers' needs.

While building your market analysis, use Google Analytics to assess how your website visitors are reacting to your product and service offerings. Analyze data like where they’re finding your products, how long they’re spending on your pages and where they’re dropping off. Visualize the Google Analytics data in your market analysis report with the help of Visme's integration with Google Analytics .

4. Forecast Potential Revenue and Future Earnings

A market forecast is a critical component of marketing analysis. It predicts the trends, financial projections and characteristics of your target market.

This forecast gives you an idea of what revenue, cost and profit margins to expect. You can tweak your business plan and budget accordingly.

5. Gauge Business Performance

Without metrics, it can be challenging to gauge your business performance. This is where a market analysis comes in handy. It provides benchmarks for measuring your business performance against other companies in your niche.

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A market analysis framework gives you a holistic view of the industries you’re interested in or currently operating in. The components of your market analysis should include:

• Industry description and outlook
• A description of your target market and trends
• Analysis of key competitors
• Key success factors in your industry
• Projections
• Environmental Factors

Let’s look at each of these components in more detail.

1. Industry Description and Outlook

When preparing your market analysis, you want to conduct an in-depth analysis of your industry to determine the current state and your industry's future. This section should have the following information:

• What the industry offers
• Size of your industry
• Emerging trends in the industry
• Rate of growth and the potential for growth
• Sustainability of the industry

These measures give a broad overview of your industry. For example, let’s say your business is operating in the software industry. You'll want to describe how large the industry is, the current growth rate and the projected growth rate over the next few years.

To gather statistics, reports and studies about your industry, leverage credible sources like:

• Government agencies
• Trade associations
• Local chamber of commerce

2. Market Description

In this section, you want to narrow down your data to focus on the specific market you're operating in. This is very important when you're crafting a market analysis in business plans. 

From the software example above, the target market could be a specific niche within the software industry, like the finance or productivity software market.

By digging into the specifics of your target population, you're able to forecast how viable the market is and how profitable it will be to sell your solution to these customers. You'll also decide the best strategy to get value from this specific market.

Notice how the infographic template below provides detailed market analysis data about the virtual reality (VR) market.

3. Market Trends

Once you grasp your market description, double down on the occurrences that impact your industry over time. These trends could be short-term, intermediate and long-term.

Here you want to hone in to see how your market started, how it has evolved and where it's headed.

Why is this important? Monitoring the trends that affect your business ensures you aren't caught off-guard. Plus, it keeps you a step ahead of your competitors.

Here are some of the trends you'll have to keep an eye on:

• Changes in consumer preferences
• Change in market demographics
• Technological advancements
• Demand for specific products or services
• The supplier's influence over prices
• Price fluctuations and sensitivity

Not sure how to monitor trends unique to your target market? Here are some ideas:

• Read industry publications. Browse websites like Think with Google , Google Trends , Pew Research Center and US Census Business Data . They can provide a bigger picture of your market, consumer behavior and how it relates to the economy.
• Leverage industry trends analytics. You'll find a huge repository of data about past and current trends in your markets.
• Observe your competitors. If your major competitors are going in a particular direction in the market, they probably have access to insights that you don't have. Observing them can help you make more informed decisions.
• Attend industry events. Network with industry leaders and other relevant people and subscribe to newsletters.

Identifying market trends is mostly about keeping your ears to the ground and listening out for approaching shifts in your industry. As you explore these trends, you should track how your offerings align, fit in, or operate counter to the trends. You can use free market research tools to gain insights into industry trends and customer preferences without incurring costs.

4. Competitive Analysis

Analyzing your competitive landscape involves identifying who your competitors are and where they stack up against you.

The competitive analysis gives a bird's eye view of:

• Who your direct and indirect competitors are
• Their products' quality and pricing
• Their marketing strategy and overall business strategy
• What makes your competitors stand out
• What your competitors' strengths and weaknesses are
• What enables you to outperform your competitors?

The beauty of competitive analysis is that it gives you a clearer idea of what you're up against. You can identify aspects of your business that need improvement to enable you to measure up or stay competitive in your industry.

Here's an excellent example of competitive data for your market analysis.

Much like market trends, the competitive landscapes for various markets change over time. And depending on what metrics you're looking at, you may get different results. Hence the need to make your competitive analysis an ongoing process.

Let's look at the various ways you can analyze the competitive environment.

Investigate Your Competitors

You can check out your competitors, websites, social media pages, news, press releases and other marketing content. You can even shop from them, read testimonials and reviews and conduct surveys . You're sure to have a clearer idea of why customers buy from them or what makes them stand out.

Using Porter’s Five Forces

Porter's Five Forces analyzes five major competitive forces that shape every market. They include:

• The bargaining power of suppliers
• The bargaining power of buyers
• The competitive rivalry
• The threat of substitute products
• The threat of new entrants

Bargaining power of suppliers analyses the number of suppliers in your industry and how easy it is to raise their prices. Suppliers have more power when they are fewer and raising prices can impact your profitability.

Bargaining power of buyers examines the influence that buyers have on prices and quality. Consumers have control when they are fewer. And because there are multiple sellers, they can easily switch to your rivals.

Competitive rivalry describes how intense the competition is in your market. Here you want to find out the following:

• How many competitors exist in the market?
• What is the quality and quantity of their offering compared to yours?

The threat of substitute products examines how easy it is for customers to switch to competing products. Customers will often find cheaper substitutes that cut their expenses, which may, in turn, affect your profitability.

The threat of new entrants examines how easy or difficult it is for new businesses to join your market. The easier it is for new firms to enter your market, the greater the number of competitors and the smaller your market share.

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is an excellent framework for evaluating your competitive position and making strategic decisions. This framework organizes your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your business into a simple two-by-two grid.

Strengths and weaknesses are internal to your company. They include things you can change or have some control over. Examples include your team, intellectual property, patents, location and other resources.

Opportunities and threats are external. These are things that happen in the larger market. Essentially, you have no control over them. Examples include customer shopping trends, competitors, increasing demand for certain products, prices of raw materials and economic growth or decline.

Use the SWOT analysis template below as a guide to build on your strengths, address your weaknesses, seize new opportunities and minimize threats or risks.

Strategic Group Analysis

This tool also effectively analyzes the rivalry among competitors within your industry. It groups companies and analyzes their competitive positions based on common characteristics such as:

• Company size
• Product quality and features
• Number of market segments served
• Distribution channels
• Product and service diversity
• Price policy
• Technological position
• Vertical integration
• Financial or operating leverage

5. Key Success Factors

The key success factors in any industry include those competitive factors that impact the ability of businesses to thrive in the marketplace. These factors may include:

• Competitive capabilities
• Product and service attributes
• Operational strategies
• Marketing strategies
• People and processes

By evaluating key success factors, you can:

• Grasp the key elements you need to compete in your target market and become sustainable.
• Identify your areas of strength and where you need improvement.
• Identify pathways to achieve your business goals and objectives.
• Ensure the success and continued growth of your business.

If you're starting your business, find out what the top players in your industry are doing right. Check out their business model and how they structure their business in response to changing business environments.

6. Market Projections

This section should project financial forecasts, future numbers and trends in your target market. Here you want to hone in on significant numbers like:

• Market segments
• Market size and value
• Projected sales volume
• Average purchase value per customer
• Market share
• Pricing structure
• Gross and net margin within the industry

To get a near-accurate projection, you'll have to combine information from multiple sources including:

• Market trends
• Competitor analysis
• Customer descriptions and
• Purchase behavior

While forecasting your market, avoid making educated guesses that don't add up. Rather collect data from reliable sourcres.

Tools like Statista and Euromonitor provide detailed forecasts and market information relevant to different industries.

Check out how this graphic highlights key market data and projections.

7. Environmental Factors

These are outside factors that exert an external influence on your business. They include economic, social, political, legal and technological factors.

Although you have limited control of these factors, you must study and include them in your market analysis.

Why's that? They can improve or disrupt your business processes.

Having a bird's eye view of these factors from different angles lets you identify and resolve the problems they can cause.

One of the most popular ways to measure environmental factors is the PESTLE analysis model . Here are some things to consider when carrying out a PESTLE analysis.

• Social factors in your business environment. They include lifestyle trends, demographic considerations, socio-economic status, location, consumer beliefs and values.
• The political climate. These include government policies, free trade disputes, taxation, laws, competition regulations, import restrictions, fiscal policy initiatives .
• Economic factors. They include interest rates, foreign exchange rates and economic policies.
• Technological innovations and trends likely to affect the market, such as automation, cybersecurity, 5G and the internet of things (IoT).
• Legal factors include employment laws, intellectual property laws, safety standards and consumer protection laws.
• Environmental considerations like carbon footprint, climate change impacts, extreme weather events.

Now you know the components that go into detailed market analysis. The next step is to create it for your next marketing presentation .

Let's look at some of our editable templates for creating your market analysis. If you're short on time you can use Visme's AI Document Generator to create a market analysis template suited to your needs. Simply answer a few questions from the AI chatbot and then sit back and watch your personalized document be designed.

1. Market Analysis

Whether you're starting a new business or switching up your business strategy, this market analysis presentation template is an excellent starting point. It provides a perfect structure for uncovering, analyzing and reporting trends in your target market.

The template features an overview page that enables you to summarize key information. The following page uses unique data widgets like pie charts , bar charts , maps and line graphs to summarize important data like:

• Global trends
• Survey results
• Survey results by country
• Trends over time
• Key takeaways

This market analysis example is fully editable, making it a perfect fit for businesses in any industry. Simply plug in your data, figures and statistics and other important market data.

Visme has a rich library of built-in shapes , icons , stock photos , videos and animations. Feel free to make this template your own by adding your logo and changing the fonts , colors , images and videos. You have everything to ignite your creative spark and make a solid impression on your audience.

2. SWOT Analysis

This beautiful SWOT analysis template gives investors and other key stakeholders a detailed view of your business' competitive landscape.

The 4-page presentation captures your company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. At a glance, you'll have a clearer view of where your brand sits within the wider market and identify potential growth opportunities.

A SWOT analysis is a company-wide activity and requires collaborative efforts. You want to consider your SWOT from many angles and ensure nothing is left out. Our software makes it super-easy for you to collaborate with your team to conduct your SWOT analysis.

You can set up a workspace for your organization and invite team members to collaborate and manage roles from your dashboard.

Team members can make changes, drop comments and more.

What's more, your SWOT analysis doesn't have to be some boring document staring at your audience. Spice it up with interactivity by adding animations, videos, images and graphics.

You can share that document with your audience via a link that automatically updates when you change the design or content.

3. Competitive Analysis

To capture a sizable share of your market, you must determine how you stack up against your competitors in your market. Whether you're analyzing a competitor's business-level strategy, market share, target market, or competitive advantage, this market research template offers side-by-side comparison in an infographic layout. It also centralizes your market analysis in a single location, making it accessible to your team for decision making.

The data illustrations and beautiful icons, pictures and graphics make the template visually appealing. You can engage your readers and quickly grab their attention with this colorful competitive analysis template.

Feel free to tweak fonts and colors and add logos to showcase your brand image.

When creating with the Visme editor, take advantage of all the features that Visme AI has to offer. Create complete documents from a text prompt with the AI Document Generator , get help writing headers and text with the AI Writer.

Craft unique visuals with the AI Image Generator , remove backgrounds to create cutouts from photos with the AI Background Remover , and edit your images with the integrated AI Edit Tools .

4. Marketing SWOT Analysis

With this professional SWOT analysis infographic, you can visualize that information in an immersive and engaging way. Visme's intuitive drag-and-drop editor lets you whip up beautiful documents using your design ideas.

This marketing analysis template lets you easily swap the existing fonts, images, icons and texts and opt for more vibrant colors for your document.

Work on this SWOT analysis together with your team using Visme’s workflow feature . Assign each section to one team member at a time and see what ideas they come up with. Then, assign the others until several people have added their input to the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Then, check it together to see what stands out the most and finalize the graphic.

5. Market Segmentation

Market segmentation lets you identify different groups within your target market. You can maximize your efforts by delivering more targeted offerings to them. Use this attractive market assessment template to share information about the characteristics of your market segments.

The template showcases these key elements of your market analysis.

• Short induction of your product, service, or solution
• Company profile
• The problem statement and what you're looking to achieve with the market segment
• Demographic, geographic, psychographic and behavioral segmentation
• Value proposition statement

The template is fully customizable. So you can edit this marketing presentation deck to match your business. Tweak the design, typefaces, visuals and other elements to suit your taste.

6. Industry Trends

Explore the events that will change the trajectory of your industry with this striking industry trends infographic template. Using this template, you can present a brand infographic on patterns relating to price, sales, consumption, buying behavior, marketing and other areas in your industry.

You don't need professional design experience to tweak this template into an informative marketing deck. Visme's professional online editor and customizable templates give you a creative edge. You can personalize this template to reflect your company's branding by adding logos, icons, colors and fonts relevant to your messaging.

Using Visme's brand kit feature, you can save your corporate brand and apply it to any project with a few clicks. Upload your logos, color palettes, fonts and other design assets and your brand kit will be set up within seconds.

7. Competitor Analysis Worksheet

This marketing deck worksheet is a huge time saver. It has everything you need to organize and communicate the details of your competitive research.

While the SWOT we discussed earlier focuses on your brand, this one is different. This SWOT analysis sheds light on your competitors' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and strengths.

The template has a minimalist design and a simplistic layout. However, Visme gives you the creative freedom to cut, copy and paste anything you like until you are satisfied with the final version.

Once done, you can easily share your competitor analysis worksheet with relevant stakeholders using a link that automatically updates when you change your design. You can also embed your content on your website or blog using a code or download it in PDF, PNG, PowerPoint and HTML5 file formats.

8. Market Share

Build your market analysis and share relevant information about market segments, market share, size and opportunities using this beautiful template.

The template will help inform your business plan and strategy and communicate the size of the opportunity to potential investors.

Visme has thousands of designs, fonts, stock images, themes and assets to make your infographic pop. Make this template your own by adding new text and images and bold headings to emphasize titles. Customize your color scheme, icons and fonts and watch your infographic transform into a compelling graphic.

Not convinced? Take a look at what small business owner Jessica L. has to say;

Small Business Owner

9. SWOT Analysis Infographics

Break down competitor information with this customizable SWOT analysis that leaves an impression on your audience.

This SWOT marketing infographic is fully editable. You can spice up your infographics by adding your brand colors, typefaces and high-quality icons and images, all sourced from Visme's extensive collections of design assets.

If you want to present facts and data, Visme has your back. Our software has a wide variety of interactive tools and data widgets, including graphs, maps, charts, pictograms and much more. You can also make your infographic dynamic by adding animated characters, illustrations and clickable icons with customizable repetitions, speed and colors.

Step 1: Define your objective

Clearly outline what you aim to achieve with the market analysis, whether it’s launching a new product or entering a different demographic.

Step 2: Identify your target market

Pinpoint the specific group of customers you intend to serve, considering demographics, psychographics and buying behavior. Use Visme feedback forms to assess how your product or service is helping your current clients and pinpoint issues early on.

Step 3: Gather relevant data on competitors

Research competitors and conduct a market share analysis of their pricing strategies, market positioning, and key strengths and weaknesses.

Step 4: Assess market trends and dynamics

Stay informed about current and emerging trends, economic factors, and industry changes that may impact your market. Use a marketing dashboard that includes all the vital metrics your team wants to track.

Step 5: Do a SWOT analysis

Evaluate your internal strengths and weaknesses as well as external opportunities and threats to develop a comprehensive understanding of your position in the market. Anticipate challenges that may arise, allowing for proactive planning.

Step 6: Summarize findings to inform strategic decisions

Consolidate your analysis into actionable insights to guide business strategies and decision-making. Use Visme to help you create a market analysis document that’s impactful and easy to follow. Then, share it with your team using Visme’s different sharing and publishing options like PDF, HTML5 or a digital flipbook.

Create Your Market Analysis with Visme

One of the biggest setbacks you'll face in business is lacking an understanding of your industry or target market. That's where a market analysis becomes useful and having a detailed one will save you the heartache.

It gives you a bird's eye view of market conditions, competitors, consumer behavior and other factors that impact your business.

Without detailed market analysis, you'll miss out on growth opportunities, make poor business decisions and lose out to your competitors.

A market analysis isn't a one-off activity. You need to make it an ongoing process. We recommend using Visme's market analysis template to collect and share detailed information about your market. Best of all, you don't need to be a professional designer to know how to use our tool.

Effortlessly create insightful marketing reports and more with Visme.

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About the Author

Unenabasi is a content expert with many years of experience in digital marketing, business development, and strategy. He loves to help brands tell stories that drive engagement, growth, and competitive advantage. He’s adept at creating compelling content on lifestyle, marketing, business, e-commerce, and technology. When he’s not taking the content world by storm, Unenabasi enjoys playing or watching soccer.

How to Determine Market Size for a Business Plan

• Small Business
• Advertising & Marketing
• Business Marketing Plans
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• Examples of Market Needs in a Marketing Plan
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If you do things right, your business plan is the first step in your journey toward becoming an entrepreneur, but the key is to ensure that every detail is correct. One of the most important aspects of your business plan is to determine the market size for the products or services that you intend to offer your target audience. Any legitimate investor will want to know that his investment has the potential for a sizeable return, and he will base his decision, in large part, on the size of the market that you’re trying to enter. Sizing up your market is also beneficial for developing new products and services.

Define Your Ideal Customer

You can’t begin to determine the market size without defining your ideal customer, who is also known as your targeted audience. The best way to figure this out is to know exactly what problem your product or service solves for the people most likely to be interested in making a purchase. For example, if you’re selling a gadget that can locate any remote control device in a person’s house, research may tell you that your ideal customer is a man in the 25- to 50-year old age range.

You arrived at this targeted consumer because your research told you that men dominate possession of television remote control devices, and are therefore more likely to misplace them, and then will be more likely to need your device. This process isn’t simply to determine not only who will buy your product or service, but also to help you eliminate people who will not be attracted to what you’re selling.

Define Your Piece of the Overall Market

The good news is that there isn't any company that's already established in your market that has a monopoly on that market. However, to have any chance of success, you must define the piece of that market that you are going to target. You can do this by taking the biggest player in the field and finding out how much of the market it has captured. For example, if you’re entering the TV device market, you may learn that customers spent $2 billion on these devices in 2017.

You also learn that Panasonic accounts for $1.5 billion of that market, so you know that the remaining $500 million is spread out among multiple smaller companies, and is the piece you'd would like to bite from.

Determine Your Percentage of that Piece of the Market

Just because you have now defined the size of your piece of the market doesn’t mean that you’re done because you still have to figure out your percentage of that piece. To do that, you have to know where you intend to sell your product or service, how many of that product or service you project to sell in a year, as well as the number of similar products and services that sold in the market the previous five years.

The projected number of sales will tell you what percentage of the market you can reasonably hope to capture, typically somewhere between 1 to 5 percent.

• GrowThink: How to Size an Emerging Market in Your Business Plan
• Entrepreneur: 5 Strategies to Effectively Determine Your Market Size
• Startups: How to Calculate the size of Your Target Plan
• Include potential market, target market and market share in your business plan. This will show readers how you arrived at your figures. You want to demonstrate a rational process that starts with a very large number and gradually reduces it to a smaller number you can expect to sell to. Showing the entire process will prove that your method was not arbitrary.

Sampson Quain is an experienced content writer with a wide range of expertise in small business, digital marketing, SEO marketing, SEM marketing, and social media outreach. He has written primarily for the EHow brand of Demand Studios as well as business strategy sites such as Digital Authority.

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How to Determine Market Size for a Business Plan

by Sean Butner

Published on 1 Jan 2021

Business plans help business owners and leaders identify their goals and think through the steps needed to accomplish those goals. A vital part of any business plan is the market research section, which describes the demand for the company’s product and the current competitors. The market research section should tell how large each market for the product is, providing readers with a sense of how much business the company could do. Determining market size is a necessary step in writing a business plan.

Identify Your Markets

Identify types of potential clients. Think about the features of your product, and to whom those features would be benefits. List traits that people who would be interested in your product might have in common. For example, a gym might appeal to both fit people and moderately overweight people.

Determine factors that might exclude customers. For example, a luxury item may be unavailable to lower income households, or a customer might not be willing to go more than 15 minutes out of his way to go to a gym.

Put the traits and limiters together. For example, single overweight men who make at least $25,000 a year.

Calculate Market Size

Find statistics, preferably surveys conducted by a professional or governmental organization, on the demographics of your service area.

Add up the total number of people who meet your limiters. For example, a gym looking for single overweight men who make at least $25,000 a year and who live within 15 minutes of the location could use Census block information to determine the number of single men living within a 15-minute radius.

Reduce the total number of people who meet your limiters by the traits you identified. Multiply the total number by the percent of the total population that have the traits you identified. For example, if 87 percent of the population makes more than $25,000, and 10,000 single men live within a 15-minute radius, then 8,700 of those men likely make more than $25,000 per year.

Repeat with each additional market segment. Identify the size of each segment in your business plan, and sum up the entire size of the market for your product.

Market Sizing & Trends Analysis

Written by Dave Lavinsky

In this article you’ll learn about market sizing and trends and how to identify them for your business.

Why You Need to Know Your Market Sizing & Trends

When you’re developing a simple business plan template to start or grow your company, you need to understand the size of your market and trends affecting it.

The market size confirms the market is big enough to warrant an investment of your time, and potentially investor/lender funding, into pursuing the opportunity. If the market is too small, you nor investors will not be able to get a reasonable return on your investment (which will dissuade angel investors and/or VC funding ).

Likewise trends tell you if the market is increasing or decreasing, and how the market is changing. This can help you improve your strategy. For example, if you were starting a fitness center and you learned that there was a trend towards personal training services, it would be important for your strategy and plan to offer such options.

Market Sizing & Trend Analysis Questions to Answer

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis component of your business plan :

• How big is the business (in dollars)?
• Is the market declining or increasing?
• Who are the key competitors in the market?
• Who are the key manufacturers and/or suppliers in the market?
• What trends are affecting the industry?
• What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
• What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential market for your company. The relevant market size equals a company’s sales if it were to capture 100% of its specific niche of the market. It is calculated by multiplying the number of prospective customers by the amount they could realistically spend on your product/service each year.

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How to Conduct Market Sizing & Trend Analysis

We like to determine market sizes using both a top-down (what percent of the market can we reasonably expect to penetrate) and bottom-up (e.g., how many units can we expect to sell at what price) methodology.

As many assumptions are required when sizing a new or emerging market, we tend to rely heavily on case studies of thousands of other companies and clients who have penetrated new markets. We also access paid industry reports from other companies who have done deep dive research into the relevant industries.

In assessing markets, looks at the current market size and what the market size might be in the short, mid and long-term. Specifically, answer the folowing key questions such as the following:

• How has the relevant market size changed over the past one to five years?
• What is the projected growth of the relevant market?
• What factors will affect this growth? Economic factors? Changing regulatory conditions? Changing consumer needs? 

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Market Analysis Business Plan

At first, you may think that a market analysis business plan is complex and formal. However, if you are already aware of the basics of its development and execution, then you can easily understand how easy it is to create this document.

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Market analysis can be done in an efficient manner as long as you have all the firsthand details that you need, the equipment and tools that can help you within the entire market analysis, and the knowledge about the proper integration of analysis processes and results to your business plan.

Do not feel dissuaded in creating a market analysis business plan just because you think it is a critical document that you cannot create on your own or from scratch. If you are already planning to execute the steps that will help you draft a marketing analysis for your business, there are actually guidelines that will allow you to be more prepared in developing the document.

Do not worry on how to find these guides and other help that you need as we got you covered. Make sure to download the examples of market analysis business plans available in this post for references.

Market Analysis and Business Development Strategy Planning Example

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What Makes a Market Analysis Business Plan an Important Part of Your General Business Plan?

It is already evident that customers play a vital role when it comes to the successes of the business. Hence, it is of utmost importance for you to continuously provide what they need and meet their expectations as well. However, this will not be possible if you do not know anything about them. This is where the benefits of planning, developing, and implementing a marketing analysis business plan come in. You may also see marketing plan examples .

A comparative market analysis , or any other kinds of market analysis business plan for this matter, is an essential process and document that will help you achieve efficiency and sustainability within the implementation of your marketing efforts, operational action plans, and business development strategies .

Listed below are a few of the reasons why it is recommended for you to include a market analysis business plan in your general business plan are as follows:

1. A market analysis business plan can help provide a thorough explanation of the market segmentation that you have considered as well as the focus that you allotted both for your current market and potential sales leads. With this, you can be more aware of the threats and opportunities that you can face in the future through a valuable market forecast. You may also like marketing strategy plan examples .

2. A market analysis business plan presents the needs, demands, and expectations of your target market. This helps a lot in terms of providing information that will guide you in the development of action plans that can meet the requirements for business sustainability and market relevance.

3. A market analysis business plan can showcase a more in-depth description of your audience. With the help of this document, you can specifically point out your target market, their locations, the things that are relevant and beneficial to their daily activities, and the factors that can affect their purchasing or buying decisions. You might be interested in define marketing plan and its purpose ?

4. A market analysis business plan can show not only the reaction of the market to your offers but also to those coming from the competitors. With this, you can analyze the difference of your products, services, and offers from that of your competition. This can help you a lot when there is a need to plot new market strategies, which can effectively get the attention and trust of your desired audience. You may also see business marketing plan examples .

Business Plan: Market Research and Analysis Example

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How to Develop an Impressive Market Analysis Business Plan

Are you aware of what a market analysis – demand and supply is? Simply put, it presents the concept that there should be balance with regards the demands of the market and the supply that you provide them with. It is essential for you to know the market that you are catering to so you can successfully use your resources and present your offers. This can result to the improvement of your marketplace standing and operational efficiency.

Developing a market analysis business plan can be very helpful as this document can make it easier and faster for you to organize the call-to-actions that you need to execute and the tactics that you need to incorporate in your efforts and movements to achieve maximum results. You may also see strategic marketing plan examples .

Some of the guidelines that you can follow if you want to develop an impressive market analysis business plan include the following:

1. Know the market segments that you have a hold of and define the kinds or types of customers that are present in each segment. It is essential for you to know the groupings of your target customers so that you can point out the specific key factors that can affect their decisions when buying an item or acquiring services. You always have to be reminded that different market segments have different qualities and characteristics. You may also like apartment marketing plan examples .

Hence, there is a need for your market analysis business plan to provide particular strategies and tactics.

2. Be aware of the factors that can affect the implementation of your market analysis business plan. This includes the nature of the activities of your market segment, the description of the forces that can affect your competitive advantage, the communication and distribution channels that you will use, and the required simple action plans that you need to execute in a timely manner to achieve your goals and objectives.

3. Know the ways on how you can effectively get information of your market. Aside from surveys and questionnaires , there are still different tools and equipment that you can use to have a hand on the details that you need to analyze to come up with the strategies and general action plans that fit your business operations and marketing efforts.

Marketing Business Plan Example

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Market Analysis to Support Business Planning Example

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Business Plan: Market Research Report for Advanced Product Example

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Elements to Consider When Developing a Market Analysis Business Plan

Not all elements of a comparative market analysis are the same with that of a market analysis business plan. There are also differences when you compare the functions of each elements in both documents. Before you create a market analysis business plan, you have to make sure that you will make yourself knowledgeable of the things that you will work on so that you can achieve your desired final document.

Some of the most important elements that you need to consider if you have already decided to start the processes of developing a market analysis business plan are as follows:

1. Geographical and demographic conditions.

How many of your desired audience are within a particular market segment? Is the location of the marketplace convenient to your business and your operations? You have to know the number of people that you can reach through your marketing efforts as well as the areas in which specific activities are needed to be done. You may also see restaurant marketing plan examples .

In this manner, your market analysis business plan can present whether it is really reasonable to tap the particular market specified in the document.

2. Sales leads and potential customers.

Do not just focus on the current customers who provide you with their purchasing power. You always have to be innovative when creating a market analysis business plan as not all customers will forever be there to execute repeat business. Know how to analyze market segments that can be your next target. Doing this can give you a higher possibility of bigger sales and wider market reach. You may also like event marketing plan examples .

3. Market movement, purchasing power and buying habits.

The financial and sales aspect of the business should be prioritized when making a market analysis business plan. Analyzing a market whose activities does not align to the business offers will only waste your time, efforts, and resources. This is the reason why you first need to have an initial findings about your target or desired audience. With this, you can assess how they match your business operations and needs. You may also check out digital marketing plan examples .

4. Direct competition and their activities.

A market analysis business plan does not only rely on the evaluation and assessment of the consumers, customers, and/or clients. You also have to look into the activities of your direct competitors.

Doing this can help you become more aware on how their processes affect or impact their operations and brand. Hence, you can veer away from activities that can produce negative results and you can also give more focus on the strategies that can provide you with the most benefits. You might be interested in personal marketing plan examples .

Market Research and Analysis for a Business Plan Example

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Market Analysis and Business Plan Example

In Need of Tips for Creating a Market Analysis Business Plan?

Having the best products and/or services is not enough. If you cannot carry out the exact marketing message that you would like to disseminate in the marketplace, then you cannot expect the best returns from your audience. You may also see annual marketing plan examples .

More so, not knowing how you can connect to your audience or how you can incorporate the usage and benefits of your offers to their needs and activities will most likely lessen the potential successes of your business.

Developing a market analysis business plan is very important as it helps you focus on the environment rather than just internal functions and abilities. With this, you can thoroughly align and use your resources based on the expected results and reactions of your market. All the useful tips that can help you create an outstanding market analysis business plan are listed below. You may also like marketing strategy business plan examples .

1. You should have enough knowledge on how to do the market analysis for a business plan . Aside from the discussions and examples in this post, it will be best if you will still research and find resources that will help you understand the full concept of market analysis. The more you know about the development of this document, the easier it will be for you to put together necessary and relevant information.

2. Make sure that you will come up with a concise and well-defined industry description. You have to know the size and growth forecast of the marketplace where your business belongs. In this manner, you can point out the life cycle of market processes as well as the changes in trends that can affect the decision-making processes of your target audience. You may also check out importance of business plan .

3. Focus not only on your desired market size and the characteristics of your target market segment. You also have to look into the competition and other external factors that you cannot control. This can help you be prepared when facing threats and risks from elements that you do not have a hold of. You might be interested in simple marketing plan examples .

4. Present the market analysis business plan accordingly. Use clauses that can group all the discussion areas or parts that are intended to be together. Using proper headings and subheadings is also a great way to make the document more organized and presentable. If you need help in formatting the document, do not hesitate to use market analysis business plan template examples .

Do not skip the evaluation, review, and assessment of your market when making a business plan document. Knowing the quality standards that you incorporate in your operations and offers is one thing. Knowing how the market will react to your marketing message is another. For you to ensure that your practices and activities are relevant, you have to perform market analysis. Try developing your own market analysis business plan now.

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How to Write the Market Analysis Section of a Business Plan

Alyssa Gregory is an entrepreneur, writer, and marketer with 20 years of experience in the business world. She is the founder of the Small Business Bonfire, a community for entrepreneurs, and has authored more than 2,500 articles for The Balance and other popular small business websites.

The market analysis section of your business plan comes after the products or services section and should provide a detailed overview of the industry you intend to sell your product or service in, including statistics to support your claims.

In general, the market analysis section should include information about the industry, your target market, your competition, and how you intend to make a place for your own product and service. Extensive data for this section should be added to the end of the business plan as appendices, with only the most important statistics included in the market analysis section itself.

What Should a Market Analysis Include?

The market analysis section of your small business plan should include the following:

• Industry Description and Outlook : Describe your industry both qualitatively and quantitatively by laying out the factors that make your industry an attractive place to start and grow a business. Be sure to include detailed statistics that define the industry including size, growth rate , trends, and outlook.
• Target Market : Who is your ideal client/customer? This data should include demographics on the group you are targeting including age, gender, income level, and lifestyle preferences. This section should also include data on the size of the target market, the purchase potential and motivations of the audience, and how you intend to reach the market.
• Market Test Results : This is where you include the results of the market research you conducted as part of your initial investigation into the market. Details about your testing process and supporting statistics should be included in the appendix.
• Lead Time : Lead time is the amount of time it takes for an order to be fulfilled once a customer makes a purchase. This is where you provide information on the research you've completed on how long it will take to handle individual orders and large volume purchases, if applicable.
• Competitive Analysis : Who is your competition? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the competition? What are the potential roadblocks preventing you from entering the market?

7 Tips for Writing a Market Analysis

Here is a collection of tips to help you write an effective and well-rounded market analysis for your small business plan.

• Use the Internet : Since much of the market analysis section relies on raw data, the Internet is a great place to start. Demographic data can be gathered from the U.S. Census Bureau. A series of searches can uncover information on your competition, and you can conduct a portion of your market research online.
• Be the Customer : One of the most effective ways to gauge opportunity among your target market is to look at your products and services through the eyes of a purchaser. What is the problem that needs to be solved? How does the competition solve that problem? How will you solve the problem better or differently?
• Cut to the Chase : It can be helpful to your business plan audience if you include a summary of the market analysis section before diving into the details. This gives the reader an idea about what's to come and helps them zero in on the most important details quickly.
• Conduct Thorough Market Research : Put in the necessary time during the initial exploration phase to research the market and gather as much information as you can. Send out surveys, conduct focus groups, and ask for feedback when you have an opportunity. Then use the data gathered as supporting materials for your market analysis.
• Use Visual Aids : Information that is highly number-driven, such as statistics and metrics included in the market analysis, is typically easier to grasp when it's presented visually. Use charts and graphs to illustrate the most important numbers.
• Be Concise : In most cases, those reading your business plan already have some understanding of the market. Include the most important data and results in the market analysis section and move the support documentation and statistics to the appendix.
• Relate Back to Your Business : All of the statistics and data you incorporate in your market analysis should be related back to your company and your products and services. When you outline the target market's needs, put the focus on how you are uniquely positioned to fulfill those needs.

Analyze your market like a pro with this step-by-step guide + insider tips

Don’t fall into the trap of assuming that you already know enough about your market.

No matter how fantastic your product or service is, your business cannot succeed without sufficient market demand .

You need a clear understanding of who will buy your product or service and why .

You want to know if there is a clear market gap and a market large enough to support the survival and growth of your business.

Industry research and market analysis will help make sure that you are on the right track .

It takes time , but it is time well spent . Thank me later.

WHAT is Market Analysis?

The Market Analysis section of a business plan is also sometimes called:

• Market Demand, Market Trends, Target Market, The Market
• Industry Analysis & Trends, Industry & Market Analysis, Industry and Market Research

WHY Should You Do Market Analysis?

First and foremost, you need to demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that there is real need and sufficient demand for your product or service in the market, now and going forward.

• What makes you think that people will buy your products or services?
• Can you prove it?

Your due diligence on the market opportunity and validating the problem and solution described in the Product and Service section of your business plan are crucial for the success of your venture.

Also, no company operates in a vacuum. Every business is part of a larger overall industry, the forces that affect your industry as a whole will inevitably affect your business as well.

Evaluating your industry and market increases your own knowledge of the factors that contribute to your company’s success and shows the readers of your business plan that you understand the external business conditions.

External Support

In fact, if you are seeking outside financing, potential backers will most definitely be interested in industry and market conditions and trends.

You will make a positive impression and have a better chance of getting their support if you show market analysis that strengthens your business case, combining relevant and reliable data with sound judgement.

Let’s break down how to do exactly that, step by step:

HOW To Do Market Analysis: Step-by-Step

So, let’s break up how market analysis is done into three steps:

• Industry:  the total market
• Target Market: specific segments of the industry that you will target
• Target Customer: characteristics of the customers that you will focus on

Step 1: Industry Analysis

How do you define an industry.

For example, the fashion industry includes fabric suppliers, designers, companies making finished clothing, distributors, sales representatives, trade publications, retail outlets online and on the high street.

How Do You Analyze an Industry?

Briefly describe your industry, including the following considerations:

1.1. Economic Conditions

Outline the current and projected economic conditions that influence the industry your business operates in, such as:

• Official economic indicators like GDP or inflation
• Labour market statistics
• Foreign trade (e.g., import and export statistics)

1.2. Industry Description

Highlight the distinct characteristic of your industry, including:

• Market leaders , major customer groups and customer loyalty
• Supply chain and distribution channels
• Profitability (e.g., pricing, cost structure, margins), financials
• Key success factors
• Barriers to entry preventing new companies from competing in the industry

1.3. Industry Size and Growth

Estimate the size of your industry and analyze how industry growth affects your company’s prospects:

• Current size (e.g., revenues, units sold, employment)
• Historic and projected industry growth rate (low/medium/high)
• Life-cycle stage /maturity (emerging/expanding/ mature/declining)

1.4. Industry Trends

• Industry Trends: Describe the key industry trends and evaluate the potential impact of PESTEL (political / economic / social / technological / environmental / legal) changes on the industry, including the level of sensitivity to:
• Seasonality
• Economic cycles
• Government regulation (e.g. environment, health and safety, international trade, performance standards, licensing/certification/fair trade/deregulation, product claims) Technological change
• Global Trends: Outline global trends affecting your industry
• Identify global industry concerns and opportunities
• International markets that could help to grow your business
• Strategic Opportunity: Highlight the strategic opportunities that exist in your industry

Step 2: Target Customer Identification

Who is a target customer.

One business can have–and often does have–more than one target customer group.

The success of your business depends on your ability to meet the needs and wants of your customers. So, in a business plan, your aim is to assure readers that:

• Your customers actually exist
• You know exactly who they are and what they want
• They are ready for what you have to offer and are likely to actually buy

How Do You Identify an Ideal Target Customer?

2.1. target customer.

• Identify the customer, remembering that the decision-maker who makes the purchase can be a different person or entity than the end-user.

2.2. Demographics

• For consumers ( demographics ): Age, gender, income, occupation, education, family status, home ownership, lifestyle (e.g., work and leisure activities)
• For businesses ( firmographic ): Industry, sector, years in business, ownership, size (e.g., sales, revenues, budget, employees, branches, sq footage)

2.3. Geographic Location

• Where are your customers based, where do they buy their products/services and where do they actually use them

2.4 Purchasing Patterns

• Identify customer behaviors, i.e., what actions they take
• how frequently
• and how quickly they buy

2.5. Psychographics

• Identify customer attitudes, i.e., how they think or feel
• Urgency, price, quality, reputation, image, convenience, availability, features, brand, customer service, return policy, sustainability, eco-friendliness, supporting local business
• Necessity/luxury, high involvement bit ticket item / low involvement consumable

Step 3: Target Market Analysis

What is a target market.

Target market, or 'target audience', is a group of people that a business has identified as the most likely to purchase its offering, defined by demographic, psychographic, geographic and other characteristics. Target market may be broken down to target customers to customize marketing efforts.

How Do You Analyze a Target Market?

So, how many people are likely to become your customers?

To get an answer to this questions, narrow the industry into your target market with a manageable size, and identify its key characteristics, size and trends:

3.1. Target Market Description

Define your target market by:

• Type: B2C, B2B, government, non-profits
• Geographic reach: Specify the geographic location and reach of your target market

3.2. Market Size and Share

Estimate how large is the market for your product or service (e.g., number of customers, annual purchases in sales units and $ revenues). Explain the logic behind your calculation:

• TAM (Total Available/Addressable/Attainable Market) is the total maximum demand for a product or service that could theoretically be generated by selling to everyone in the world who could possibly buy from you, regardless of competition and any other considerations and restrictions.
• SAM (Serviceable Available Market) is the portion of the TAM that you could potentially address in a specific market. For example, if your product/service is only available in one country or language.
• SOM (Service Obtainable Market / Share of Market) is the share of the SAM that you can realistically carve out for your product or service. This the target market that you will be going after and can reasonably expect to convert into a customer base.

3.3. Market Trends

Illustrate the most important themes, changes and developments happening in your market. Explain the reasons behind these trends and how they will favor your business.

3.4. Demand Growth Opportunity

Estimate future demand for your offering by translating past, current and future market demand trends and drivers into forecasts:

• Historic growth: Check how your target market has grown in the past.
• Drivers past: Identify what has been driving that growth in the past.
• Drivers future: Assess whether there will be any change in influence of these and other drivers in the future.

How Big Should My Target Market Be?

Well, if the market opportunity is small, it will limit how big and successful your business can become. In fact, it may even be too small to support a successful business at all.

On the other hand, many businesses make the mistake of trying to appeal to too many target markets, which also limits their success by distracting their focus.

What If My Stats Look Bad?

Large and growing market suggests promising demand for your offering now and into the future. Nevertheless, your business can still thrive in a smaller or contracting market.

Instead of hiding from unfavorable stats, acknowledge that you are swimming against the tide and devise strategies to cope with whatever lies ahead.

Step 4: Industry and Market Analysis Research

The market analysis section of your business plan should illustrate your own industry and market knowledge as well as the key findings and conclusions from your research.

Back up your findings with external research sources (= secondary research) and results of internal market research and testing (= primary research).

What is Primary and Secondary Market Research?

Yes, there are two main types of market research – primary and secondary – and you should do both to adequately cover the market analysis section of your business plan:

• Primary market research is original data you gather yourself, for example in the form of active fieldwork collecting specific information in your market.
• Secondary market research involves collating information from existing data, which has been researched and shared by reliable outside sources . This is essentially passive desk research of information already published .

Unless you are working for a corporation, this exercise is not about your ability to do professional-level market research.

Instead, you just need to demonstrate fundamental understanding of your business environment and where you fit in within the market and broader industry.

Why Do You Need To Do Primary & Secondary Market Research?

There are countless ways you could go collecting industry and market research data, depending on the type of your business, what your business plan is for, and what your needs, resources and circumstances are.

For tried and tested tips on how to properly conduct your market research, read the next section of this guide that is dedicated to primary and secondary market research methods.

In any case, tell the reader how you carried out your market research. Prove what the facts are and where you got your data. Be as specific as possible. Provide statistics, numbers, and sources.

When doing secondary research, always make sure that all stats, facts and figures are from reputable sources and properly referenced in both the main text and the Appendix of your business plan. This gives more credibility to your business case as the reader has more confidence in the information provided.

Go to the Primary and Secondary Market Research post for my best tips on industry, market and competitor research.

7 TOP TIPS For Writing Market Analysis

1. realistic projections.

Above all, make sure that you are realistic in your projections about how your product or service is going to be accepted in the market, otherwise you are going to seriously undermine the credibility of your entire business case.

2. Laser Focus

Discuss only characteristic of your target market and customers that are observable, factual and meaningful, i.e. directly relate to your customers’ decision to purchase.

Always relate the data back to your business. Market statistics are meaningless until you explain where and how your company fits in.

For example, as you write about the market gap and the needs of your target customers, highlight how you are uniquely positioned to fill them.

In other words, your goal is to:

• Present your data
• Analyze the data
• Tie the data back to how your business can thrive within your target market

3. Target Audience

On a similar note, tailor the market analysis to your target audience and the specific purpose at hand.

For example, if your business plan is for internal use, you may not have to go into as much detail about the market as you would have for external financiers, since your team is likely already very familiar with the business environment your company operates in.

4. Story Time

Make sure that there is a compelling storyline and logical flow to the market information presented.

The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” certainly applies here. Industry and market statistics are easier to understand and more impactful if presented as a chart or graph.

6. Information Overload

Keep your market analysis concise by only including pertinent information. No fluff, no repetition, no drowning the reader in a sea of redundant facts.

While you should not assume that the reader knows anything about your market, do not elaborate on unnecessary basic facts either.

Do not overload the reader in the main body of the business plan. Move everything that is not essential to telling the story into the Appendix. For example, summarize the results of market testing survey in the main body of the business plan document, but move the list of the actual survey questions into the appendix.

7. Marketing Plan

Note that market analysis and marketing plan are two different things, with two distinct chapters in a business plan.

As the name suggests, market analysis examines where you fit in within your desired industry and market. As you work thorugh this section, jot down your ideas for the marketing and strategy section of your business plan.

Final Thoughts

Remember that the very act of doing the research and analysis is a great opportunity to learn things that affect your business that you did not know before, so take your time doing the work.

Related Questions

What is the purpose of industry & market research and analysis.

The purpose of industry and market research and analysis is to qualitatively and quantitatively assess the environment of a business and to confirm that the market opportunity is sufficient for sustainable success of that business.

Why are Industry & Market Research and Analysis IMPORTANT?

Industry and market research and analysis are important because they allow you to gain knowledge of the industry, the target market you are planning to sell to, and your competition, so you can make informed strategic decisions on how to make your business succeed.

How Can Industry & Market Research and Analysis BENEFIT a Business?

Industry and market research and analysis benefit a business by uncovering opportunities and threats within its environment, including attainable market size, ideal target customers, competition and any potential difficulties on the company’s journey to success.

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Business Plan Section 5: Market Analysis

Find out the 9 components to include in the market analysis portion of your business plan, plus 6 sources for market analysis information.

This is the part of your business plan where you really get to shine and show off that awesome idea you have. Of course, your product or service is the best! Now, let’s talk about how you know it’s a hit. Be prepared to show you know your market AND that it’s big enough for you to build a sustainable, successful business .

In writing up your market analysis, you’ll get to demonstrate the knowledge you’ve gained about the industry, the target market you’re planning to sell to, your competition, and how you plan to make yourself stand out.

A market analysis is just that: a look at what the relevant business environment is and where you fit in. It should give a potential lender, investor, or employee no doubt that there is a solid niche for what you’re offering, and you are definitely the person to fill it. It’s both quantitative, spelling out sales projections and other pertinent figures, and qualitative, giving a thoughtful overview of how you fit in with the competition. It needs to look into the potential size of the market, the possible customers you’ll target, and what kind of difficulties you might face as you try to become successful. Let’s break down how to do that.

What Goes Into A Business Plan Market Analysis?

Industry description and outlook.

Describe the industry with enough background so that someone who isn’t familiar with it can understand what it’s like, what the challenges are, and what the outlook is. Talk about its size, how it’s growing, and what the outlook is for the future.

Target Market

Who have you identified as your ideal client or customer ? Include demographic information on the group you’re targeting, including age, gender and income level. This is the place to talk about the size of your potential market, how much it might spend, and how you’ll reach potential customers. For example, if women aged 18 to 54 are your target market, you need to know how many of them there are in your market. Are there 500 or 500,000? It’s imperative to know. Similarly, if your product or service is geared toward a high-end clientele, you need to make sure you’re located in an area that can support it.

Market Need

What factors influence the need for your product or service? Did the need exist before or are you trying to create it? Why will customers want to do business with you, possibly choosing you over someone else? This is where you can briefly introduce the competitive edge you have, although you’ll get into that in more depth in following sections. Focus on how the product or service you’re offering satisfies what’s needed in the market.

Market Growth

While no one can predict the future, it’s important to get a possible idea of what business may be like down the road and make sales projections. Have the number of people in your target market been increasing or decreasing over the last several years? By how much per year? To make an intelligent forecast, you have to start with current conditions, then project changes over the next three to five years.

Market Trends

You need to take a look at trends the same way you look at population and demographics. Is there a shift to more natural or organic ingredients that might impact your business? How might energy prices figure in? The easy availability of the internet and smartphone technology? The questions will be different for every type of business, but it’s important to think about the types of changes that could affect your specific market. In this section, you can cite experts from the research you’ve done-a market expert, market research firm, trade association, or credible journalist.

Market Research Testing

Talk about what kind of testing and information gathering you’ve done to figure out where you stand in the market. Who have you spoken to about the viability of your product? Why are you confident of its success? Again, if you can, cite experts to back up your information.

Competitive Analysis

There’s no way to succeed unless you’ve examined your competition. It might be helpful to try analyzing your position in the market by performing a SWOT analysis. You need to figure out their strengths and the weaknesses you can exploit as you work to build your own business. You do need to be brutally honest here, and also look at what the potential roadblocks are-anything that might potentially stand in your way as you try to meet your goals and grow your business.

Barriers to Entry

Lenders and investors need to have a reasonable assurance they’ll be paid back, so they’ll want to know what would stop someone else from swooping in, doing what you do, and grabbing half the available business. Do you have technical knowledge that’s difficult to get? A specialized product no one else can manufacture? A service that takes years to perfect? It’s possible your industry has strict regulations and licensing requirements. All of these help protect you from new competition, and they’re all selling points for you.

Regulations

As we touched on above, you should cover regulations as a barrier to entry. If your field is covered by regulations, you do need to talk about how they apply to your business and how you’ll comply with them.

Six Sources for Market Analysis Information

The Market Analysis section of your business plan is far more than a theoretical exercise. Doing an analysis of the market really gives YOU the information you need to figure out whether your plans are viable, and tweak them in the early stages before you go wrong.

So, where do you start? Research is the key here, and there are several sources available.

1. The Internet

Some of the first information you need is about population and demographics: who your potential customers are, how many there are, and where they live or work. The U.S. Census Bureau has an impressive amount of these statistics available. USA.gov’s small business site is another good source for links to the U.S. Departments of Labor and Commerce, among others.

2. Local Chamber of Commerce

A lot of local information can be gotten from the chamber of commerce in the area where you plan to operate. Often, they can provide details into what the general business climate is like, and get even more specific about how many and what type of businesses are operating in their jurisdiction.

3. Other Resources

When actual statistical information isn’t available, you’ll often be able to put together a good picture of the market from a variety of other sources. Real estate agents can be a source of information on demographics and population trends in an area. Catalogs and marketing materials from your competition are useful. Many industry associations have a great amount of relevant information to use in putting your analysis together. Trade publications and annual reports from public corporations in your industry also contain a wealth of relevant information.

4. Customer Mindset

Take yourself out of the equation as the owner and stand in your customer’s shoes when you look at the business. As a customer, what problems do you have that need to be solved? What would you like to be able to do better, faster, or cheaper that you can’t do now? How does the competition work to solve those issues? How could this business solve them better?

5. the Competition

If you have a clothing store, visit others in your area. If you’d like to open a pizzeria, try pies from surrounding restaurants. If you’re a salon owner, park across the street and see what the store traffic is like and how customers look when they come out. Check out websites for pricing and other marketing information. Follow their Facebook pages. If you can’t be a customer of the competition, ask your customers and suppliers about them. Always be aware of what’s going on in the market.

6. Traditional Market Research

While you can gather a lot of data online, your best information will come from potential customers themselves. Send out surveys, ask for input and feedback, and conduct focus groups. You can do this yourself or hire a market research firm to do it for you.

What to Do With All That Data

Now that you’ve gathered the statistics and information and you’ve done the math to know there’s a need and customer base for your product or service, you have to show it off to your best advantage. You can start the market analysis section with a simple summary that describes your target customers and explains why you have chosen this as your market. You can also summarize how you see the market growing, and highlight one or two projections for the future.

If your information is dense with numbers and statistics, someone who reads your business plan will probably find it easier to understand if you present it as a chart or graph. You can generate them fairly easily with tools built into Google docs and free infographic apps and software .

Don’t assume that your readers have an understanding of your market, but don’t belabor simple points, either. You want to include pertinent, important information, but you don’t want to drown the reader in facts. Be concise and compelling with the market analysis, and remember that a good graphic can cover a lot of text, and help you make your point. It’s great to say you project sales to increase by 250% over the next five years, but it makes an even bigger wow when you show it in a graphic.

Always relate the data back to your business. Statistics about the market don’t mean much unless you describe how and where you fit in. As you talk about the needs of your target market, remember to focus on how you are uniquely positioned to fill them.

Don’t hesitate to break down your target market into smaller segments, especially if each is likely to respond to a different message about your product or service. You may have one market that consists of homes and another of small businesses. Perhaps you sell to both wholesale and retail customers. Talk about this in the market analysis, and describe briefly how you’ll approach each. (You will have more of an opportunity to do this in detail later in the plan.) Segmentation can help you target specific messages to specific areas, focusing in on the existing needs and how you fill them.

Remember to tailor your information to the purpose at hand. If your business plan is for internal use, you may not have to go into as much detail about the market since you and your team may already know it well. Remember, however, that the very act of doing the research may help you learn things you didn’t know, so don’t skimp on doing the work. This is a great opportunity to get information from outside that might affect your business.

It’s not about your ability to do professional-level market research; a plan intended for a bank or other lender needs to show your understanding of where your business fits into the grand scheme of things. Yes, you need to detail the information, but your main goal is to show how you’ve incorporated that knowledge into making solid decisions about the direction of your company. Use this section of your business plan to explain your understanding of your industry, your market and your individual business so that lenders and investors feel comfortable with your possibility for success.

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Home > Financial Projections > Market Size Estimation

Market Size Estimation

In order to prepare a business plan for investors you need to be able to estimate the size of your potential market. A market size estimation is a useful exercise as it will allow you to determine whether the new business is a feasible proposition, and will provide you with some of the information needed to generate a sales forecast for the financial projection.

• Government census information
• Trade associations
• Industry reports
• Trade shows
• Competitors
• Demographic reports
• Business acquisitions and sales
• Traffic studies

Market Size Estimation Using Local Data

For the first of our market size estimation examples, lets assume that you plan to open a restaurant in your local area. If the local area is of sufficient size (say a major town or city), then the sources of information above may well provide the necessary information to estimate the market size.

The local market size estimation is 18,000,000 with average sales of 144,000 per restaurant.

In the absence of any other information, and providing the business has the facilities and is capable of managing such sales, it is reasonable to assume that a new restaurant might eventually achieve this average sales figure.

It is important at this stage to point out that a bottom up sales forecast should also be carried out to ensure that the restaurant has the capacity to achieve such a sales forecast. Our revenue templates are available to help with the process of performing a bottom up sales forecast.

Market Size Estimation when Local Data is not Available

The local area under consideration might be too small for information to be available. In these circumstances, an alternative approach can be adopted based on information for a larger region (for example information might be available for a state or county but not for individual towns).

Let’s assume that we plan to open a coffee shop business, and the information available is that the entire region has sales of 98,000,000 and the census shows that the population of the region is 1,050,000.

From this information we can calculate the average sales per head of population in the region.

We now know that on average the spend in coffee shops is 93.33 for each member of the population.

Using this information, and knowing the local population in the area being considered is say 40,000, we can estimate the size of the local market.

The local market size estimation is 3,733,333 with average sales of 93.33 per head of population.

By using this figure and a target percentage the business aims to achieve, a sales forecast for the business can be obtained.

The point of this method of estimating market size is that although local sales information might not be available, it is possible using national information to obtain an estimate of the average spend per head of population (93.33), and then using the local area population (however small) an estimate of the local market size can be obtained.

Calculating Market Size for a Business to Business Operation

For businesses which trade with other businesses where the population is not directly a relevant factor, a variation on the above method can be used to provide a market size estimation when local sales information is not available.

Lets assume that we plan to open a business operating in the business to business sector, the information available from market size by industry reports is that the entire sector has sales of 7,546,000,000 and that there are 350,000 businesses operating in this sector.

From this information we can calculate the average sales per business as follows.

We now know that on average the sales for each business in the sector is 215,600.

Using this information and knowing how many businesses there are in the local area being considered (say 60), we can estimate the size of the local market.

The local market size estimation is 12,936,000 with average sales of 215,600 per business.

Again, by using this figure discounted by a percentage to allow for the fact that this is a start up business, an estimate of the initial sales forecast can be obtained

Market Saturation Point

Starting a business on the assumption that the market place will get bigger to accommodate you is a dangerous game. More often than not, the market will stay the same and the business you get will be at the expense of competitors.

Having carried out your market size estimation, it is important to check that the local market is big enough for additional businesses to enter.

In our coffee shop business example above, suppose that there were 500 coffee shops in the region with the population as before of 1,050,000. The average population per coffee shop can be calculated as follows:

We know from above that the local population is 40,000, so we can estimate based on the regional information that the number of coffee shops which can be supported by the local community is:

By checking the number of coffee shops actually operating in the area to see whether it is anywhere near 19, it is now possible to see whether the market is saturated or whether there is room for another business.

For example, if there were already 15 coffee shops operating in the area, we could say there is room for another 4 to open, and that the local market is under-utilized by 4/19 x 100% = 21% of the businesses it can support.

Market Size Estimation and Break Even

An alternative method of deciding whether the market is suitable for a new business, is to calculate the break even sales of your business and see what percentage of the total population you would need to capture in order to break even.

Again using the coffee shop business as an example, suppose the fixed operating costs of the business were 95,000 and the gross margin percentage is 60%, then the break even sales are calculated as follows:

But we already know from regional information that the average spend per head of population is 93.33, so the break even population is given by:

We now know that the coffee shop needs a population of 1,696 or 4.2% (1,696/40,000 ) of the local population to break even. In addition, on the basis that we know from above that the average population per business is 2,100, this new business would need to achieve 81% (1,696/2,100) of the industry average just to break even.

However, we also know from our market saturation calculation, that the market is underutilized by 21%. The decision now based on this information, is whether or not you believe this is achievable.

Our market size calculator is available as a free Excel download to help carry out the market size estimation calculations.

About the Author

Chartered accountant Michael Brown is the founder and CEO of Plan Projections. He has worked as an accountant and consultant for more than 25 years and has built financial models for all types of industries. He has been the CFO or controller of both small and medium sized companies and has run small businesses of his own. He has been a manager and an auditor with Deloitte, a big 4 accountancy firm, and holds a degree from Loughborough University.

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Market Sizing: Measuring Your TAM, SAM, and SOM

Market sizing is all about potential. It’s the measurement every organization wants to increase. But before you start on your quest toward market domination, you need to know your market size, and only then, can you outline a strategic plan to help you get a bigger piece of the pie.

When launching a new product, diversifying your offering, or expanding into new regions, knowing your market potential BEFORE you invest time and money is key.

So, how can you work out your market size? 

Before you even think about using a syndicated research report published last year or data that’s out-of-date, let me explain how you can do market sizing with fresh data that reflects any market as it stands today – not last quarter, or last year.

What is market sizing?

Market sizing uses informed estimations to determine the potential market volume and sales revenue. Knowing how to calculate a total addressable market is just as important for those looking to launch in a new market as it is for start-ups.

Why do market sizing?

Calculating market size matters for several reasons. Here’s why.

• Allows organizations to estimate potential profit from a new product, service, or business.
• Helps investors decide whether to invest in a business or not.
• Aids the development of an effective marketing strategy that highlights the needs and potential of a core market.
• Gives a clearer picture of hiring needs before launch, helping to drive an optimized recruitment strategy.
• Doing periodic market sizing will also clarify your TAM, SAM, and SOM.

What is a market size formula?

You use a market sizing formula to estimate your market size. It’s the number of potential customers you can sell to.

How to calculate your market size

Multiple metrics go into a market sizing analysis: if you’re familiar with market size formulas you’ve probably heard of TAM, SAM, and SOM. These calculations are used to give an idea of a company’s size in relation to its market and competitors.

Here, we’ll go into detail about each metric, with bottom-up approaches on calculating them. We’ll also break down the variables contributing to your potential reachable market size.

Total Addressable Market (TAM)

TAM looks at the entire potential value of the overall market (think, the total value for toothbrush sales in the United States in a given year). The market size estimation is a huge number, and probably unattainable by one company (unless we’re talking about a monopoly). TAM can provide a framework for a market’s potential and stability.

You calculate TAM by adding up all product sales across the market. There are two ways of doing this:

• Add up figures for toothbrush sales per grocery chain, pharmacy, and retailer
• Estimate how many toothbrushes the average person buys, multiply that by the number of people in the U.S., and then by the average cost of a toothbrush

Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM)

SAM refers to the specific potential audience for your product or offering (keeping with our toothbrush example – the total value of online-only electric toothbrushes for kids). This is the maximum market value of your company based on this target market .

To calculate SAM, add up all the relevant product sales across the market (so, add up figures for online purchases of electric toothbrushes for kids).

Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM)

SOM (also known as Share of Market) is a representation of the proportion of your SAM that you’re likely to obtain for your company. Assuming you’re not the only children’s toothbrush manufacturer, that number will be smaller than the SAM.

To calculate SOM, divide last year’s revenue by last year’s SAM. This is your market share. Now multiply your market share by the dollar-value SAM for this year.

Market size example + formula

A start-up linen company – supplying boutique hotels.

Let’s say you’re considering starting a business that supplies luxury bed linens for hotels and want to explore the opportunity. Here’s how you would calculate your market size.

Firstly, find out how many boutique hotels are in your market (we’re looking at the US market for this example). This allows you to establish the total addressable market (TAM) to which you could, in theory, sell your products.

After doing this research, you identify 50,000 hotels in North America. Of these 50,000, you only want to sell to independent hotels, which account for 10,000 establishments. You ascertain that your core target market includes 10,000 hotels. You then do further primary market research , which involves speaking with bedding and linen distributors, who confirm an approximate success rate of 25% for annual sales into luxury hotels.

Using this scenario, the following market sizing formula would be applied.

10,000 hotels x 25% = 2,500 hotels

Based on the assumption that each hotel will result in $20,000 in sales, you can work out potential revenue with the following formula.

2,500 hotels x $20,000 = $50,000,000

These figures tell you that, should you achieve a penetration rate of 25%, you could potentially generate $50 million. However, this figure doesn’t account for competitor offerings, so it’s important to be conservative when estimating how much of the market potential you can grab.

Pro Tip: If you’re launching a new product, conduct a competitive analysis and estimate your SOM based on factors such as web traffic analysis , marketing mix, and ad spend.

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Top-down vs. bottom-up market sizing

There are two approaches to market sizing – top-down and bottom-up. Neither gives you the complete picture, so it’s important to do a bit of both.

Here’s why.

Bottom-up market sizing assumes a surplus of customers in your reachable segments. With top-down market sizing, this doesn’t consider potential challenges such as ease of reaching a particular audience segment.

What is top-down market sizing?

Top-down market sizing looks at the whole market, taking a macro view of potential revenue and customers. Starting with the largest number and then refining according to realistic estimations of a target market. A top-down approach to market sizing is used to ascertain your serviceable obtainable market (SAM).

What is bottom-up market sizing?

Bottom-up market sizing starts small, then gradually gets built up. Firstly, you identify the segments you intend to reach. Then, estimations are made using assumptions (and market research) to establish growth and size. Essentially, bottom-up market sizing looks at where a product or service can be sold, the sales of comparable products, and the portion of current sales you can go after.

Top-down market sizing or bottom-up market sizing – which is best? Start any market sizing or market analysis bottom-up but add in some top-down thinking too. It’s generally good practice to meet somewhere in the middle.

You’ll know when you have a good market size estimation when both your bottom-up and top-down models align. You might need to tweak some of your assumptions in order to reach that happy place, but the updates are a positive part of the process that helps make your final estimate accurate.

Tools to estimate market size

There are ways to measure your TAM and SAM in addition to the market size formulas mentioned above. Here are a few:

Primary and secondary research: Start reading online and find external resources that give information about a market. These can come in the form of articles, case studies, whitepapers, product launch announcements, and more.

Financial reports: Public companies have to release their financial reports to the public. Capitalize on this information to see what the market looks like and specific competitors’ business plans.

Market research tools : Market research comes in many shapes and forms. You can pay a company to create a one-off report or use resources like Similarweb Digital Intelligence for on-demand access to dynamic market insights.

Read more about our offering here .

Interviews and in-person visits: Talk to people in the industry to get a sense of how they see market potential , customers, and challenges. This can include studying customer segments and analyzing audience demographics .

Put it all together: Look at the figures and group all your information together to see if it all makes sense. If you have calculated a TAM of $1B, but conversations with business owners in the space point to half that, try to spot where your estimations may have skewed and adjust the TAM, SAM, and SOM accordingly.

Market sizing a micro-market

In larger organizations running multiple lines of business, each department or segment needs to size its own custom market. While this granular level of analysis was time-consuming and expensive in the past, Similarweb enables effortless customization capabilities that make the process quick, easy, and effective.

Feature Spotlight: Website Segment Analysis

See how to build a website segment in less than 60 seconds. This example is from the US finance market, specifically looking at credit card business lines across 6 key industry players. Once created, you can view the size of a market based on individual lines of business using Similarweb data.

Good market sizing involves getting deep into the numbers. Knowing your market size (AKA your TAM, SAM, and SOM) helps you build an effective strategy and make critical decisions about investing, potential growth opportunities, marketing strategies, and more. From increasing market share to new product ideation, you can use various tools and formulas for estimates that help you make smart decisions while avoiding unnecessary risks.

Here’s a market size formula chart to get you started:

Want to learn more about market sizing?

Check out our related blog posts Market Segmentation: Tips, Types, and Benefits Explained and 4 Types of Market Segmentation (Plus a Few Extras You Might Miss) .

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Market Sizing FAQ

Market sizing is the process of estimating the market’s potential size from the bottom up.

What is my market size?

Your market size is the number of potential customers you can sell a product or service to.

Are market mapping and marking sizing the same thing?

Although market sizing and mapping are similar, there are key differences. Market sizing considers the potential size of a market, which involves understanding the total potential market size from the bottom-up. Market mapping is a data-driven market research strategy that allows you to strategically position yourself in the market. This can help determine who your customers are in terms of market size and value.

How do I calculate market sizing?

• TAM (add up all product sales across the market)
• SAM (add up only relevant product sales across the market)
• SOM (divide last year’s revenue by last year’s SAM)

What other tools can I use to help calculate market size?

• Primary and secondary desk research
• Financial reports
• Market research products
• In-person interviews and visits

Why is market sizing important?

If you can accurately assess the size of a market, you can safely launch a new product, enter new regions, diversify your offering, or make any other major, costly decisions with ease.

by Liz March

Digital Research Specialist

Liz March has 15 years of experience in content creation. She enjoys the outdoors, F1, and reading, and is pursuing a BSc in Environmental Science.

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What Is A Sample Size? A Guide to Market Research Sample Sizes

The no bs guide to market research sample sizes.

The use of well-formulated and actionable market research is often the difference between success and failure with product line expansions, new businesses and entry to new markets. The benefits of a carefully thought out market research study are plentiful including:

• Better understanding your target customers
• Sizing your market
• Measuring how well your product or service idea might perform in the market
• Reducing your risk profile for a big decision

However, understanding how to conduct an effective study and deciding on the appropriate market research sample sizes is paramount.

In this article we will pull back the curtains on sample size and provide a comprehensive overview of sample size, what makes something statistically significant, and how you can apply these learnings in your next market research project. We will demystify the terminology and provide useful guidance so you can plan your next market research study with confidence in your choice of how many people you should survey.

Market research sample sizes lingo - what do the terms mean?

Market research surveys are a great tool to help you understand your potential customer bases behaviors, interests and willingness to purchase.

A survey with an appropriate sample size or number of respondents is exactly the proof you need to make critical decisions when entering new markets but there are a number of elements that make a survey valid.

Here are a few of the most important terms you need to know:

What is a Sample Size?

The first thing that many people will want to know when you present a study is the sample size in market research. This refers to the number of people who participated in your study.

Having a good sample size in market research allows you to draw appropriate conclusions about how the larger population would behave. But keep in mind that having a larger sample size doesn't necessarily correlate to more accurate findings.

Many leadership figures will look for as high a number as possible when it comes to sample size, but this is not always necessary.

Market Research Survey Cell

A cell or sampling cell is quite simply one particular group of people who make up part of your sample target market.

For example, let’s say you are creating a new hair tie that you expect to be popular with women with long hair and 20-30 year old men with man buns. The 20-30 year old men with man buns would be one cell and the long haired women would be the other. Every business critical cell that you want to analyze data by after your study is over should be considered up front so you can build your sample plan from 'the bottom up'.

Statistical Significance

What does it mean when something is statistically significant? The very purpose of running market research is to reduce chance for failure to occur. This is the same for the market research survey itself.

You typically cannot survey every single member of your target audience to know with absolute certainty that the opinions collected reflect the market. The aim is to minimize the amount of people you survey that do not echo the sentiment of the majority, but you can be unlucky.

A study with high statistical significance means that the findings obtained were not as a result of unluckily surveying the outliers of your target market.

In more common terms, the higher the statistical significance, the more likely it is that the opinions of the majority are captured in your study.

For example, with a 95% statistical significance level, I can assuredly say my survey results are real and will tell me what my target customers would do in a given scenario.

Margin of Error

The vast majority of studies in research are given credibility by the ability to repeat them and arrive at the exact same or a very similar result. How close the result you would get is where your margin of error lies.

For example if I had a margin of error of 5%and conducted a survey 100 times, I would expect my results to be within 5%every time. The lower your margin for error, the more certain you can be that the results reflect the entire possible population.

Confidence Levels

Statisticians can sometimes communicate as though they are in The Matrix without realizing that not everyone speaks with the same degree of understanding as they do. Often times when a poll is reported, the confidence level is included in the results. A survey might report a 95 percent confidence level. What does this mean, though? A confidence level tells you exactly how sure you can be that the results from the cell surveyed accurately reflect the overall market.

Confidence levels are quite important in research and you should typically be looking for a 90-99% confidence level in your study results.

The most commonly used and accepted confidence level is 95%. Why? Well, because many scientists use it in academic writing, and because it is generally considered 'accurate enough'.

What are some rules of thumb for sample size calculation?

The world of research and academia is entrenched with many conflicting rules and myths. We are aiming to simplify these and address what benefits the end user the most. Here are some sample size calculation rules of thumb.

1)   Size matters, but so does business reality

A larger sample carries more power to predict the actual behaviors of your target market. In black and white, if you had the opinions of every customer you would obviously know all the possible outcomes with your launch .

Furthermore, market research for management will often come with pressure to have the highest participant rate for your sample size so they can have more certainty.

However, 100% participation is almost never possible so avoid obsessing over the largest sample size you can possibly get. The early bird catches the worm and timing is important. Most businesses have time + budget constraints that will not allow for market research that drags on. Making achievable, realistic and time conscious goals are vital.

2)  At a certain point, spending more money will not drastically improve accuracy

The law of diminishing returns is the point at which your level of benefits begins to reduce for every further dollar spent. This is true for market research sample sizes.

The cost-benefits ratio for sample sizes off begins to narrow at a certain point. The intersection of confidence levels, margin of error and costs is generally the point to confidently accept that you have captured the response of your target market.

Continuing to spend money beyond this point is very much personal preference but as can be noted from the infographic below, it is not always necessary or financially advisable.

3)   Your risk of error/business loss should guide your choice on sample size

Budgeting is a major part of any business and it is no different when it comes to market research sample sizes.

Certain demographics are more likely to be expensive to survey than others. For example, a large sample size of dentists will be less accessible than surveying the general grocery store using population. Understanding the accessibility to these populations will give your study costs a foundation.

However, more importantly a good rule of thumb to follow is that scale and risk of the decisions dependent on the study should be comparable to the market research sample size. If you are on the verge of making the most crucial business decisions, you should do as precise a job on market research as possible. If you are just looking to quickly check your gut on a minor decision, then you can likely get away with a smaller sample size.

4)   When in doubt, a safe sample size formula is ~400 per cell

As we have shared in this article, there simply is no hard and fast rule when it comes to the correct sample size in market research and it all depends on the participants required, aims of your study, the scale and risk attached to the outcomes and the budget set aside for research.

At Starlight, we have found that market research sample sizes of 300-400 for each cell command a great balance between the cost-benefit trade off with low margins of error and high confidence levels.

In Conclusion

Deciding on the right sample size for your market research survey requires care and logical thinking, but it's not rocket science.

You only need to have as many people take your survey as necessary . For most purposes a sample of between 300-400 will do the trick.

Generally, there is not a need for an excessive amount of sample unless the choice you are making requires a very high degree of accuracy, or you are doing specialized research like a market segmentation.

Still have a question? Need help scoping a study of your own? We'd love to hear from you in the comments below or feel free to contact us directly.

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Learn about the four discrete Moments of Truth and how they influence a customer’s perception of—and loyalty to—your brand.

Time to Market: What Is TTM and Why Is It So Important?

Learn how you can improve the success of your brand’s product launch by nailing down an effective time to market (TTM) strategy.

Voice of Customer Analysis: How to Do it & Why It Matters

Learn how to use VoC analytics to set the foundations for future customer-centric strategies. Doing so can greatly improve customer retention & conversion.

A Comprehensive Guide to Survey Research Methodologies

The comprehensive guide to survey research methodologies covers all about survey research, its types, common uses, and the steps to design a great survey.

Market Growth: Tap into Your Full Market Potential

Market growth rate is the change in a market’s size over a given period, typically expressed as a positive or negative percentage.