Understanding the Entire Market is Critical to Success

Before beginning any major project I would ask my team to first develop a market insights book that would include an overview of the market, the products included in the category, a competitive overview, and a complete consumer analysis.

As part of the market overview we would include a review of macro trends that could affect the category as a whole, the development of the products included in the category, and anything that could potentially affect sales. For example, we would include any shifts in national demographics, changes in housing or retail trends, any regulatory or legal rulings that might affect the category, as well as any macroeconomic or global issues that could have an impact either on development or our sales efforts.

We would then drill down to the next level and do a complete analysis of the size of the market, the category, the competitors, and the products included in the category. We needed a detailed understanding of the size of the market and what our potential market opportunity might be. It was important for us to target large categories knowing that if we only captured 10% of the market it would still be a significant enough chunk of revenue to make it worth the company's time and effort to pursue. For example, if we were to target a category with only $20 million dollars of market size, and we were only to capture 10%, it wouldn't be worth the massive amount of time and effort it takes to enter a new category. We needed to target categories with a market size of $200 million dollars or more. As part of the market analysis, we would also do an exhaustive review of all relevant competitors to fully understand their strengths, weaknesses, supply chains, manufacturing capabilities, and potential blind spots. Additionally, we would look at the products included in the category to better understand what consumers liked as well as what consumers didn't like about the current product offerings. This would help us define our product strategy, product offering and any potential white space that could be exploited.

Finally, we would include an exhaustive study of the consumer, their wants and needs, their likes and dislikes, how they used the products, what they felt might make the products better, and any price sensitivity that they might have. We would use this information to define consumer personas to help keep our marketing efforts on track by never losing sight of who our target consumers are. We would also use this information for messaging.

Throughout the process we used all of the information that we collected to help derive key insights that drove our product development efforts, our messaging, and our marketing efforts. Keeping a keen eye on the market and the consumer helps reduce risk, improves the possibility of your new products resonating with the consumer, and ensures that your marketing efforts maximize sales to their full potential. The companies that are able to stay focused on their consumer while they innovate are the companies that will stay relevant over time.

Patrick Boehnen

336-453-1922

pat.boehnen@gmail.com