market overview for a business plan

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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.

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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.

How To Write A Business Plan (2024 Guide)

Updated: Apr 17, 2024, 11:59am

Table of Contents

Brainstorm an executive summary, create a company description, brainstorm your business goals, describe your services or products, conduct market research, create financial plans, bottom line, frequently asked questions.

Every business starts with a vision, which is distilled and communicated through a business plan. In addition to your high-level hopes and dreams, a strong business plan outlines short-term and long-term goals, budget and whatever else you might need to get started. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to write a business plan that you can stick to and help guide your operations as you get started.

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Drafting the Summary

An executive summary is an extremely important first step in your business. You have to be able to put the basic facts of your business in an elevator pitch-style sentence to grab investors’ attention and keep their interest. This should communicate your business’s name, what the products or services you’re selling are and what marketplace you’re entering.

Ask for Help

When drafting the executive summary, you should have a few different options. Enlist a few thought partners to review your executive summary possibilities to determine which one is best.

After you have the executive summary in place, you can work on the company description, which contains more specific information. In the description, you’ll need to include your business’s registered name , your business address and any key employees involved in the business. 

The business description should also include the structure of your business, such as sole proprietorship , limited liability company (LLC) , partnership or corporation. This is the time to specify how much of an ownership stake everyone has in the company. Finally, include a section that outlines the history of the company and how it has evolved over time.

Wherever you are on the business journey, you return to your goals and assess where you are in meeting your in-progress targets and setting new goals to work toward.

Numbers-based Goals

Goals can cover a variety of sections of your business. Financial and profit goals are a given for when you’re establishing your business, but there are other goals to take into account as well with regard to brand awareness and growth. For example, you might want to hit a certain number of followers across social channels or raise your engagement rates.

Another goal could be to attract new investors or find grants if you’re a nonprofit business. If you’re looking to grow, you’ll want to set revenue targets to make that happen as well.

Intangible Goals

Goals unrelated to traceable numbers are important as well. These can include seeing your business’s advertisement reach the general public or receiving a terrific client review. These goals are important for the direction you take your business and the direction you want it to go in the future.

The business plan should have a section that explains the services or products that you’re offering. This is the part where you can also describe how they fit in the current market or are providing something necessary or entirely new. If you have any patents or trademarks, this is where you can include those too.

If you have any visual aids, they should be included here as well. This would also be a good place to include pricing strategy and explain your materials.

This is the part of the business plan where you can explain your expertise and different approach in greater depth. Show how what you’re offering is vital to the market and fills an important gap.

You can also situate your business in your industry and compare it to other ones and how you have a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Other than financial goals, you want to have a budget and set your planned weekly, monthly and annual spending. There are several different costs to consider, such as operational costs.

Business Operations Costs

Rent for your business is the first big cost to factor into your budget. If your business is remote, the cost that replaces rent will be the software that maintains your virtual operations.

Marketing and sales costs should be next on your list. Devoting money to making sure people know about your business is as important as making sure it functions.

Other Costs

Although you can’t anticipate disasters, there are likely to be unanticipated costs that come up at some point in your business’s existence. It’s important to factor these possible costs into your financial plans so you’re not caught totally unaware.

Business plans are important for businesses of all sizes so that you can define where your business is and where you want it to go. Growing your business requires a vision, and giving yourself a roadmap in the form of a business plan will set you up for success.

How do I write a simple business plan?

When you’re working on a business plan, make sure you have as much information as possible so that you can simplify it to the most relevant information. A simple business plan still needs all of the parts included in this article, but you can be very clear and direct.

What are some common mistakes in a business plan?

The most common mistakes in a business plan are common writing issues like grammar errors or misspellings. It’s important to be clear in your sentence structure and proofread your business plan before sending it to any investors or partners.

What basic items should be included in a business plan?

When writing out a business plan, you want to make sure that you cover everything related to your concept for the business,  an analysis of the industry―including potential customers and an overview of the market for your goods or services―how you plan to execute your vision for the business, how you plan to grow the business if it becomes successful and all financial data around the business, including current cash on hand, potential investors and budget plans for the next few years.

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Julia is a writer in New York and started covering tech and business during the pandemic. She also covers books and the publishing industry.

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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.