MARKET & COMPETION

So far we have looked at cover page, executive summary, and business description. Today let us tackle market and competition. Hit the nail on the head and talk about market analysis and identify your target market on the basis o demographics, geographical distribution, purchasing patterns, behavior, lifestyle and trends of your target. State clearly your market niche customers in terms of their location. Are they in your neighborhood, are they situated in torn, in the region, nation,or international. If your customers are individuals, what is their age, gender, level of income, education among other considerations. If organizations, describe their typical business customer culture, where is she/he located, what is their sales in volume and what kind of industry do they operate. Name your biggested customers. What percentage of your total sales do to five customers represent? and how independent are you on these five customers. State whether your business is seasonal or continuous throughtout the year.Tell the percentage of your customers who repeatedly consume your products and what percentage drops out. Come to price and describe your pricing policies according to different target markets. Describe the competition in your industry with focus to your target market. Point out the barriers of entering your venture in the congested market and any of your strategy to capture an opportunity . In competition, find out who is servicing the same type of products, list their names and state their subsequent products. How do you promote your products differently compared to your competition. Also check how your competition are marketing their products /services if there is the difference in their pricing or do they offer benefits to customers. State the strength of your business towards your competition, is your prestige in your personnel, marketing or financial strength?    Here too mention your weakness. On your marketing plan, state what determines the pricing of your products or services and discuss your promotional strategies mainly pointing benefits of your product to your customer and what you want to promote your most. State your promotional activities you will undertake in order to reach your target market and finally, describe samples of marketing materials and medium for getting the message out.

P.S. Understand business and do conventional business that will propel the success of a venture. Tomorrow look out for Operations and location.