Due to the recent social and economic worldwide framework, companies might struggle to remain stable and acquire profitability. In the UK, the net rate of return for private non-financial corporations and continental and manufacturing companies decreased considerably during the third quarter of 2022, while start-ups and small businesses are prone to failure during the first year of establishment.
Although starting a business can be challenging when the market is jam packed with similar ideas everywhere, the reasons so many companies fail in the beginning or experience downturns include poor mail cash flow and lack of strategy. A proper accounting system can solve cash flow problems, but what about planning and design?
Being able to strategise your company’s approach can help increase the factors contributing to profitability. Enhancing product development, ensuring trust, and improving brand image are essential for a business to thrive in this highly competitive market, which is why addressing market opportunity assessment is a favourable plan of attack.
How to define market opportunity assessment
Market opportunity assessment can be outlined by three elements: identifying opportunities, targeting a specific market area and taking action. The results might depend on your view of opportunity because some might be rather riskier than rewarding, so it’s necessary to proceed carefully, but sometimes taking the risk is worth it in business.
Any type of organisation may try approaching market opportunity assessment for diverse purposes. For instance, start-ups can use it for revenue growth, while corporations may choose this strategy to diversify revenue.
If you are not sure of what opportunities are made to be explored, this is an opportunity assessment in marketing:
- Growing an already established business by getting insight into the market, customers and competition;
- Starting a new company by devising a thorough business strategy for the product or service;
- Improving a particular sector of the industry by leveraging existing features more creatively to maximise ROI;
- Preparing for a turning point to be able to withstand unforeseen occurrences, such as a pandemic;
Does your business require an opportunity assessment now?
Depending on where your company stands in the market, it may be less visible what the organisation needs to thrive. In case of uncertainty, you can make a short meeting with your team and try findings answers to these guidelines:
- What are you basing your strategy on? Is it objective data or an intuitive approach? Because nothing’s more helpful than data because it provides an unaltered view of your company;
- Are you positive the company is not missing out on market opportunities? If so, how can you expand the search area and bring new ideas to the establishment?
- Is the company facing hardships of any kind at the moment? Whether it’s about social norms or financial uncertainties, analyse the possible intrusive elements;
What are the ways to perform market opportunity assessment?
Market opportunity assessment may be challenging to tackle, especially if it’s for a start-up, so you should look for professional help in this regard. In most cases, this method implies you conduct one or more of the following:
- Qualitative research based on focus groups;
- Quantitative analysis made through surveys and closed questions;
- Secondary research that includes relevant research;
However, there are easier ways to gather essential data, and here’s what we’re talking about.
Using social media to determine group sizes
Social media platforms quickly adapt to marketing demands, so most provide analytics for companies to get insight into their development. Facebook or Instagram, for example, offer data on the age bracket of the people engaging with your content or advertisements, while location and gender details are also available.
Checking government-based resources
Local government establishments usually post relevant data on their website for multiple industries and sectors that you can use for research purposes. However, not all updated their data reports, so you may be limited to checking old data; that won’t be helpful, as trends and customer demands have changed drastically in recent years.
Setting and segmenting customer targets
Customer segmentation is necessary for any type of business regardless of its current step on the market. And considering customers have different needs, it’s best to determine what differentiates them while using similar products. Sending out surveys can help build the base of your next step, creating multiple personas and personalising advertisements based on these stats.
Performing environmental assessment
Climate change is a real issue for most customers, as they tend to choose green products with recyclable packaging, and their manufacturing process isn’t harming the environment. In this strategy, you must do an internal environmental assessment and analyse cultural changes and technological developments that directly impact your business.
Benefits of market opportunity analysis
Considering your area of work and further strategies, your business will benefit in a certain way by leveraging this type of analysis. Still, once conducted, this method develops your company and prepares it to find plenty of opportunities soon.
Your company will make better long-term strategic decisions based on the research created regarding external factors impacting your business. Although forecasting might not be easy, it sure can be done if you evaluate your product or service demand. After the assessment, you may be able to tell if expanding into a new market is worth the try while you control the rest of the operations.
With market analysis, you can uncover new areas for research that no one in your team thought about. This happens when you understand the market better and analyse the possibility of reaching higher stats with the same input. Moreover, discovering new marketing strategies that fit your current company culture is another advantage of having a broader approach. Even potential roadblocks are easier to identify when you have in-depth knowledge of the company’s position in the market.
Bottom line
Getting into marketing opportunity analysis isn’t easy, but it’s worth the time. Your company can do more with the same number of resources, which is why you need to conduct further research on the opportunities available on the market and popularise your business to increase profitability rates.
