How To Write a Market Analysis

Every business plan must include a market analysis. Before a business is fully established, you should have a clear and thorough view of the marketability of your products and a study of your target market and the prevailing and foreseen market trends. A market analysis serves as a guide for every business person in the conduct of his business. It presents a picture of the distribution of sales in different venues. It also shows the strengths and weaknesses of a particular market venture. Research is important in writing a market analysis, whether it is for a new or old business.

Here are tips on how to write a market analysis:

• Get all the information you need about the business - the product, production costs, target consumers, demand to be met and the availability of supplies.
• Construct a format for your market analysis. You may divide it into several sections so that those who will read it can follow more easily. Use Roman numerals to segregate each section. For example, I - Title, II - Name of Product, III - Target Consumers, and so on.
• Make the dissertation brief but concise. Avoid being wordy and go direct to the point without sacrificing the details.
• Be factual. Base your analysis only on the data at hand. If more facts are needed for you to compose a real analysis, research further.
• Begin by stating a summary or rundown of information. Most likely, the business executives who will read your analysis are much occupied with all the work on their desks, so that they want to read documents that are written in a direct and clear manner. Hence it will help if you write the market analysis in a "news writing fashion" in which all the important details are already given at the start.
• Provide a classification for your target markets. Classification may be by occupation, income, economic class, sex, education and the like.
• Provide an in-depth discussion for the business strategy to be used in order to achieve the objectives of your market plan. Give the mechanics of this technique to provide the readers with a clear perspective on how it will actually take place.
• Place the discussion at the right angle. For example, if your bosses want to know the implication of increasing the price of certain products, you should be able to present concrete reactions from the target customers. On the other hand, you should also justify the reasons for such increase and how the change in price can be presented to the customers without getting any flak from them.
• Concentrate on the needs and status of the company. A market analysis is made mainly for the protection of the company's interests. It serves as an advisory that will guide the company leaders in deciding if a business plan is to be implemented or not.
• Attach survey results, graphs and computations as called for. These materials will help the readers comprehend the market analysis readily.

Writing a market analysis is not done in just one sitting. It takes days to gather the information you need and more days to analyze the research results and another set of days to compose the written report. One thing that you should keep in mind in writing a market analysis: do not invent your facts. As said earlier, be factual. Give facts, no more no less.