Negosentro | How to Research A New Business Market or Niche | You want plans to start a new business; what is stopping you is that you are still indecisive on which niche to pick.
Navigating to a new business market or niche is tricky. First, you are struggling with which business market to choose from a multiplicity of options.
If you already have a niche established in your mind, all is still not clear. You will grapple with the challenge of how to research the niche for maximum productivity.
The research factor is essential. It’s what you need to determine the profit and viability of the niche. Business is, after all, a game of benefits.
What products are selling in the niche? Who are your competitors?
What is the capital needed to start? What is your target market? These are just some few points to research.
Here are some tips you can use to research a new business market or niche.
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Outline your passions and interest
The first step if you haven’t picked a niche yet. It’s easy to do and requires some time to think about all your interests and passions. Get a notebook and divide a page into two: the left side for interest and the other for passion. If you are having difficulty differentiating one from the other, write it all on the exciting side.
The reason for this is that business isn’t accessible, and you need strong motivation to stay in business when the odds are against you. If you are operating in an area, you aren’t interested in, the odds of you quitting increases.
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Identify the problems the business market solves
What are the problems of the niche? What does the niche attempt to solve or provide for consumers? Identifying both is a great place to start your research.
Finding out the problems of the niche will put you in a knowledgeable position to find the solutions. The solution is where all the money is. Search for customers’ complaints, ask experts in the niche or do a quick survey to find out the problems.
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Identify the needs of the target market
An effective way to solve the consumer problem is to answer the question – what does the consumer need? Conduct thorough research to identify the needs of the target market. Ask the consumers what they need.
Sometimes the consumer doesn’t know what they need. With proper research, it’s possible to find their pain points.
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Identify the big players and products in the niche
This tip has to be in your fundamentals for researching that new business or niche. Before diving into an uncharted path, you have to know what lies ahead. The new business market is attractive to you in the first place because some players and products are excelling, and you feel you can make a similar successful impact there.
Source out enough information about the big players and best-selling products in the niche. Who are the big players? What do they produce?
How do they get their customers?
What are the bestselling products? Why is a particular product selling?
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Know the consumers
The consumers are the key players in the business cycle. Knowing what the customer wants is the problem every business has to solve to succeed. Consumers pay for solutions, so identify the issues they are experiencing and find workable solutions that are affordable for the consumers in the new niche.
To know the problems of the consumer in specific niches, here are some tips to help:
- Interact with the target market of the new business market. From your interactions, make sure you get the consumers’ pain points and likely products idea they are willing to buy.
- Search consumer active forums like Quora and the likes for the niche.
- Find out a list of top blogs in the new niche and read their posts.
- Subscribe to newsletters and magazines about the niche.
- Research frequently used keyboards in the new niche on platforms like Google AdWords and Google Trends.
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Identify your target market
Similar to the know your customer tip, the consumer or target market is such an important area to research that you have to do it as many times as possible using different approaches.
Some questions you can use to identify your target market include
- What is the demography of the target market? – Research on their age range; are they old or young, teenagers or kids, adults or children, male or female, married or single, etc.
- What is their occupation?
- What is the size of their income?
- What are their interests?
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Know the competition
The presence of competitors is an unavoidable problem we all have to deal with in a global capitalist system. The presence of competitors is a sign that the new niche you have developed an interest in is profitable. There wouldn’t be competing if it weren’t so.
Please do thorough research on them. Find the prices, their business structure, the solutions they bring, and what makes them appealing. These are the positives.
The goal of researching the competition is to find ways to stand out. Creating a unique product offering to differentiate you from competitors is one way to stand out in the crowd.
Entering the market at a lower price from what the competitors are offering is a great way to get some traction. You want to be careful with this. It may end up as an unbeneficial approach if it’s not returning the yielded profit.
Check out the possible negatives where your competitors are making a poor impression. If your competitors are offering low-quality content and products, you can quickly come out top by providing high-quality content and products.
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The profitability of the new niche
Since in business, profitability plays a role in determining the lifespan of a company, it has to be a huge consideration when researching a new business market or niche. Ask questions like how profitability is the niche and what are the potentials for earnings.
Final Thoughts
Researching a new niche or business market is a thorough process that is time-consuming and energy-sapping, but worth it. The benefit of conducting market research for a new business market is that it helps improve sales, productivity, and eliminate the trial and error method of doing business.
