Importance of conducting a marketing analysis
Clarke Ricks
School of Business, Liberty University
BUSI 690: Policy and Strategy in Global Competition
Dr. Hicks
April 5, 2021
Importance of conducting a marketing analysis
Marketing analysis is important because it give you the ability to uncover opportunities
within a market; to know what you customers think of your products; improves your
communication and messaging platforms with your customers.
In fact, marketing analysis is one of the key methods of improving customer satisfaction
and knowing what factors affect your marketing strategies. Here is a list of most notably
reasons for conducting a marketing analysis.
Understanding of the market and customers
Understanding of the value proposition of the product being offered
To understand consumer needs for the company’s product and price settings
Knowing the promotional ad or message to be used
Knowing the channel of distribution
Knowing what opportunities exist within the market
How does marketing analysis differ from market analysis?
As the sub-title denotes, how do these two terms differ from each other? Inferring from
the word ‘market’ or ‘marketing,’ a layman may wonder what the heck is the difference.
Well, marketing analysis is like a subset of market analysis.
These are two different terminologies. Due to the closeness in meaning, there may be a
little bit of confusion when trying to differentiate these terms. After all, it is all about
gathering data within a target market.
Indeed, data gathering is the basis of both. However, the type of data to be gathered
depends on the nature of the analysis. The analysis can either be holistic or limited in scope.
A better illustration of how these terms differ is shown on the figure below.
Unlike market analysis that analyses the condition of a market as a whole, marketing
analysis focuses only on the marketing part. But the scope of the whole analyses or segment
of the analyses depends on the business or industry being studied.
Read How to Conduct A Market Analysis to learn more. It is also possible to select
segment that is relevant to the business goal rather than doing the whole analysis. Again,
marketing analysis is done based on the company’s needs.
Conducting a marketing analysis
With the changing attitude of customers and the growth in economic diversity, having
an in-depth knowledge of how your market operates is crucial.
Ideally, doing a marketing analysis is a systematic manner of gathering intelligence for
business development in the area of marketing of your company’s products or services. This
ensures that marketing strategies perform according to expectations.
Depending on your business goals, here are the key elements to carrying out a
marketing analysis.
Analysis of the market and target customers: Although marketing analysis has a
broader scope, it can be narrowed down to specific targets. In that sense, the analysis has to
be focused.
This means you need to conduct this analysis on specific market and customers. This
group of customers will become the target of your ads and promotional messages.
Product and price analysis: This aspect deals with the feasibility of the product in a
new market or the improvement of products in an existing market. Use the analysis to
determine what your customers think of your product, evaluate the data, and find
improvement.
And for the price, it should be set according to the buying capabilities of your target
customers. Although there are several elements to consider when determining price, it can
also be done using these three pricing scheme.
Advertising analysis: Advertisement is the process of creating awareness of your
business, products or service through ads. Advertisement can either be displayed online or
offline.
An effective ad prompts potential customers to take action. For the analysis, you
need to determine how your ad are performing in terms of click if online, and the number of
response from people if offline.
Sales analysis: For already existing products, the sales analysis is what will assist you
in uncovering valuable data about your prices either by adjusting them or offering discounts.
This analysis could also lead to a complete scrap of products that are not bringing in
revenue.
For robust ways of doing a sales report, check out this step-by-step sales report. It
may be useful to apply it when doing your analysis.
Promotion analysis: Promotional analysis is a technique used in evaluating the
performance of promotional offers. Usually, promotion lasts for a short period of time and it
is seasonal.
Doing this analysis provides understanding of the past promotions, which can be
used for improving future promotions. More specifically, promotion analysis is used to
determine the impact of promotion on sales and the attitude of customers towards reduced
prices.
Distribution channel: One of the strongest marketing strategies is to plan how to
locate and connect with customers. As part of the analysis, determine what channels will be
used in distributing your products or services to your potential customers.
Distribution of products can either be directly from your own warehouse / store or
through a middleman.
Effective marketing analysis can help company avoid mistakes and overcome any
possible problem about a company’s marketing strategies. There are several marketing
analysis tools available to support business owners or Marketing Analysts smoothly when
conducting analysis for business development. Look into these tools and see which ones will
best serve your interest.
