Do You Know Your Business’s Market? Most Do Not

Understand your value proposition and who is the customer before starting any marketing activities.

One would think that anyone starting a new venture would take time to figure out the market before setting up. In the worst case, they would have at least filled some sort of a canvas or a business plan with the hypothesis to prove. Yet lately, I have heard more about companies with nothing like that, wanting to start growing. Ready to spend on campaigns that most likely will not bring any results other than anger. Because they are not able to provide marketers with truthful data on who are their customers.

Even worse, it seems that most companies do not really have the first clue about the market they are in. Yes, they do know their product and have some understanding of who could need it — otherwise, they would already be gone. However, they have rarely taken time to analyse their strengths and weaknesses. Thus not having a clear picture of the opportunities next to their competitors. Therefore basically running the company with their eyes closed.

That said, I recommend every entrepreneur to stop for a second and start making a real strategy. I’m not talking about a marketing strategy yet, tho at some point we also need to reach there. Instead, I’m saying that there needs to be a strong corporate strategy in place before moving on. It does not have to be definitive but there needs to be one. There needs to be an answer for which business are we in, followed by the goals and objectives that we want to reach.

Some of the tools that could be useful when starting to generate such a strategy are the Business Model Canvas and the Value Proposition Canvas. Both of those work as good starting points to write down some of the key information about one’s business. Although filling out those is not something that completely clears the air — it is just the start.

Once the strategy is there, it will be time to learn the market by analysing the existing competitors. To see what they are offering, who are their target customers and how are they reaching them. Something I have found useful here is the Competitive Analysis Canvas.

Next up, it is time to figure out who could be the ideal customer for one’s company and how to reach them. For that, I have used the Buyer Persona Canvas. This one is a good tool, as it makes us analyse all aspects of our potential customer — from who they are to why they buy and how.

After all this, one can finally start making the actual marketing plan — choosing the messages, channels and other tactics. Because without knowing the ins-and-outs of the business one cannot start predictable actions. So it makes sense to spend time on first mapping the business and only then start growing it. At least this way, the results will be more like something we wanted to see in the first place.

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