Development of new markets
When we decide to develop in new markets, the prior analysis of these is fundamental for the achievement of our objectives. For some, this is one of the most daunting tasks, however it is not as complex as it appears to be.
That is why, based on the new SEMrush Market Explorer tool, its functions and its practices, we bring a guide that will be of great help when analyzing a new market.
First part: describe in a general way the industry and the market.
We have to imagine the market as an unexplored territory, in order to take into account several aspects before entering it. One of them, and the fundamental one, is to ensure that there is some kind of market
Here we must observe and compare companies similar to ours, evaluating its size, composition, its market segments, and its most visible trends at first glance. It is meet our competitors. All this will facilitate the work that corresponds to carry out later.
Once we know our competitors, we must highlight what we will call “key players”These will be those who have achieved success by having met their goals.
From them we can get important and necessary information for our company. We proceed to identify these key businesses within the industry with the help of the SEMrush Market Explorer tool, which will extend the list of key players as long as at least one of them can be named.
To use the tool, we have to write the domain of the key player or business, in the box that reflects the Market explorer. Then we visualize the section of Relevant Sites of the market in which we will find 20 sites that SEMrush associates with the domain that we have entered previously.
Here we have to check how many and which of these large companies are close to our environment, it even serves to identify a company or company that already dominates the market.
Those domains that will appear at the top of the list are the ones we should pay more attention and interest to. Taking into account the volume of traffic, it is possible to estimate an approximate of the market shares and minimize the list of companies, to then study their strategies in depth.
With the help of the Market Explorer, we will be able to reveal the audience of each of the players and how it is characterized, it will also show the sources and trends of traffic.
After completing these first activities, we will proceed to detect the dynamics of the market and its general growth. If we are lucky, we can find a perfectly balanced market that has competition and at the same time there is an empty field.
Next we have to prevent future risks or problems, so it is of great importance to understand if our industry / target / or niche is thriving or falling victim.
We will also take into account how big that niche is today and whether it is changing rapidly and constantly; For this, the Market Explorer is once again our ally tool, since here we will only filter the historical data for market traffic.
Therefore we will proceed to analyze industry trends. There are industries with high volatility such as the hospitality industries, there trends are seasonal and have a great impact on demand.
If it is the same case in your niche, it is essential to know how the dynamics of the industry can affect the business. For this we will choose our own domain or, failing that, that of a powerful rival, to check if the traffic trend is well aligned with the general market trend.
If the lines are observed in parallel, it means that the business is within the trend, this being an important fact to consider in subsequent investigations.
To make the business plan more effective, we will collect much more data on the basic products or services that are on offer, the business models that are used, and the stage of development of the company.
We will carry out an analysis of the main sources, whether they are the company's social media profiles or an official website, reports and statistics authorized by the industry must also be taken into account.
All this information that is obtained will help us understand the volume of related goods and services that are currently sold in our market and thus be able to make some predictions.
The use of news aggregators and content analyzers will facilitate and speed up the process, such as Feedly. In case you want commercial information, whether it is income, investments and the number of employees, platforms such as CrunchBase and Craft will be excellent allies.
It is also essential to take into account if there is a threat of new products, market participants or services that serve as substitutes. Remember that at this stage we begin to see the competitive landscape broadly, which is why we do not have to delve into social mentions and press releases.
We will see if there is any free space that can be easily accessed in the product, since if there is any, at any time a competitor could fill it.
However, there is every chance that your niche is empty, which is why we will highlight the barriers to entry it can have. If we are looking for a new geographic market, we must ask ourselves why the key global players are not yet active in that region, because one of the answers may be that there are political risks, economic instability or even a volatile market situation.
In some cases, the emerging countries can be seen as profitable options, but it may happen that the consumption habits in that region are very particular. Also language localization costs, online or offline preferences and restricted payment and delivery solutions are other barriers to consider.
Now that there is a familiarity with the market situation we can observe and analyze more closely the consumers, their needs, interests and requirements in detail and from the perspective of a company.
Second part: analyze the target audience.
One of the key elements to apply any marketing tool is to know the personality of the client or buyer
It is necessary to clearly understand who, where, when and how it can arrive, as well as what can be done to intensify the result. For this, Market Explorer and Traffic Analytics offer various reports that answer the main questions related to the target audience.
To continue with market research, we will measure your size. This is generally measured in dollars or some other local currency, the market has a number of potential customers in its size.
There is a Market Overview report, in which you can get the total amount of traffic that the specific market receives and also its growth rate in recent periods. Such data can be used to calculate the budget and forecast revenue.
Subsequently, we must look at demographics and psychographics of the user, even if cosmetics or clothing are not sold. Here general information such as age and gender of the customer can be part of a big difference when positioning the product in the market.
This information is essential for the promotional campaigns that we plan to carry out. With Market Explorer we can see an overview and make a comparison between multiple key players.
The audience and the topics that interest us are more than website categories. These themes have to be related to the personality of the Buyer Persona (ideal person or client) and their lifestyle, as this will reveal the potential for future expansion.
In this second stage we must estimate the potential of the locationThis is due to the risks that may occur when moving to a new location, risks due to seasonal fluctuations that may exist between demand and supply, or also risks due to cultural details.
Given this, we will compare the peaks in demand that tend to occur in the months of November and December in electronic stores; these have the most stable dynamics of eastern traffic in the same period. His reason is that, for example: the different seasons are factors that influence whether consumers are active or not.
There are two possible scenarios that offer security in this part. One is to know the regions in which the competitors are present and especially those regions in which they have a better performance; this is for the purpose of shortlisting geographic markets for your business expansion. For this, we must consult the Geographic Distribution report in Traffic Analytics that will reveal the domains of the main players in the industry and we will be able to see the location that promises the greatest number of clients.
The other possible scenario is that if we already have a defined country in mind, we can go directly to analyze that market. For this we will filter the Market Explorer reports by region and thus obtain a general and versatile vision of the competition and the consumption of our product or service in particular and specific areas.
All this data helps to divide the market into specific consumer segments and thus give us a more focused analysis and a more detailed elaboration of the strategies to apply.
Once we have more data and information, it remains understand the behavior of the target audience. The percentages of interested audience or potential buyer of our product or service are not enough, it goes further, how to know which websites they visit and how they change from one platform to another; something that has different ways to be discovered.
To understand such behavior, we will look at the top player in the target market and investigate their audience overlap compared to other competitors, using SEMrush and Traffic Analytics.
With this we will be able to observe how many of the unique visitors consider offers from other companies or businesses. And, in case you want to check the potential of media placements, this feature will also make it easier for you to compare a company's audience with readers of publications.
Third and last part: carry out an in-depth analysis of the competition.
The amount of known details about the marketing of the competitor's products will make it easier for us to gain an advantage. We must start by doing a direct analysis of our competitor and then switch to those who offer alternatives to our business. Later we must identify the problem of the consumer of our product or service and help solve it
For this part it is suggested to carry out two main works.
1. Carry out product research:
Here we must answer all the questions with a "why" behind the product or service of the business. For example:
- Why do people need it?
- Why do people buy from this particular company? (Answer can range from cheaper price to product design)
- Why do you think you may be a competitor of that company?
2. Becoming the competitor's own customer is an effective strategy to fully understand the customer's mind. By doing this, at least in a trial period, you can further characterize the consumer, the competitor and the product. For example:
- Know how much it costs.
- How easy is the process of acquiring the product, or how is the process to become a customer of that company.
- How easy it is to use that product or service.
- How easy it is to contact that company and how is their assistance.
- How they handle interaction with their customers.
- How well they are in solving problems between the client and the company.
- How could they improve?
And finally, we will describe how our business is better than them in each of these points, as well as what are the differences between them.
To almost finish the steps of this third stage, we will carry out the analysis of marketing strategies.
Here comes the time to discover how competitors have managed to win audiences through the values of their products and the idealization of their brands. With the SEMrush and Traffic Analytics tools, we can create a comparison and competition matrix of up to 5 units.
We will choose five domains to compare by traffic, traffic sources and distribution, and user behavior metrics. Once the data is obtained, we must use it to find the relevant marketing strategies and tactics to get potential users to buy from our business and not from the competition.
As a suggestion, we can look at the sites that users went to after visiting competitor domains. With this, there are many possibilities and opportunities to attract the right audience or client with the use of these mentioned platforms.
Finally, to complete the stages and steps of this guide, we must discover the right promotional channels to attract our type of audience and that it manages to buy our product.
This is easily done with the list of key players that, with the help of Market Explorer, we built in the first stage of the guide, we only have to observe the traffic sources of the leading companies and compare if we have chosen the same promotion strategy.
