Market Research Edge

Using Market Volume to Assess Share and New Opportunities

1. A good marketing plan includes a realistic assessment of the total market in a sales area. From this total you can create meaningful sales targets.

2. There are three important Market Volume figures to apply to your marketing research or planning process: total market volume, locally generated market volume and locally reported market volume.

3. For firms with a customer base which is not tied to specific locations, the total US market volume is the core figure. But local market volume may still be critical to assessing which areas to choose as target markets. Depending on the specific goods or services, the product industry, or its retail or wholesale outlet industries could be the best yardstick of market volume.

4. For firms with a local sales base(s), or firms searching for opportunities to penetrate new local markets, the two local statistics are key. Careful application of the two different local market volume statistics helps avoid distortions and false conclusions.

* Locally generated market volume reports industry sales figures based on activity in the local market area. This figure is key to incorporating the scale of the local industry or consumption of goods into your marketing plan.

* Locally reported market volume measures sales which include company-wide revenue reported by locally based headquarters. This figure is key to understanding the decision-making power concentrated in a specific local area. Use it to understand market areas whose importance to your marketing plan outstrips the apparent local industry scale that Census employment data might indicate.

5. Conclusion: Create projections for your marketing plan from a sound basis of national and local Market Volume data research. Target areas for local penetration by comparing both locally reported and locally generated sales figures for potential areas of operation for your business.

6. Market volume should be used in conjunction with average company sales data (Market Research Edge #7) and Sales Class tables (Market Research Edge #8) to fully assess industry sales opportunities in your marketing plan.

Market Volume data is included in every one of BizMiner's 900,000 online Market Research Profiles, available for over 15,000 business segments. Market Research Reports are available in both national and local versions covering over 250 US metropolitan areas.

Available online at www.bizminer.com/market-research-report.asp.