Small Business Marketing Kit For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Calculating Your Market Share

Having a sense of your market share provides a good indication of your competitive rank and a way to monitor your growth within your target market.

Sizing up your target market

To calculate your share of the market, first define the size of the market in which you compete.

The total market includes the entire nation or world — a market area that matters enormously to major global marketers like Nike or Levi’s. But to a small business like yours, what matters is your target market — the one within the sphere of your business’s influence. You can assess your target market’s size by using the following criteria:

Geographic targeting: Where are your customers, and how many are there? For example, a retailer may determine that its geographic target market consists primarily of people who live or vacation within a two-hour drive of the retailer’s place of business. An accountant may determine that her geographic target market is concentrated within the city limits. A consultant may target businesses within a five-state region.

Customer targeting: How many people or businesses actually fit your customer profile? (See Chapter 2 for profiling information.) An office furniture manufacturer may target all the nation’s office-furnishing retail establishments, along ...