Understanding your Market as a SaaS Enabled Marketplace

This post is part of our Marketplace University series, where we do deep dives on specific aspects of getting your marketplace off the ground. 
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Launching a successful and profitable marketplace startup requires a lot of planning and research. One of the first steps in this process is to understand the overall market and its trends. The overall market, in this case, refers to the industry or sector in which your marketplace operates, and understanding this market is crucial for identifying a niche, creating a compelling value proposition, and developing a successful strategy for the marketplace.
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In this post, we’ll discuss three major themes that will help you launch and build a service marketplace startup from the ground up: Market Sizing, Competitive Analysis, and Identifying your Target Audience. This post specifically focuses on addressing these within the context of a SaaS enabled marketplace. These data points are critically important and will help you inform how to go about implementing your marketplace website features.
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Market Sizing

When researching the market, it's important for marketplace startups in particular to understand the size of the overall market, including current revenue and projected growth. This information can be used to determine the potential size of the market for the marketplace and the potential revenue it can generate. Additionally, researching the current and emerging trends in the overall market can inform the marketplace's strategy and positioning. Understanding the different segments within the market can help identify niche opportunities for the marketplace.
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There are several tools and resources that can be used to size your market and gather information about the market trends and competitive landscape. Some of the most helpful tools include:

1. Industry reports: Industry reports from market research firms such as Nielsen, IBISWorld, and Frost & Sullivan can provide valuable information about the size and growth of the market, as well as key trends and industry statistics.
2. Surveys: Surveys can be a great way to gather information about consumer behavior and preferences, and can be used to validate the demand for your marketplace idea.
3. Government data: Government websites such as the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics can provide valuable information about the overall market and its trends.
4. Google Trends: Google Trends is a tool that allows you to see how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. 
5. Social Media monitoring: Social media monitoring tools like Brand24 and Hootsuite Insights can be used to track mentions of your brand, industry and competitors, and measure sentiment around them.
6. SEMrush: SEMrush is a tool that helps you to analyze your competitors' website and provides insights into their marketing strategies, organic and paid search performance, and backlink profile.
7. Google Keyword Planner: Google Keyword Planner is a free tool that helps you research keywords for your online advertising campaigns. You can use this tool to find new keywords and understand the search volume, competition and CPC for these keywords.

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These tools can be very useful in gathering information about your market, but it's important to note that the data should be used as a starting point for your research, rather than the only source of information.
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Competitive Analysis

Another important aspect of understanding the overall market is researching the competitive landscape. Identifying the key players and their market share, as well as any new entrants or emerging competitors, can inform the marketplace's competitive positioning and strategy. By understanding the overall market and its trends, you can make informed decisions about your marketplace and increase the chances of its success.
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There are several resources that can be used to conduct competitor diligence and gather information about the competitive landscape of your market. Some of the most helpful resources include:
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1. Competitor websites: Visit the websites of your main competitors to gather information about their products, services, pricing, and marketing strategies.
2. Business directories: Look up your competitors on business directories such as LinkedIn, Crunchbase, and AngelList to gather information about their company, management, and funding history.
3. Social media: Follow your competitors on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to see how they are interacting with customers and promoting their products.
4. Industry publications: Look for articles about your competitors in industry publications such as trade journals, newspapers, and magazines.
5. Online reviews: Look for online reviews of your competitors' products and services on websites such as Yelp, the Better Business Bureau, and Google Reviews.
6. Patent search: Patent search websites like Google Patents, USPTO and Espacenet can be used to see what patents are held by competitors.
7. SEMrush, Ahrefs, and SimilarWeb: These are website analysis tools that give you an idea of the organic and paid search performance, backlinks, and traffic of your competitors. They can also help you improve your Marketplace SEO, which we’ll be covering in a future post.
8. Glassdoor: Glassdoor is a website that provides company reviews and ratings from current and former employees. It can be used to gather information about the company culture and work environment of your competitors.

By conducting competitor diligence, you can gain a better understanding of the competitive landscape and identify opportunities to differentiate your marketplace and gain a competitive edge.
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Identifying Your Target Audience

Identifying and understanding your target audience is crucial to the success of all types of marketplaces. It involves researching and understanding the demographics, psychographics, needs, and behaviors of the people who will use your marketplace. This information can be used to inform the design, features, and marketing of your marketplace, as well as to create a compelling value proposition that resonates with your target audience.

For 2 sided marketplaces in particular, it’s more difficult to recommend specific tools for this because every business is different and ultimately, if you’re starting a marketplace in your industry you probably have a good idea of what your target audience looks like. To identify and further understand your target audience, you can conduct customer research through methods such as surveys, focus groups, and customer interviews. You can also use tools such as Google Analytics to gather data on your website visitors and social media monitoring tools to track mentions of your brand and industry. Once you have a clear understanding of your target audience, you can then create buyer personas that represent your ideal customer and use them to inform all aspects of your marketplace, from product development to marketing and customer service.

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Market Sizing, Competitive Analysis, and Identifying your Target Audience aren’t the only three aspects of understanding your market–but they do provide a solid foundation on which you can build a deeper understanding of your business.