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Market lessons are an essential first step in shaping your business plan, as it helps you learn about your potential customers and understand how to reach, connect with, and sell to them. Your target market is the group of people most likely to buy your company’s products or services, and knowing who and where they are, as well as their purchasing decisions, is critical for creating a sound business plan and positioning your business for success. To begin your lesson, click on the browser tab with your document, add a heading for your business idea, and jot down a few brief notes about your business and the products or services you plan to offer. Define the location or areas your business will serve, such as a neighborhood, city, or larger area. Next, add a heading for notes about your customers, which will be based on your market lesson. Include subheadings like “market size,” indicating the number of individuals, households, or businesses in your target market. Use keywords related to your business location to search for population statistics, helping you understand the size of your target market.
As you continue your market lesson, add headings in your notes document for other categories such as Income, which includes the average household income or business revenue in your location, and Purchasing Habits, which details how much consumers typically spend on the products or services you plan to sell, including how, where, and how often they make purchases. Organize your market lesson by adding these headings to your document, and as you find information, add it beneath the appropriate heading. To keep your lesson organized and easily accessible, hyperlink important information to the site where you found it. When you come across specific or large amounts of information, copy the text from your lesson tab and paste it into your document under the appropriate heading, reformatting it to match your document’s style. Continue to fill in your document with details about each target market lesson category, including Customers, Market Size, Market Demographics, Income, and Purchasing Habits. After completing this phase, you’ll be ready to move on to the next step of analyzing your competition. Your task now is to add notes about your business idea, search for target market information and add it to your notes, organize your notes with headings, and hyperlink your notes to the websites where the information appears.