How To Conduct Market Research For Your SaaS Idea

Your software most likely solves some sort of problem in a specific niche, so we need to understand everything about that niche in order to confirm that this is actually a good idea and that it solves a big enough problem that people are willing to pay for it.

Lets look at a few ways we can do this.

Identify Your Target Audience

Determine your ideal customer persona. Consider factors such as demographics, job titles, industries, pain points, and behavior patterns. Consider some of these questions when identifying target audience. This is your “Dream Customer.”

1. Online Presence and Behavior

• Where do they hang out online?
  • Identify the specific platforms your dream customers spend time on. This includes social media platforms (LinkedIn for professionals, Instagram or TikTok for younger audiences, etc.), forums (Reddit, Quora), and professional networks specific to your industry. Understanding where they spend their time online will help you target your marketing efforts more effectively.
• Content Consumption:
  • Assess the type of content they engage with. Are they more inclined towards video tutorials, in-depth articles, podcasts, or webinars? This can guide your content marketing strategy we cover later, to ensure it resonates with your audience.

2. Industry Size and Opportunities

• How large is the industry?

  • Research the overall size of the industry you are targeting. Look into market reports, industry forecasts, and financial analyses from sources like IBISWorld, Statista, or industry-specific publications. Understanding the industry size helps in estimating the market potential for your software.

  IBISWorld - Industry Market Research, Reports, and Statistics

  Statista - The Statistics Portal

• Growth Trends:

  • Beyond current size, it's vital to understand whether the industry is growing, stagnant, or declining. This will inform the longevity and scalability of your solution within the market.

3. Demographics

• Are they older or younger?
  • Knowing the age range of your target audience is crucial for many reasons, from product design (user interface and experience considerations) to marketing channels and messaging. Different age groups will have varying preferences and needs.
• Geographic Location:
  • Where in the world are your dream customers? Location, language, and cultural nuances play a significant role in how you develop and position your software.
  • This may also dictate the different technologies you have to use as some have geographic restrictions.

4. Income Levels

• Do they have high or low incomes?
  • Income level affects purchasing power and willingness to pay for your software. It helps in determining your pricing strategy and can also influence the features you prioritize. High-income segments may seek premium features and services, while lower-income groups might prioritize affordability and essential functionalities.
  • You need to know if your audience can afford your product!!

Additional Considerations for Identifying Your Target Audience:

• Pain Points:
  • Conduct surveys, interviews, and focus groups to get a deep understanding of the challenges and problems they face that your software can solve. This insight is critical for product development and messaging.
  • To do this, you need to join communities. Unless you are in the industry already and have contacts of your dream customer.
• Decision-Making Process:
  • Determine if this is a B2C or B2B
  • Understand who makes the purchasing decisions and what factors influence these decisions. In B2B scenarios, this might involve multiple stakeholders.
• Technology Adoption
  • Gauge their openness to adopting new technologies. Early adopters in tech-savvy industries may be more willing to try out new solutions compared to traditional sectors resistant to change.
  • Nonetheless, if it solves a big problem, people will adopt it.

Competitive Market Analysis

Study your competitors to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Analyze their features, pricing models, customer reviews, and market positioning. Tools like SEMrush, SimilarWeb, and competitor websites can be helpful.

Semrush - Online Marketing Can Be Easy

But make sure you are looking at the specific problems they are solving for and try to find where they are missing value add and carve out your slice of the pie.

1. Feature and Offering Analysis

• Comprehensive Feature Comparison
  • Create a detailed comparison of your competitors' features versus your own. This helps in identifying the unique selling points of your product. Consider user interface, ease of use, customization options, scalability, and integration capabilities.
• Pricing Models:
  • Examine how your competitors structure their pricing. Are they using a subscription model, one-time fees, freemium models, or tiered pricing? Understanding this will help you position your product competitively in the market.

2. Market Position and Brand Analysis

• Brand Perception:
  • Use social media, customer reviews on platforms like Trustpilot, and Google My Business to gauge how customers perceive your competitors. Look for recurring praises or complaints.

Trustpilot Reviews: Experience the power of customer reviews

• Market Positioning:
  • Identify how each competitor positions themselves in the market. Are they targeting the premium segment, focusing on affordability, or emphasizing innovation? This analysis will guide you in finding a unique position for your product.

3. Customer Feedback and Satisfaction

• Customer Reviews and Testimonials
  • Deep dive into what users are saying about your competitors on review sites, social media, and forums. Look for patterns in feedback that highlight strengths and weaknesses.
• Support and Service Analysis
  • Evaluate the level of customer support and service your competitors provide. This can be a significant differentiator, especially in software markets where technical support is crucial.
  • You want your response time to be as close to live as you can be.

4. SEO and Online Presence

• Website Traffic and SEO Strategy: Tools like SEMrush and SimilarWeb provide insights into your competitors' website traffic, source of traffic, and keywords they rank for. Analyzing this data helps in optimizing your own SEO strategy and understanding their digital marketing effectiveness.
• Content and Social Media Analysis: Examine the content strategy of your competitors, including the type of content they produce, the platforms they are active on, and the engagement they receive. This can inform your content marketing strategy.

5. Gap and Opportunity Identification

• Solving Specific Problems
  • Look for the specific problems your competitors are solving and identify any they might be overlooking. This could reveal niche opportunities for your software to address.
• Value Addition
  • Determine areas where competitors are not fully satisfying customer needs or where there is room for improvement. This could be in features, user experience, customer support, or technology.

SWOT Analysis

Conduct a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis to identify your SaaS product's position in the market and potential areas for improvement.

SWOT Analysis: How To With Table and Example

Joining Communities

At this point you need to start joining communities where your target audience is to start making a presence, building repour and making connections.

Here is where your first users will be hanging out.

Here is what you get by joining these communities

• Valuable feedback on your app
• Relationships with target audience
• Build trust
• Get your first users and supporters
• Share your apps progress along the way
• Word of Mouth

Finding these communities

A simple google search of of your target audience + “community”

You will find so many places where they randomly hangout online but I will share some big ones.

You will find groups you can join on all these platforms and I recommend that you do join as many as you can.

You can find all of these with simple google searches or using hashtags related to your target market on social media apps.

Now, if you are already in this market/industry you chose, then you probably know of where these people hangout online, so go there!