My slides from a guest lecture at Leeds Trinity University, presenting to business students on market analysis, segmentation, and identifying your TAM.

1. ENTREPRENEURSHIP
& EARLY STAGES
GROWTH
MARKETING
Dan Taylor, Head of Research & Development
SALT.agency

2. Dan Taylor
● Head of Research & Development @ SALT.agency
● Marketing conference speaker (London, Brighton, Paris, Boston, New
York, Vilnius, Moscow, Milan)
● Work with early stage, and established SaaS/tech companies,
Ecommerce, and other enterprise businesses on technical SEO, and
developing GTM and growth strategies for organic search.
● Published in a few marketing books
● Leeds Trinity University 2013

3. Agenda
● Market placement and product fit
○ Market analysis
○ Audience analysis and segmentation
○ Identifying competitive advantages and saturation points (USPs)
○ The real value of brand
● Understanding the end consumer
○ Thinking systems and user decision making processes, reward v pain, decision
fatigue…
○ Catering for systems thinking
○ Developing advocacy and identifying pain points in the buyer journey

4. Market Analysis
Market Placement & Product Fit

5. Market & Competitor Analysis
Depending on your perspective, your competitors can vary a lot.
Competitor Definitions
● Perspective of the consumer segments
○ Perspective of the Innovator
○ Perspective of the early adopter
○ Perspective of the early majority
○ Perspective of the late majority
○ Perspective of the laggard
Market Analysis
● SWOT, 4Ps
● Mapping to customer targets (TAMs)
● Leveraging competitive advantages

7. Product/Market Fit
Added value and USPs are subjective, and can vary between different customers.
The process here is not to dissimilar from producing a GTM (go to market) strategy, and it’s a
process of doing different “analysis” sprints in a certain order, and then using them to inform
each other.
Step 1
Take a look at your own product/service and map it to the different areas of the marketing mix
(4Ps).
Step 2
Now you’ve identified your 4Ps, you can identify your TAM (total addressable market).
Step 3
Now with the target customer, and understanding of the TAM in hand, you can strategize how to
get their attention.

8. Cheap
Slow
Low Quality
High End
Fast
High Quality
Low Coverage
Hard to use
Non-Custom
Accessible
Easy to use
Tailored
Your
Company
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor

9. Strengths Weaknesses
Opportunities Threats

10. Price Product
Place “Promotion”

11. Cheap
Slow
Low Quality
High End
Fast
High Quality
Low Coverage
Hard to use
Non-Custom
Accessible
Easy to use
Tailored
Your
Company
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor
People
looking
for
better
People
looking
for
better

12. Accessibility?
Location or accessibility of the product/service.
Cost?
Cost saving or cost stability with added value?
Quality
Does the product solve a quality gap at the same
or justifiable additional cost?

13. Pricing
Pricing is an economic mechanism and has limitations based on:
● Supply of the goods/services or equivalent goods and services within the marketplace
● The cost of those alternate or equivalent goods and services within the marketplace
● The immediacy and need for those goods and services
● The value perception (reward - pain) or the end user
Supply
Supply is an economic concept tied to demand, where they can both be elastic. For instance, a
sports venue has “inelastic” supply as it’s not really feasible to bolt on a few extra thousand seats,
but someone selling a service that home visits, and can scale based on number of employees as a
relative “elastic” supply.
Demand works in the same way, the more demand ebbs and flows, the more inelastic or elastic it
is.
In a free market, the intersect of demand and supply often dictates pricing limitations (or the
pricing ballpark).

14. The real value of brand
Brand is a powerful driver in satisfying Autopilot system thinking (this will make more sense in
around 20 minutes).
As well as removing that barrier, brand also gives leverage and can provide USPs and competitive
advantages of their own - but brand itself can go one of four ways:
Market established, consistent - this is a middle ground, that 99% of companies achieve. This is
fine, and in a lot of sectors it really doesn’t matter much to the end consumer.
Market established, market leader - this is a position we all aspire to be, but when you’re at the top
you’re most suspect to issues as well as praise.
Market fad - short-lived without a value proposition to fall back on, e.g. the 2008 reboot of GoGo’s
Crazy Bones…
And sometimes, just being recognized alongside another brand is amazing, just remember:
“It’s Pepsi, is that okay?”

15. Google Trends Data

16. Audience Analysis
Understanding Customer Opportunities

17. Richard Thaler - SIFs
SIFs - Supposedly Irrelevant Factors
The customer is the most important element of product or service delivery.
The customer determines value throughout their total experience of product or service.
In order to understand the commercial decision making side of customers, we need to remember
they are human. And humans are unpredictable and easily manipulated.
Principle of: psychologically realistic assumptions
● Exploring the consequences of limited rationality
● Social preferences
● Lack of self-control

18. Thinking in two systems
As humans we have two systems for thinking - fast and slow (this is also a book by the same
name).
As humans we have evolved to save calories in all of our processes. This takes millions of years,
and in the past 500 we’ve had a drastic change in lifestyles, and are yet to evolve out of our ways.
We think in two systems: the smart, considered system that we see as “self” and is in charge, and a
second system that is pretty much an autopilot.
The difference between the two is data processing.
The autopilot system can process 11 million bits of information per second, and we use it for rapid
choices and quick decisions.
The smarter system processes 40 bits of information per second, and is hopefully the system
you’re all using now.

19. Thinking in two systems
The reason Autopilot is faster and better at processing information is because it uses shortcuts
and past learnings/decisions to inform new instances.
The smart system is on manual, and everything is done slower - we use this for in-depth decision
making and complex problem solving.
Autopilot uses less calories than Smart, and therefore the brain is slightly pre-trained to using
autopilot more than smart.
This means that when we’re creating marketing content or trying to get people’s attention, we
need to consider the autopilot and communicate our message (and information) in a way that
qualifies us for the second system.
This is because when customers make decisions it’s about reward v pain. This is also the same as
when we go shopping online and add lots of items to our baskets without checking out, it tickles
our reward centres - and similarly, when we’re shopping and once you’ve bought one thing, you
seem to buy more and more - that’s decision fatigue.

20. Solve a real
problem
Provide a
“quick win”
Be easy to
consume
Give value
Provide
specifics
Increase
accessibility
When communicating you
must…

21. Place

22. Place = Accessibility
Accessibility = (reward - pain) = decision
Bricks & Mortar
● If you’re a static location, how far will people travel to go to you?
● How does the travel time impact accessibility?
● Does the venue have capacity limits? (remember economic supply)
● Are there competitors closer who have an equivalent offering?
Online
● Are there delivery lead times? Are these communicated? Are they competitive?
● Do you offer a range of payment options?
● Is there good stock availability?
Are you both doing enough to maximise the customer experience?
A memorable customer experience will vary by business and industry but brands that identify and
deliver in the moments that matter will continue to win against their competition.

23. Awareness
Stage Targeting Methods
Unaware Education, Connection with the customer through
something mutual.
Problem Aware Education, Quick wins to get the reward centres
firing.
Solution Aware Education and now some commercial nurturing as
you’re now in the shop window.
Product Aware Product comparisons, added value, USPs,
competitive advantages.
Most Aware Conversion, and ultimately retention - become
advocacy.

24. Cheap
Slow
Low Quality
High End
Fast
High Quality
Low Coverage
Hard to use
Non-Custom
Accessible
Easy to use
Tailored
Your
Company
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor
Competitor

25. Advocacy
From experience…
Freebies and gimmicks do generate word of mouth and referrals, but this isn’t advocacy and is
often mistaken as a good thing. The referrals want the freebies and the value, as it’s giving them
high reward for little pain. They may come back, but it’s not likely.
Loyalty works. Loyalty schemes create a sense of pain alleviation at multiple points of the
awareness journey, and helps ease a process from Smart to Autopilot - e.g. coffee stamp cards,
show loyalty, get more reward…
Listen to your audience, and address everything - even if it’s a negative. If your product/service
doesn’t do X or Y, then don’t be afraid to say so. Customer satisfaction comes from their
experience forecast being fulfilled.
If they can’t accurately forecast their experience/enjoyment of your product or service, and leave
disappointed because they set the bar too high or anticipated differently, even though it’s not your
fault - you can still mitigate that by controlling some of the variables.

26. Map your customer journey
By mapping the entire buyer journey out in visual format, it allows businesses to see the process
from a customer’s perspective. You’re an expert at what you do, which is amazing, but your
customers aren’t. So it’s a useful exercise to be able to view things from a layman’s perspective,
not just for customer mapping but for your entire marketing strategy.
In addition, it will allow you to clearly spot any customer pain points, allowing you to create
solutions and optimise your potential customer’s experience.
Ultimately it allows you to create a personalised experience across multiple touchpoints and make
customers feel like more than just a number.

27. ADVOCACY
Social Media - Word of Mouth -
Google Reviews - Third Party
Reviews
RETENTION
Newsletter - Loyalty Program -
Blog - Knowledge Base -
Discounts - Community Access
CONSIDERATION
Website - Blog - Catalogs -
Media - Contact Centre - Web
Support - Third Party Media
AWARENESS
Leaflet drops - Facebook Ads -
SEO - PPC - Radio - Email - Mail -
Roundabout Signage

29. https://dantaylor.online
twitter.com/taylordanrw
LinkedIn - Dan Taylor
Thank you