Marketing and industry analyses

As I'm preparing for the next big adventure in my career, one of the things I'm doing is conducting both a marketing and industry analysis for my new business plan.

The industry analysis gives me an idea of what's going on to see what my competition is, what I offer that they don't, what I need to be mindful, and things like that. It will be a bit more broad than what I'll be doing because of the specifics of the business (details to come soon!), but it will still be very valuable as I'm moving forward.

The marketing analysis will help me identify and reach my target market, and help me develop a marketing strategy for both short- and long-term goals. This will also include competitive information, but from a marketing focus rather than an industry focus.

Analyzing both the industry and your marketing is valuable to do periodically. I'm doing it now because I'm getting set up to go in a new direction with my career, which includes launching all new services and quite a bit of re-branding, but once we're set up and working, we'll likely do these analyses at least annually (probably twice each year) to help keep tabs on what's going on and where we stand in the industry and within our target market.

I know that this part of the work can be tedious and irritating, but I also know it's valuable in order to be successful. So we'll compile data and insights and analyze information and use it to provide better services to our customers and ensure that they know exactly why investing in [COMPANY NAME REDACTED] is beneficial for their businesses.

Do you do regular analyses? How have they changed how you operate your business or services?