Online Market Research Sources
When you're researching the Market Analysis section of the business plan, Statistics Canada is an excellent place to start your market research. Their Community Profiles offer free information about all Canadian communities. Here you'll find information such as Earnings and Work statistics, conveniently presented for easy comparison between the community and the province it's located in.
You may also want to take a look at Statistic Canada's Studies section; you might find one that's relevant to your market research.
In Doing Industry Research When Writing a Business Plan, I wrote about several other excellent online sources of information for researching the business plan, such as provincial and territorial statistics offices and Canadian Economy Online, which may also be useful when you're researching the Market Analysis.
GDSourcing Research & Retrieval's Canadian Market Resources is a must-visit page when you're researching online; it lists free and low-cost sources of demographic and psychographic data geared to small businesses.
Offline Market Research Sources
But there are also a great many local resources for information about your target market that you'll want to explore. Besides the local library, the local Chamber of Commerce, Board of Trade, City Hall, Economic Development Centre, local government agent's office, provincial business ministry, local phone book and yellow pages will all have information that will help you define your target market and provide insights into trends.
Doing Your Own Market Research
These are all secondary sources of information (Others have conducted the research and compiled the information.) You may also want to conduct your own market research (use primary data). For instance, you might want to design a questionnaire and survey your target market to learn more about their habits and preferences relating to your product or service. My article, Do-It-Yourself Market Research, explains the basics of market research and gives tips for sampling and accessing your target market.
Does all this sound time-consuming? It is. But it needs to be done if your business plan is going to have any validity. You can have the most fantastic product or service in the world, but if no one's interested in buying it, it will just gather dust. If you don't have the time or the research skills to thoroughly define your target market yourself, hiring a person or firm to do the market research for you can be a wise investment.
