Think critically about your business idea. In addition to trade groups or industry associations, there may be advocacy groups collecting and publishing information or data about your target customer.

Once you've defined your target market segment (for example: long-distance runners), you can use secondary research to determine the size of the segment and whether it's growing, shrinking, or stable.

• If your target market is a type of consumer, use the data tables in Mintel reports to define the size of your defined market segments.
• If your target market is a particular type of business (e.g., dairy farms), use an industry report from IBISWorld.

What do your target customers think? How are they currently meeting their needs?

Read reviews on Amazon or Yelp or see what they are tweeting and facebooking about the competition.

Need more? Check out the Marketing Research Guide.