Imagine a business planning tool that measures the sales potential for a particular product or service across multiple geographic areas. Now imagine the tool identifies areas of greatest opportunity.
The Opportunity Index from BizMiner does just that: quantifies business opportunity within a geographic area, typically a county.
The index shows the relationship between local spending and nationwide spending.
If households in an area spend less than households nationwide on a particular product or service, the Opportunity Index will be positive, indicating sales potential. If local spending is more than national spending, the Opportunity Index will be negative, indicating market saturation.
Where to Invest Your Resources
When comparing data for several geographic areas, a clearer picture emerges of where opportunity exists.
Knowing where business opportunity exists – and where it doesn’t – can be quite valuable to a small business owner, affecting decisions ranging from marketing and advertising to the physical location of the business itself.
Business owners who know where opportunity is greatest for their product or service can focus their promotional activities in those areas, rather than areas where opportunity is limited.
If opportunity is significantly greater in County A than in County B and County C, the smart business owner will focus business development activities in County A. While County B and County C probably won’t be ignored altogether, they certainly won’t be where these activities are concentrated.
Perhaps even more valuable than the Opportunity Index is the estimate of sales potential or market saturation. For two areas with comparable Opportunity Index values, these estimates provide a measure of just how much opportunity exists in each area – helping the business owner further refine marketing and promotional activities, for example.
Free Tools from ASBTDC Help You Make Data-Driven Decisions
The Opportunity Index from BizMiner is just one of the many market research tools available free of charge from the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center.
ASBTDC’s market research experts and experienced business consultants can help Arkansas small business owners understand and interpret data to make better decisions.
Let us help you increase the likelihood that your business venture will be a successful one.