Market entry research to assess new markets and shape the offer.

Which markets to enter, and how: each candidate scored on size and on readiness, a shortlist tested with buyers there, and an entry plan built around them.

View market entry case studies

Scored twice.

A large market can be slow to convert, and a small one ready to move. So we score size and readiness apart, and weigh the two in the open.

Pankaj Ghemawat argued in Harvard Business Review that country analysis built on potential sales ignores the costs of distance: cultural, administrative, geographic and economic. Distance is part of readiness.

An illustration, not a client project.

From every market you could enter to the one you enter first.

The long list

Every market worth a look, from published data and the demand signals you already hold, such as cross-border sales, site traffic by country and inbound requests.

The long list, with the measures and their weights agreed before anyone sees a score.
Scored apart

Size: how many people already do what you sell, and what they spend. Readiness: how likely they are to switch to you, and what’s in the way.

A size score and a readiness score for every market, each with its evidence.
The shortlist

Fieldwork with buyers in each shortlisted market, in their language: whom to build the offer around, what would make them switch, and who controls the route to them.

A comparison, with each market read on its own before any combined figure.
The entry plan

For the market you enter first: the customer to build around, what to lead with, and the importers, distributors or retailers to approach.

The plan, tools for the teams who follow, and the markets set aside, each with its reasons and what would reopen it.

One market entered, and eight compared.

Entering one market

Long list (not covered)
Scored (not covered)
Shortlist (not covered)
Entry plan

An outdoor equipment maker planned to take a new range into a professional market where supplier relationships run long. The market was already the target; the question was whom to build the entry around, and with what promise.

We met the managers who decide which brands they work with, one to one, and wrote a partnership playbook for the executive team.

What happened next

The team entered the new market with a playbook built from the research.

Planning an equipment brand’s entry into a new professional market

Comparing eight regions

Long list
Scored
Shortlist
Entry plan

A food exporter wanted a foothold on a new continent, with eight candidate regions to choose between.

A consumer survey, interviews across the value chain and retail audits read each region from three sides, and every region was rated on its potential size, on consumption and knowledge, and on how open its market was to a newcomer.

What happened next

The exporter took the leading regions into a second stage and came away with a prioritized list of retailers and distributors to approach.

Choosing which regions to enter first on a new continent

A different market entry program: MRS Award for International Research, finalist, Market Research Society, for a market entry built on cultural insight, entered for the award jointly with the client.

When another step should come first.

A customer, partner or regulator has already chosen the market.
No result would change the plan.
A small test entry you could reverse would teach you more.
The business can’t yet serve a new market.

Then we’ll say so, and suggest planning the entry, testing the offer, or agreeing what would reopen the question.

Questions about market entry research.

What sample size does market entry research need?

Enough in each market to read the smallest group your plan depends on. A simple random sample of 300 gives a margin of error of about six points on a share near 50%, at 95% confidence. Opt-in online panels make that figure a rough guide only, so we read small gaps between markets with caution.

How do you compare results across countries?

With one core questionnaire in every market, translated by a team and pretested, and with each country’s habits in using rating scales in mind. We read each market on its own first, and give a figure across markets only with its weights stated.

Do you research entering a new or adjacent category, as well as a new country?

Yes, and the same questions apply: how big the opportunity is, whether customers will accept your brand there, and what to lead with. Whether to build, buy or partner your way in also needs commercial and legal advice.

Brand stretch and extension

Who works on a multi-market program?

Our partners and directors run multi-market programs and bring decades of moderating and overseeing fieldwork across markets worldwide.

The partners

Looking at a new market?

Bring the question your entry raises. We’ll set out what we would measure, and where your own data could answer it first.

Talk to us hello@antedote.com

A partner or director will reply.