Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA
Business Plan Step 3 · 1,000+ Plans Written
How to Write a Market Analysis for a Business Plan: Industry, SWOT, and Competitors
The market analysis is where lenders find out if you know your industry or are guessing. Dr. Paul builds it in a set order: narrow the industry, back it with cited statistics, balance the trends, do the SWOT right, and keep the competitor review short.
Last Updated: 10/30/2026 · Written by Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA
Watch First
Watch: How to Write a Competitor Analysis Section for a Business Plan
The Short Answer
What Is a Market Analysis in a Business Plan?
The market analysis covers everything outside your business: the industry, the competition, and the economy around them. It includes an industry overview, industry statistics, trends, threats and opportunities, industry keys to success, a SWOT analysis, and a short competitive analysis.
The company description is about you. The market analysis is about the world you are walking into. Lenders use it to judge whether you understand that world.
Rather Have Dr. Paul Write It With You?
Start Narrow
How Do You Write the Industry Overview?
Name the main industry you compete in. Then find the sub-industry that matches your business and has real data behind it. A food truck is part of the restaurant industry, but lenders want food truck numbers. Describe what businesses in that sub-industry sell, the price range, and how customers pay. Then give total sales and the growth rate.
Juice and smoothie bars sell fruit drinks, protein shakes, vegetable drinks, and other healthy food and drink items. The juice and smoothie bar industry, a subsection of the foodservice industry, reached over $3 billion in annual sales, and industry experts project annual revenue growth of about 1.8%.
Sample figures are illustrations from the book. Use current, sourced numbers for your own industry.
Real estate and rental activity is the biggest slice of the Florida economy, with professional services and health care close behind. Those sectors feed demand for many service businesses, a point Dr. Paul covers for planning a business for Florida.
Prove You Did the Research
How Do You Write Industry Statistics, Trends, and Keys to Success?
Industry statistics: bullets with footnotes
Search the industry, read the articles, take notes. Then list your best statistics as bullet points, each with a footnote citation. Citations turn a list of numbers into research a lender trusts.
Trends, threats, and opportunities: balanced paragraphs
Give each one equal attention. Dr. Paul often leads with opportunities, because that is where an owner shows how in tune they are with customers. Write these in paragraph form, not bullets.
Industry keys to success: what winners do
These are different from the keys to success in your company description. Here, read about the leaders in your industry and list what they have in common. For restaurants, one key is a themed presentation: think Olive Garden or Outback.
The Most Misused Tool
How Do You Write a SWOT Analysis for a Business Plan?
Most small businesses use the SWOT wrong. Strengths and weaknesses are internal: what is true inside your business. Opportunities and threats are external: what is happening in the market around you. Mix them up and a lender notices.
Use bullet points, make it visual, and always list at least twice as many strengths and opportunities as weaknesses and threats.
Full walkthrough: how to write a SWOT analysis for a business plan.
Short and Sweet
How Do You Write a Competitive Analysis?
Keep it short. For each competitor, list the name, address, hours, and website. Then look at them the way a customer would: read their website and their Google and Facebook reviews. Note what customers praise and what they complain about.
Car Way XYZ is a self serve car wash in the Washington, DC area, founded in 1984 and known for its 24 hour availability. It offers a basic, deluxe, and complete wash. Google reviews are mixed: most customers like the results, but some report that parts of the wash, like the dryer or wheel protector, were not working.
Using AI
Can AI Write Your Market Analysis?
This is where AI saves the most time and does the most damage. Ask it to summarize your industry's size, growth rate, and key statistics, and to draft your SWOT and your trends, threats, and opportunities. The rule that protects you: AI can fabricate statistics that look completely real. Never paste an AI statistic into your plan without opening the source and confirming the number yourself.
A prompt that works: Summarize the current United States [industry] market size, three year growth rate, and four sourced statistics, with links.
Used that way, AI turns a week of research into an afternoon. Used carelessly, it puts a made up number in front of your banker.
Go Utah targets advanced manufacturing, aerospace and defense, financial services, life sciences and software. If your customers sit in those industries, say so in your market analysis, and see Dr. Paul's Utah page for help.
Avoid These
What Are the Most Common Market Analysis Mistakes?
- Using the whole industry's numbers. Find the sub-industry that matches your business.
- Statistics with no citations. Footnote every one.
- Putting the market in your strengths. Strengths are internal. The market is external.
- More weaknesses than strengths. Keep the two to one ratio.
- A twenty page competitor review. Name, location, hours, website, and what customers say.
Real World Use
How a Student Uses This Section
A market analysis that earns the method points
Say a business student is writing a plan for a smoothie bar for a class project. She names the sub-industry, juice and smoothie bars, instead of the whole foodservice industry.
She lists four statistics, each with a footnote. Her SWOT has six strengths and opportunities and three weaknesses and threats, and every strength is something inside the business. Her competitor review covers three nearby shops in one paragraph each, built from their Google reviews.
The professor sees research, structure, and judgment. That is what a lender looks for too.
Houston's economy leans on oil and gas, with chemicals and health care close behind, so many service firms there sell into energy or the medical center. Show that customer base with Texas business plan help.
Keep Going
More Market Analysis Videos
How to Write the Industry Analysis Section of a Business Plan
Dr. Paul fills in the industry analysis section of a template. (7:36)
Trucking Company Business Plan: SWOT Analysis
A real industry example of a business plan SWOT analysis. (13:07)
Questions
Market Analysis Questions Owners Ask
What goes in the market analysis section of a business plan?
What is the difference between industry analysis and market analysis?
How do you write a SWOT analysis for a business plan?
How long should a competitive analysis be?
Can I use AI for market research in a business plan?
The market analysis is Step 3 of 10.
How to Write a Business Plan in Ten Steps, Fifth Edition walks through every section in order, with a full sample plan, a fill in template, and a Using AI box in each step.
Written by Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA, current college professor, business consultant, and author with 14+ years and 1,000+ businesses served.
This page is for general educational purposes only. It is not financial, investment, legal, or tax advice.