Consumption Potential Assessment

This tool is used to estimate the consumption potential of a possible solution. In this way, you can better predict how worthwhile it is to address the need you are targeting. When this exercise is done at the beginning of the innovation process, it involves a lot of assumptions. As the innovation process progresses, these assumptions will need to be revised in light of new emerging data.

Calculate the Size of the Entire Target Audience (Total Addressable Market)

Outline which problem you want to solve and for whom. Visualize the people who would be most interested in your potential solution. Then think about the most visible characteristics of that audience.

If you can categorize your target audience by demographic characteristics such as gender, age, income level, occupation, education, or geographic factors such as region of birth or residence, it will be easier for you to access data and estimate the size of this audience. For example, if your target audience is highly educated, actively working, middle and upper income women aged 25-35 living in Europe, you can access many resources online that will allow you to make predictions with a reasonable level of accuracy.

From time to time, governments, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, or private companies conduct research on specific topics. You will be lucky if it is possible to differentiate your target audience along the dimensions that have been the subject of these surveys. For example, if your target audience is children under the age of 10 with learning disabilities in a country, research conducted by a foundation in that country that focuses on this issue may provide you a good data set.

If psychological characteristics such as thoughts, interests, motives, and lifestyles are important in differentiating your target audience, your task becomes a bit more difficult. Then you need to pick up clues from a variety of areas. For example, if you are targeting families with a conservative mindset, looking at the voting rates of conservative parties in the last general election, and looking at the consumption data of products and services consumed mostly by conservative people can give you good clues.