The market corresponds to all actual and potential buyers of a particular product. The size of the market depends on the number of consumers on the market, which depends on income, interest in the product and its accessibility. Markets can be divided into potential markets, available markets, target markets (served) and real markets. Potential markets correspond to users who are interested in certain products on the market and have sufficient resources to purchase them. The available market is composed of those potential buyers who are interested in a particular product, have sufficient means to buy it but for whom the product must also be accessible. The market demand is the demand for a specific product on the market and corresponds to the total quantity of a specific product that could be purchased by a certain group of buyers, in a specific geographical area, in a specific period of time, in a specific environment. commercial and within a specific commercial program. The market demand is not fixed, but varies with the variation of the mentioned factors. For this reason, it makes more sense to speak of the demand function, which includes two extreme points: the minimum market and the market potential. The market minimum corresponds to the existing demand without any cost to incentivize the demand. Market potential is instead the maximum demand reachable by a company on the market. Sometimes the term actual demand is also met. Corresponds to those buyers who have sufficient resources available for purchase. Subjective (needs, desires, habits, vices ...) and objective factors (prices of goods, income) can affect demand. A distinction is also made between individual demand (individual buyers, households) and market demand (overall market demand). In general it can be said that when the price is high, the quantity of goods requested will be lower, while when the same good has a lower price, the quantity of goods requested goes up. But this does not apply to all types of goods. Buyers' reactions to price changes represent the elasticity of demand. If the price change does not affect the demand, then the elasticity is equal to 0, if the reaction to the price change is minimal, the elasticity goes from 0 to 1. If the elasticity corresponds to 1, it is said that the demand is unitary or in line with the price, because demand varies in the same measure as the price varies. Finally, there is the very high elasticity (above 1), when buyers react strongly to price changes: demand drops faster than prices rise and vice versa.

If companies want to acquire useful information on which to make important decisions, they must measure market demand. The company defines the methods and levels of measurement of demand based on the reasons for which it collects information. 

Demand can be measured on four different levels: at product level (total company sales, sales in the sector, existing product groups, product type), at spatial - geographical / territorial level (world, Europe, region, location ), on a temporal level (short, medium, long term) and on a consumer level (the final purchaser can be a person or an organization or a State). The best results are obtained, of course, with a combination of the four levels. To predict and analyze some important market factors and within the companies themselves, the companies allocate a part of their resources to market analysis. Information on market size, market potential, the company's market share are fundamental in making decisions on the most suitable sales strategies, on the development of new products and on the approval of marketing plans.

The market corresponds to all actual and potential buyers of a particular product / service. 

• The potential market corresponds to all users who express sufficient interest in the offer of a specific product / service.
• The available market corresponds to all users who show interest, have sufficient income and have access to a specific market offer.
• The target market (served) corresponds to that part of the available market that the company wishes to conquer.
• The actual (real) market corresponds to those users who actually purchase a specific product / service from the company. 
  
  Source: Kotler, P. 2004. Management trženja (Marketing management, 11. ed.). Ljubljana: GV Založba.

The segments are large groups of buyers with similar characteristics and desires that are identified within a market. A market niche is a small group of buyers who seek a particular combination of benefits from a product / service. Typically this is a small group of buyers who are not equally attractive to all bidders. Often large companies are not interested in this type of niches and for this reason it is an interesting segment that can become a real opportunity for small companies. But the market niche must still be large enough and have sufficient purchasing power, otherwise the company that wants to fill it will not be able to develop and grow. To discover a market niche of this kind it is necessary to segment the market very carefully. In addition, a company can generate a market niche on its own with a new product / service. Filling a niche in multiple tranches is preferable and less risky than doing it once. Many thriving small and medium-sized companies owe their success to the strategy of filling empty market niches. The ideal market niche must be large enough and have sufficient purchasing power to be profitable, there must be the possibility of making it grow further, it must not be interesting for the main competitors, the company must have all the know-how and the resources necessary to supply the niche with particular efficiency and must be able to defend itself against attacks by the major competitors thanks to the good name that has been created on the market.

Each company has a specific position or role on the market. From this depends the type of marketing strategy that the company can choose.

In the sector literature, the positions on the market are divided as follows:

 Market leaders: they are companies that would like to expand throughout the market, who maintain their market share very skillfully and in reality do nothing but continuously expand it. For this reason they are constantly looking for new users and new uses for the product. To defend its market share, the company has several strategies available: defense of position, preventive defense, defense with counterattack, mobile defense or strategic retreat. The best companies make no mistakes and leave no room for attacks from competitors. Companies wishing to expand their market share must overcome the competition with a new product, with a better quality of the same or with a better management of marketing costs.

 Challenger: they are those companies that want to expand their market share with a heavy attack on the leading company, on another growing company or on smaller companies in the sector. The challenger can choose the strategy of the lowest price, of the low cost products, of the prestigious products, of the greater choice of products, of the invention of products, of the best service, of the novelty in the sales channel, of the reduction of costs or of the intensive advertising. 

 Market followers: they are growing companies that decide not to attack, generally for fear of losing more than they would earn. Followers attempt to actively collaborate in market development. Their strategies are imitation, reproduction and adaptation.

 Market niche filler: they are rather small companies that decide to operate in a slice of the specialized market, for which large companies are not likely to be interested. Often companies of this type specialize for a special end user of a specific geographical area with a specific product or with a group of products with specific characteristics, quality, prices and sales channels.

Most companies, particularly those of services, face the problem of how to balance extremely variable demand and production capacities that are difficult to adapt. In such a company, it is crucial that the organization's management respond adequately to current market conditions. This means that the harmonization of demand and production capacities must take place as synchronously and quickly as possible if you want to maintain undisturbed current activity and user satisfaction. To mitigate fluctuations, companies can implement an adaptation strategy (balancing production capacities and demand to match them), they can guarantee a production capacity to meet maximum demand, they can control demand to keep it at a constant level and influence the question. The oscillation of the demand can be managed with the price (in the peaks in which the demand is maximum or even exceeds the company's existing capacities, the price of services can be increased and demand reduced), with market communication (advertising and sales incentives users are encouraged to take advantage of services outside the sales peaks, when the demand is lower), offering benefits to fixed customers (during the peaks, many companies offer the services first to regular and loyal customers and only after the others). These are some measures to reduce demand. Similarly, a company can decide to increase demand by acting on the price (when the demand is low or the capacity in the company is in excess, try to incentivize users to order a service with discounts and lower prices), on the communication of market (including incentives to sell services), on distribution (working hours are adjusted to users and the place of delivery is changed).

Sources:

Klassen, K. J. and Rohleder, T. R. 2001. Combining Operations and Marketing to Manage Capacity and Demand in Services. London. The Service Industries Journal, 21 (2), 1–30

Potočnik V. 2000. Trženje storitev (Marketing of services). Ljubljana: Gospodarski vestnik