Word Search Maker Part 2: Context Analysis

Market Trends for Word Search Maker

Let’s take a deeper look at the Word Search puzzle industry. The first and most obvious inspection is the interest in Word Search puzzles themselves. Are they on the rise or in decline? How fast? Is there any possible immediate disruption that would kill the industry overnight? The following charts offer some insight into overall trends.

Seems slightly volatile but in a small uptrend

 

Seems stable although in slight decline

 

Strong steady decline in Britain

 

Stable market in US

 

Comparative strength, volume, and trends of the variations on Word Search Maker

 

What does this tell us? Word Search puzzles are in decline in Britain, but fairly OK in the US. I would not target the Word Search Maker market in Britain because of the staedy decline, however because I am based in the US and am targeting the steady US demographic I feel safe continuing . One interesting thing to note is the massive interest in “Word Search Maker” from South Korea. Here’s a great showcase of an unhealthy market:

Strong decline in South Korea

 

Example of an industry dying overnight in a region of South Korea

 

Only place in South Korea with any interest is Seoul, which has stabilized for the most part.

 

Compare this to the healthy US market

Steady Recurring Traffic spread fairly homogenously across the country

 

See how much healthier the interest in the US market is? It’s not only spread fairly geographically evenly, but it looks to be maintaining some level of stability. One thing that worries me is it has hit successively lower peaks for the past 3 years, and it may be entering a downtrend. I do not think the US industry will face a sudden-death scenario of the Word Search Making industry like South Korea however.

 

Quantitative Analysis of Search Trends

Now let’s look at some specific quantitative figures. The first thing to notice is that there will be a drought of Word Search Maker queries next month as reflected by the cyclic dip every summer.The second thing to notice is that there are approximately 49,500 US searches and 60,500 searches on the Google Network. This means that if I can rank in the top 5 I can reasonably expect a few percent of that traffic (Search traffic clickthrough follows a power law). This is completely ignoring the long-tail of the market.

 

Market Dependencies

With the primary analysis of the Word Search Maker market complete, it’s time to inspect secondary factors that may drastically change the market. A classic example for this is someone making iPhone cases. What happens if the iPhone fails? It doesn’t matter if you have the best domain and the number one ranking on Google, the market itself will die becaues it is dependent on another source.

I believe the Word Search Maker market is dependent on hobbyists and schools, and not directly tied to any specific product or trend (Apart from that blip in South Korea, where we saw the aftermath an external factor can have). Paper and pencil Word Searches will be around in the form of classroom worksheets and in puzzle books. Word Searches may find growth in the app market. None of these pose an immediate next-year-immediate-failure type of danger.