If you sell products in a specific market, it's impossible to undertake any marketing strategy without knowing what your market share is. Knowing how much market share you're capturing and identifying areas for improvement are critical to executing marketing strategies. Graphing market share can be one the easiest ways to organize and understand this information. You can choose from several different types of graphs to express market share and customize the presentation to your tastes.

Things You Will Need

  • Computer with Microsoft Excel 2007

  • Specific market information

Identify total market size. You must first define what your total market is before you can decipher what your share of it is. To define the the market size, you must ascertain how many total potential consumers are in the specific market you hope to compete in. Applying parameters such as geographic boundaries or consumer age or gender will help to further specify the total market group.

Identify your market share. First, determine how many consumers use your product within a specific market. Next divide the total number of consumers using your product by the total number of consumers in the market. For example, if there are 100 people in your target market area and 15 of them use your product, your market share is 15 percent (15 / 100 = .15). Expressing market share as a percentage is the easiest way to organize this information.

Choose a chart type. Graphic designers use many different types of charts to express market share, ranging from very simple to highly sophisticated with multiple colors and added graphics. Choose a pie chart to display your market share, as it's the simplest way to organize this type of information. With only two data fields -- total market size and your market share -- a pie graph will most clearly showcase the data.

Select a charting program. You can choose from multiple software programs and online options to chart your market share. Microsoft Excel 2007 provides an easy-to-use charting program for making a pie chart and features a step-by-step-tutorial. Open Excel and click on the question mark icon on the top right corner of the screen. Type "How to create a chart in Excel 2007" in the search box that appears and press the "Enter" key. Next, click on the "Start this course" button in the next frame to begin customizing your market share chart.

Save and distribute your chart. Once you've completed your market share chart, save the information on a computer drive. If you prefer to share this information in a hard-copy format, print out the desired number of charts and distribute them accordingly. If you prefer to distribute this information electronically, email this saved information to the desired recipients.

Tip

Use contrasting color schemes in your chart to make the data stand out.