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Using Dirt Cheap Online Market Research To Grow
Your Business!, by Marty Foley
It pays to be well informed about what is 'hot' with your
prospects and customers, and what is not. Since people usually
buy a product or service for the benefits they expect to get
from it, what's hot with your prospects and customers are things
such as:
*the goals they want to achieve;
*the problems they want to solve.
Market research is - in a nutshell - the process of finding out
what's hot with your prospects and customers (so you can help
them achieve gain or eliminate pain through your existing or
future products or services) and what's not (so you can avoid
spending your energies in unprofitable directions).
Market research is not difficult to conduct, and yields valuable
insight. Such crucial information can show you, among other
things:
*which ideas for potential new products or services have
the greatest likelihood of success;
*how to improve your current products or services so as to
offer better value and encourage satisfied customers to buy
from you again;
*how to appeal to your typical prospect in your marketing
communications;
*the concerns and questions your prospects and customers are
most likely to have, so you can address them - even before they
arise;
*what your customers may dislike about your products/services,
so that you can try to remedy the situation.
Yes, market research can give you all this strategic business
information - and more. As you may know, I'm the author of a
growing list of several 'how-to' information products, all
related to business success, covering topics such as Internet
marketing, Free publicity, Self-publishing, Mail order/Direct
marketing, Catalog marketing, Time management, etc., which I
market online and off.
In relation to my marketing efforts, questions have come up,
such as:
1) Which of my several products are most appealing to
my online prospects?
2) Which headlines generate the greatest response? I've gotten
answers to these questions - and built my prospect and
subscriber lists at the same time - through online market
research.
These tests are very much like tests a direct marketer might use
in direct mailings or print publications with mail order ads. In
traditional direct marketing, many print publications will, for
a fee, allow you to use what is called split-run advertising.
This is where half the circulation of the same issue is printed
with one ad (A), and the other half of the issue is printed with
another ad (B). Each ad is keyed in some way (given a unique
identifier, such as different department number in the address)
so it can be determined which ad generated the response.
Response is calculated for each ad, and the results are
compared to determine which yielded the best response. The
winning ad is then used in future marketing efforts, at least
until another test reveals an even better ad.
Such split-run advertising in print publications can be very
helpful for testing ad copy, prices, offers, etc., but it's
expensive, and can take weeks or months for ads to run. I
especially like conducting market research online, because it's
fast and cheap.
Let me share one example of how I've conducted online market
research. I selected Usenet newsgroups whose readers were likely
interested in the benefits of my information products in which
to run the tests.
Two different postings were used for each test. The message of
each posting was identical. I offered to send a text copy of any
one of several reports free by e-mail if the reader sent an
e-mail message indicating which one they wanted. (To make such
an offer online and fill the requests by e-mail only costs me
some time.)
The only difference between each posting of the test was that
two different headlines (subject lines) were used, whose pulling
power I wanted to compare with the other.
For the most accurate results, conditions should be as identical
as possible for each half of the test. An effort was therefore
made to run each different headline several times each, running
one headline one day, and the other the next, an equal number of
times.
Each newsgroup posting had a two-fold purpose:
1) To test the pulling power of each headline. The headline
that generated the greatest response could then be used to
improve future marketing communications. (Such a test can also
be useful in selecting a title for an information product,
since a product title is, in effect, a headline.)
2) To compare the popularity of each report in relation to the
others. The results would reveal which products should be given
more prominence in my marketing efforts, and indicate likely
areas for profitable expansion (spin-off or related products
and/or services to add to my line).
This is only one example to show you how market research can be
conducted. Since I wrote the first version of this article, I
now use another way to conduct market research; one that
practically operates by itself.
On my web site I have a Guestbook form that allows visitors to
get their choice of any one of several Special Reports just for
filling out a brief survey. It's an excellent way to get
feedback from my site visitors. (When you're done with this
article, why not go there and see how it's set up, as well as
fill it out to get a FREE Special Report, at:
<http://ProfitInfo.com/guestbk.htm>?
Some other ways of conducting market research are:
*by analyzing sales records to see which of your existing
products/services are most popular;
*by examining other successful businesses in your field to see
what has worked for them.
There are many different possible directions you can take in
your business. But if they are not 'hot' with your prospects or
customers, in that they don't help them achieve gain (reach a
goal) or relieve pain (solve a problem), they probably aren't
worth your time and effort. Market research can reveal such
useful information to you.
Now I hope that I've given you some ideas for helping you grow
your business by conducting your own online market research -
dirt cheap!
==============================================
Discover a growing collection profit-making resources for
Netpreneurs, Direct Marketers, Infopreneurs, Inter-Network
Marketers, most anyone interested in profit, online and off, at
Marty Foley's domain: <http://ProfitInfo.com>,
or send
blank email to this autoresponder: <Send@ProfitInfo.com>.
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