Why No One Talks About Market Research

Market Research is probably the most least talked about subjects in internet/affiliate marketing. Yet, it plays a significant role on outcome of your success. Lets face it, market research is very unattractive… it’s very time consuming and boring as hell. But it has to be done.

Without market research how do you define your audience? Better yet, how do even know what products and/or services to market? Market research, when performed correctly can provide a clear path to your desired destination; thus enabling you to make exponential amounts of money. On the other hand, when done ineffectively, all your marketing efforts will fall short of meeting your goals.

Where Do I Start?

The first thing you’d want to do… is ensure that there’s enough interest in your chosen niche. One of the quickest ways of determining whether or not your chosen niche has enough passionate people around is with a Facebook tool called ‘Audience Insights’.

Let’s say your niche is ‘Healthy Foods’  as described in the above example. Just in the the U.S. alone there is about 7m active users on Facebook interested in health foods. Although this appears to be a very attractive niche at first glance…7m million people is way too broad. You’d be better served putting all your efforts into a sub-niche of ‘Healthy Foods’ e.g., gluten free recipes.

By simply adding niche ideas to the interest category… not only are you able to locate interest, you’re also exposed to a plethora of additional data to help you with targeting. Clearly there are more resources available to help define your interest – I just happen to do a lot of my marketing and research with Facebook.

Types Of Market Research

The goal of market research is to collect enough data to analyze and ultimately make an informed decision about the products and services you have to offer. Two of the most commonly used methods for market research is Primary and Secondary research.

Primary research is pretty much taking a hands-on approach by communicating directly with potential customers. This can simply be done by emailing your list to find out their pain points… via surveys, questionnaires, and webinars.

Secondary research is simply analyzing data that has already been published. Here you can identify competitors and people who fall into your targeted demographic who live a certain lifestyle, and demonstrate certain behavior patterns. I eluded to this type of research earlier with Facebook’s ‘Audience Insights.’

You might be asking right now… how does keyword research tie in to market research? Well, keyword research is in a class all by itself and plays an integral part to the success of your online business. You can find more information on keyword research here.

What Product Do I Market?

First understand that the product or service you deliver to your customers is a key element derived from market research. More importantly, you should be asking yourself the following questions as it pertains to your customers:

1. Does my product/service solve a want or need?
2. How does my product/service fit into the lives of people who use it?
3. What does life look like with my product/service, and what does it look like without it?

Finding out the answers to these questions can help determine if your product/service has what it take to generate a substantial income for your business.

Conclusion

Often times we get so anxious to make money online that we overlook the most important part of the process. Market research goes ways beyond the scope of information highlighted in this article. There are various methods available to help gather data on competitors, market trends, customer satisfaction etc… and you’d be doing yourself a disservice by utilizing only one method.

The only way to successfully identify opportunities to serve various groups of customers is to find out what they want, what they need, or what they say they need, and focus on a product or service to meet their needs. Conclude by determining if your product/service is effectively meeting the needs of your customers.

Conducting market research half-ass is like traveling to your desired destination blind-folded… you’ll never get there!