Today was the third day on which I continued my “26 Weeks to Freedom” project by spending at least three hours going over Internet marketing material I acquired several months ago and condensing it down to notes that I can save and easily refer to. And once again I was struck by how easy it is to forget some of the most basic, but very important, advice on how to create products and make them attractive to your customers.
At the top of my pile of papers this morning was the transcript of a teleseminar given by Alicia Pierce (Stephen Pierce’s wife and business partner) and her sister, Lorette Lyttle (who is a software programmer and works with them in their business). Alicia and Lorette were going over some of the valuable products that you can create such as Ebooks, physical books (which can now be self-published for far less than you would imagine), audio recordings (such as an interview with an expert, or a teleseminar such as this one they were doing), video interviews, webinars, membership sites, and even software that is customized for whatever your product niche may be. There are resources on the Internet that make it easy and affordable to do all these things—yes, even creating software is no big deal! You don’t have to know anything about programming. Just map out on a piece of paper exactly what you want the software to do (e.g., “when the visitor hits this button, I want them to be taken to another page that does such-and-such…..”) and then outsource it to a programmer at www.elance.com or www.rentacoder.com. Having a software “bonus” to go with your product can greatly increase its value (not to mention selling the software separately), and the one-time investment you make to have the software created should be returned many times over in product sales.
Alicia and Lorette (and Stephen Pierce, more of whose transcripts I was reading after that) also talked about the most effective ways to do market research to find out exactly what your customers need (which is not necessarily what you think they need, or what you happen to like yourself!) One method (among many) is, I think, especially creative and very effective in finding out exactly what the prospective customers in your niche are looking for. And it’s rarely done! It’s called the “flycatcher” method. Suppose you have a particular niche that you think would be good for Internet sales. Go to Google and type in the keyword you want to use. On the results page, you will of course see both paid (AdWords) ads and the regular “organic” search results. Now, suppose you ran a pay-per-click ad of your own. But instead of trying to sell a product with it, turn it into a “survey” page where, when the visitor clicks on it, they are asked “What is the main question or problem you have regarding this subject area?” (You know they’re already interested, or they wouldn’t have typed in those keywords in the first place.) Then, in exchange for their responses, you offer them a free copy of the Ebook you are currently writing about that subject. Yes, you will pay Google for the click-throughs, but look what you get in return! Your visitors’ responses will tell you exactly what the people in this niche are concerned about, what issues they want to see addressed, and what questions they want to have answered. You then write your Ebook (which only cost you the price of the Google clicks) based on that extremely up-to-date, laser-focused bit of market research, and then offer the Ebook for sale through another ad—-or, better yet—-by promoting it on a web page that makes it to the top of the free organic listings.
Over and over again Stephen stresses the point that you must know exactly what the priorities of your customers really are. Don’t offer them something that competes with their priorities. An elementary point, probably, but it’s safe to say that when a business fails it’s likely because the real (and changing) needs of their customers were ignored. One of Stephen’s favorite methods for doing quick “market research” is to just go to Amazon.com and see which products are already selling the fastest in different niches. Or look at the most popular magazines to see what topics their current articles are all about (magazines do a great deal of market research prior to publication—obviously they have to, in order to stay relevant). In fact, you can do “market research” almost anywhere—just listen to what people are talking about and what kinds of problems they need to solve!
And then, start using your creative imagination to come up with a digital or physical product that offers a solution……
If you’re curious about how I’m doing on this 26- week “accountability”
project–including the full, unedited blog postings for each day as I go along (with videos, photos, comments, and other links)–please visit my Creating an Internet Business website. I’ll look forward to seeing you there!