Are Market Research Surveys Bunk?

Why They Help You Develop A Product That Sells

In previous articles I talked about the general idea of making a give away product. Let’s look at the process in detail and ensure the product we make is not only a quality product but that it also has demand in the market. Using this technique you will not only “know” the demand in the Market but also start building a list of quality subscribers.

This technique is a two in one. This is not a “new” or “secret” technique but most Internet Marketers ignore this very vital step of Market analysis and list building. I recommend a research survey as an absolutely vital way to do market research and it is every bit as important as testing an idea or spying on sites that are converting for specific keywords.

Mind Reading

This very technique is widely used by big companies. These companies are spending millions of dollars to learn what their customers want? They use questionnaires to gain insight into the minds of their customers. Yes, “taking questionnaires” is the technique I am talking about. As marketers we are trying to learn what other people are thinking. Reading the minds of our customers or prospects is the utmost priority of every marketer.

The purpose of mind reading as a marketer is to know what someone is thinking. What they are interested in and on what they spend money. Eventually our objective is to know what a person is looking for and how valuable that thing is for them. Are they really going to spend money on the solution they are looking for?

It is quite normal that people spend their time in looking for some sort of information or solution but they are not ready to spend money for that product or service. We need to figure out what people are looking for, what they spend their time doing, what they will sign up for and finally what they will buy. The rest is easy in comparison.

Taking A Marketing Research Survey

The easiest way to accomplish mind reading is “taking a survey”. In a real world scenario it’s almost impossible to take a survey on a large scale without spending a huge amount of money but on the Internet money is no longer a hurdle. This is a necessary activity which any average marketer can afford. I will show you exactly how to technically setup your surveys, but for now let’s understand how this important activity helps you as a marketer at different levels.

Feeding Fish What They Want

Instead of creating a product (the bait) and then going out looking for the traffic (the fish), why not first start with the traffic, and then learn what products it wants to buy? Once you have read their minds you make or use that product and put it in front of a school of hungry fish who want that specific bait. I know it seems backwards, but it works way better and is much less expensive than doing it the other way around. In reality you will go into your new market with  much higher confidence because you already know what the market wants to buy.

I will teach you about how to generate all types of traffic under the sun later. Don’t worry how or what type of traffic for now. There is a difference in the type of traffic you want to use but I will cover all of the traffic strategies later.

Guess Work vs Actual Facts

Every individual has their own way to analyze things. We have our own likes and dislikes. Everyone is inspired by their surroundings. Everyone has a different level of passion for things. Therefore everyone sees a certain thing from a different angle based upon their likes, passion, surroundings, etc….That means every person can have a different perception of things, people, markets and niches.

We are biased by our surroundings, personal likes, passion and experiences in manifesting perception about things and people around us. Since everyone has different perceptions about things there is every possibility of making a bad marketing choice when guessing what a market wants.

When we make a product we also need to have insight about the market we are going to make a product for. Most marketers make the mistake of falling into their own perception about a market. We assume that since “we feel” that there is demand for a certain product in our market we can fill the demand by making such a product. This product is purely based on our own assumptions. One may feel that they are an expert in a market and therefore their perceptions about the market are correct.

This is poor logic and is often the ruin of many companies. The best solution is to go for facts rather than your perception. It is not a rare case that experts in a market are wrong in their perception of a market. Remember if experience and expertise were enough to know about a market then big companies would never spend millions of dollars on market research and taking surveys.

The most accurate way to know about a market is to ask the people in that market directly. In product development your logic should be “know what your customers want and then give it to them”. There is a high possibility that they will buy once you provide them what they have asked for. A well crafted survey can assist you in finding exactly what your customers want. In the first layer then surveys help you in product development. But that’s not the end of the story because surveys will help you in many other ways.

The second important benefit of surveys is the ability to market to your upcoming market. The best marketing is that where the target audience is unaware that they are being approached for marketing purposes. Almost every form of advertisement is quite obvious to the target audience.

Here are some examples: TV ads, print media, web banners, bill boards etc. Whenever a prospect sees these types of ads they realize that these are marketing ads and unless the prospect is highly interested in that ad they are not going to buy it. This type of advertisement is usually focused around brand awareness or “branding” as it is called.

The format of an unsolicited review or analysis from an independent source is considered more effective and reliable than direct ads. Public relationship departments of companies perform this exact work. They prepare their marketing strategy so the advertisement to the target audience will not be seen as obvious marketing. This type of marketing appears to be unsolicited review. A typical prospect gives more importance to this type of marketing because they feel that it’s not a “paid ad” targeted at them but an honest review of the product.

If you want to learn as much about creating the absolute best market surveys possible and doubling your websites profits then I cannot recommend anyone or product more strongly than Dr. Glen Livingston’s “How To Double Your Business”. His course can help you save your business in these rough economic times.

Market Research Surveys and Product Development Can Make Sense
Author: Scott Holden – TrafficEraBlog