Lesson 1: Market Research

Lessons from a 30 yr Old Finger Painter

by Michael J. Alaniz

As our Mastermind Group ventures further into the world of online marketing, one of the most important discoveries we have made is the necessity for Market Research. The largest mistake an online marketer/entrepreneur can make is to create a product or service without first asking a few important questions.

First, is this niche a large enough market? and second, is there a problem in this niche where my product or service would be able to solve it? This is where Market Research can save you lots of money and more importantly, time!

The Two Must-Ask Market Research Questions:

1. Is This Niche Large Enough?

Just for fun, let’s say there is an entrepreneur who has expertise in the area of finger painting. They decide to create a product that will teach people how to do self-portraits using their thumbs and the color blue. This is something they really enjoy doing and since all their family and friends comment about how great the paintings look, they’re sure it will be a hit.

So this entrepreneur immediately goes to work, first securing a domain and then creating their product. Once they finish, they send out an e-mail to their friends and family to spread the word about your their new product. Two weeks go by and then two month…but still no sales!

This is where market research could have saved time, money and some lost confidence. If our online marketer had taken the time to survey the internet for blogs, forums and websites, they would have quickly seen how large (or how small!) the finger painting community is. From here they would have a better understanding of what this niche is up to and what they’re currently buying.

So how big should a niche be?

There is no right or wrong answer to this, but if the community/market you want to sell only has a couple of forums, blogs and websites then you can’t expect to make a large amount of money. The simple concept is the bigger the audience, the bigger the chance for making sales. Now keep in mind this also has to be a market that spends money, but we’ll touch more on that in another article.

2. Does my Product/Service Solve a Problem?

This is the biggest lesson I have personally learned so far. Instead of wasting valuable time trying to think of products, the best thing to remember is “the market has already spoken.” This means each niche has already expressed what it wants, it just takes time and research to find out what this is.

Thanks to blogs and forums, we now have the ability to survey the opinions of a market place. You can accomplish this by going into any forum, read the posts and ask yourself the following questions:

“what are the reoccurring themes?”
“are there any problems people keep mentioning?”
“what specific topics are continually talked about?’

The answer to these questions should be the foundation to your product/service. That’s it! This is what makes market research so powerful. It is basically mind-reading your audience.

So the next time you find yourself sitting around trying to think of the “Next Big Thing,” simply remember “the market has already spoken.” Your job is to simply listen and answer these problems with a solution.

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings. Don’t feel bad if you feel overwhelmed with your personal online journey, because we feel the same way at times!! But this is allot of fun, so lets learn together.

Please feel free to comment on this article, let us know what you think and how you approach market research. We’d love to hear from you.

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