Good, Solid Research Will Keep You Out of the Poorhouse

First of all, this is not a Fluff piece – If you decide to read on, you will get the truth (as far as I know it).

Doing the ‘hard things’ in business is what is going to keep you from falling and jumping off of a cliff – this goes for any business.  I don’t care if you are running a restaurant or a zoo.  The devil is in the details and you must master the core skills of your trade.

One the of those core skills in the online marketing world is RESEARCH.  I hear the groans now.

Do you want to know why the top online marketers are at the top?  Is it an accident?  Is it a stroke of luck or good fortune?  No, it’s because these folks have mastered their craft – they have become masters of performing proper research and making rational and right decisions on what they find.

Why is research difficult for most people?  Bluntly stated, it requires great patience and discipline.  It requires that the researcher not come to conclusions about an issue until all of the data is collected and analyzed.  These are difficult skills to learn and master.  But you must because your long-term financial success depends on it.

For an online marketer, what are some of the tools of the trade, from a research standpoint?

The top three that I use are:

Keyword Phrase Analysis
Forum posts
Competition Analysis

Keyword Phrase Analysis

This is probably the easiest of the three to perform.  I wrote a post about the mechanics  earlier – here is the link http://askstanbeck.com/archives/21.

At a high level, Keyword Analysis is a way to find out what people are searching for in the search engines – their questions, if you will.  Knowing what people are searching on helps give you insight as to what pains them – what are they trying to solve.  There are many tools out there — the key is to pick one and use it.  A good free tool that I use frequenly is GoodKeywords.

Forum Posts

This research method takes a little more work.  First you must find the gathering points for your market – the water cooler if you will.  There are thousands of forums out there – just simple search in Google for ‘TOPIC’ forum – that’s a good starting point.  Here, you must read posts and take notes.  What are people writing about?  Are people indicating that they are willing to spend money to get ‘xxxx’ benefit?

Competition Analysis

There are millions of topics of interest out there.  However, if you are running a business, you only want to involve yourself with those ventures that will eventually convert into a profit for you.  "Underwater Basket Weaving" may be a hot topic for some, but this group may not spend money on their hobby – maybe they are perpetually looking for freebies.  Some areas that people spend money on Hobbies like Fishing, Hunting, Tennis, Golf – areas where there is passion. 

How do you find out where money is being spent?  A quick and easy what is to pay attention to the advertisers.  If advertisers are repeatedly spending money on a market, there is a good chance that it is a good market to pursue.  You want to look for markets that have lots of competition – you don’t want to blaze and trails – it’s too hard to do and takes too much time and money.  From an online perspective, use a tool like GoodKeywords to look at the Overture ads.

Okay, you’ve identified your target market and that they spend money – that’s a huge step forward.

Next, we need to go back to our notes from what keywords our market is searching on in the search engines and what questions they are asking in the forums.  These are the keys to what you are going to offer your market.  They have told you what they want – so give it to them.

Spend some time on Google and figure out who are the experts in your target market – read everything you can get your ‘hands on’.  Follow their links – take copious notes.  You want to collect as much data as you can as it relates to the questions your market is asking.

Then, once you’ve compiled your information, start posting and answering posts in the forums where you market hangs out.  You need to get some experience conversing with your market and this is an excellent way to do it.  Offer free advice and invite people to ask questions of you directly.  Once they start doing that, then you’ve got something – these are the very questions that people are now asking you – questions you can answer in your new product!

Build your product around this research and you can’t go wrong – how can you, you’ve already uncovered what your market wants, and you are giving it to them.

Do the hard work of research and you’ll save yourself countless grief and money.