Market Research Makes Everything Easier… Here’s How To Do It
I watched some videos on market research the other day.
As you can imagine, there are some good ones and some bad ones.
But on the whole, I’ll say this: my market research processes are a million miles ahead of what anyone is sharing online.
In this article I’ll explain how to do market research using one simple idea.
But that’s not all I’m going to do. I also give you a pathway for profitable market research.
And I don’t mean profitable in the end. I mean, how to directly profit from your market research.
Why A Piece Of Marketing Falls Flat Due To Poor Market Research
A piece of copywriting or other marketing thing will fall flat when your market isn’t defined enough.
Because the market isn’t defined, the goals for your target audience are undefined.
And because of that, the offer that is not defined.
No amount of “psychological humour words” or “copywriting power words” work when the target market is wrong.
If somebody asked me, “Have you ever felt like the whole club is staring at your dry skin under the neon lights?”
It doesn’t matter how eloquently you put that, or how many emotional pain points you point out during that phrase, the answer is no. I don’t care. I’ve never thought about this whatsoever.
If you do the market research wrong, everything else topples as a result.
You can’t think about all the techniques and tricks for increasing the conversion rate by 0.5% such as using particular turns of phrases, because you’ve got it all wrong.
This is why market research is so important.
So why are people doing market research wrong or not at all?
Building Your Profile
Some dopes on the Internet recommend doing market research by surveying people, or otherwise creating a psychological profile which includes things like,
“What kind of car does your target market, ideal customer drive?”
I don’t care.
Learning somebody to that level is completely ridiculous for any online business. You aren’t going to be able to get that knowledge of somebody, that intimate knowledge of the person down to their favourite toothpaste, unless you are doing, one-to-one sales.
It simply isn’t going to happen, and it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what kind of car a person drives if they’re buying skin cream. Anyone who tells you that this is an important thing to do for market research doesn’t understand market research.
But it’s easy me saying that. What do you have to do?
Side note; even if you’re doing one-to-one sales, you should follow the advice below. What kind of car they drive is irrelevant unless you are trying to fit furniture in the back of it, or otherwise selling them a car.
You need to know the person intimately in terms of the product you are selling and in terms of their needs in regard to the product.
If we are selling skin cream, we do not care what kind of car person drives. But we do care:
- What sort of skin problem they have.
- How that skin problem affects them psychologically and physically.
- What they have done to solve the problem.
- How much or what they would give to solve the problem once and for all.
- What they look for in terms of finding the solution and purchasing the solution.
Those are all things we care about.
You do need to know those things very intimately.
To summarise:
Who is this person in terms of their needs?
If you follow that advice, then you will be ahead of 90% of people who not only do market research, but apparently teach market research.
Profitable Niche Market Research
If you are spending a lot of time learning about your customer, how they operate and what they need, you should be profiting from this.
There are tons of ways to profit from your market research.
The easiest ways are to create niche sites. You are already doing the research. You are already looking at the products on the market.
And you are already learning about the customers’ needs and the things they needed to live a better life.
All you are doing is writing up the notes you already have.
This is quick, simple and easy.
And it provides a positive feedback loop, because if your niche site is successful, then not only will you make some pocket money, but you will also understand your customers better based on the feedback you receive.
Secondly, why not start a simple physical products store?
Again, you are looking in detail at the customer. You will find what they need.
They are your niche for your dropshipping or otherwise a physical products site.
And again, you are creating a positive feedback loop: you are learning about sourcing the products they need. You are learning about what goes into the products they need. Most market research people simply aren’t going to do any of this.
And most people don’t profit from market research.
Those are just two ideas. You can offer services. You can collect all of your findings and put them in an e-book.
Check the archives because the possibilities are endless and I have already talked about them.
Final Thoughts
Market research is important. It is the most important thing you do. You should spend more time on it than you do on the writing. Because when you spend more time on market research, the writing takes care of itself.
Whenever I do the high-end freelance copywriting projects, the market research is long and arduous. It takes hours, and there are many pages of notes at the end of it.
The writing comes quickly. I do it in one draft, and I already know everything that I’m going to put in it before I start.
This is a good model for market research versus doing the work.