We get so disheartened when people invest time & money in creating a product or service and then it doesn’t sell! The main reason for this is because no market research or testing has been done before the product creation process started… learn how not to make the same mistake yourself.
DOES YOUR AUDIENCE WANT WHAT YOU ARE OFFERING?
So today we want to tackle one of the pitfalls that many speakers, authors & coaches fall into… not testing your product or service before you spend lots of money creating and marketing it!
Why is it important to test before you launch?
- It stops you from putting too much information, detail and content in your products and overwhelm your customers. In order for a product to sell you need to meet them where they are at, with the questions they are already asking and what they want, rather than trying to sell them what you know they ‘need’.
- You are normally too far removed from the emotion of how your customers are feeling at the early stage of their journey. Doing research allows you to capture their language they use around the topic (which you can then use in marketing copy to really connect with them.)
- It allows you to test and get feedback on your product and pricing
How Can You Test?
Some of the main ways to test products & conduct market research are:
- Create surveys or runs polls to discover what your ideal client wants or where they are stuck
- Hold focus groups with a handful of ideal clients to get in-depth research. Ask a series of questions about their needs and also inform them of your product / price / format of delivery to get feedback on whether they would buy it
- Have beta testers go through your product or service to give you UX feedback & potentially give you a testimonial at the end.
However, our favourite method is running a ‘Seed Launch’ which was formulated by Jon & Jeff `walker in their ‘Product Launch Concept’.
Here are the basic outlined steps to conduct this research:
Step 1: Send an email / social post to ask your ideal clients if they would like a month of free coaching on the topic that your product or service is related to.
They have to commit to attending a call or webinar every week for a month (you probably want between 10 -20 people of your ideal client to sign up)
Step 2: Break your topic down into 4 different areas. For example, if it’s about weight loss they could be:
- understanding ingredients / foods labels
- portion sizes
- eliminating sugar
- exercise
Then every week email them before the webinar asking them to tell you all of the questions, problems & concerns they have around ‘eliminating sugars’.
This captures their exact questions & problems in their language & all you do on the webinar is answer them! You do this every week for each subject area.
Step 3: The webinars are recorded & can be converted into a short audio course which you know your audience WILL want, as they are the exact questions that they want answered.
The content can be used to build a foundational entry level online course. initial coaching session, lead generation Ebook etc.
Step 4: You can ask these people to give you a testimonial on how you’ve helped them. You can also ask them more information about what they need next / how much they would be willing to pay for your services… and often they go on to become your top clients and ambassadors!
So before you jump straight into product creation or launching something — TEST IT!
Don’t assume that you know what your audience wants, get confirmation as it will save you a lot of time & money.Speaker INsight
We support speakers, authors & coaches to monetise their message, market their purpose and create & manage their portfolio business, ON THEIR TERMS™.