Which Came First...The Product or the Prospect
By Terry Dean
You have a killer product which you know everyone
wants to buy. You had one of the top copywriting experts
write you a winning ad. You have built an incredible site
and you accept every major credit through secure ordering
online.
You have all this, and only have one problem. You just
can't seem to get enough traffic to your site.
I hear this kind of story all the time. Someone
"knows" they have a winning promotion, but they
just can't get enough leads.
You may even be thinking the same thing right now. You
have an awesome product, but it seems hard to get traffic
to your site and to get really qualified prospects.
Well, I can tell you where you messed up at. Over 97% of
marketers have made the exact same mistake you did...and
it is killing their businesses. They focused on the
product before finding the prospect.
It is common practice to first find or develop a product
and then find people to sell it to, but common practices
don't always work.
The quickest and easiest method of finding a successful
business is not to take a product and go searching for
prospects. The quickest and easiest method of finding
success in business is to target a market and then find
out what it is that they want.
Take the focus in your mind away from the product and
place it onto the prospect. Instead of saying, "How
can I find someone to buy my product?" Start
asking yourself, "What would these people like to
buy?"
Instead of following this higher road to success, people
seem to prefer trudging through the wilderness begging
someone to help them find more leads...
If you are truly serious about becoming successful
online, you are going to need to switch roads sooner or
later...so why don't you choose today.
There are really only three simple steps to succeeding
from an Internet business if you are following this path.
Number 1: Find and Focus on a specific targeted market.
Don't focus on the entire world. Focus on a niche group.
While major corporations try to focus on everyone as a
whole, the small businesses who become successful are
focusing on one group of people with similar interests
and goals.
Many of the niches might even be rather large. For
example: business opportunity seekers, small Internet
businesses, dog lovers, cat lovers, work at home mothers,
bodybuilders, martial artists, and more. All of these are
considered niche groups and have millions of
participants.
You can even go into more specific groups such as
commodity traders, real estate agents, RC car hobbyists,
and more.
The key to knowing if you have chosen a good niche group
is if you can specifically target your market
consistently online. Can you find one member after
another in this market for little or no cost. Do
you know where to look? If you don't, that isn't the
market for you.
If you are considering offline advertising for your web
site (which by the way can often beat online advertising
by leaps and bounds), then a place to look to come up
with ideas for niche markets is at the magazine rack of
your local bookstore. Generally, most of the magazines
are created for specific niche markets. If you choose to
market in that niche, then this is a good place to get
ideas on products and to use for advertising.
Number 2: Find Out What They Want.
Once you pick a targeted market, you need to take time to
find out what it is that they want. Do they want a
product? Do they want software? Do they want an
informative video? What is it that they are looking for?
The way to do this type of market research for Free is to
learn how to network online in discussion groups, mailing
lists, and newsgroups.
As matter of fact, you won't even have to be involved in
the discussion to find out things like this. Just pay
attention to the posts people make on what types of
things they want.
Then, when you see that something keeps coming up time
and time again, mention it or begin asking some
questions. Find out how much they are willing to pay for
something like that. What color would they like it in?
What brand would they like? In other words, ask your
future customers exactly what it is that they want.
To find the places to do this, use these search engines:
Newsgroups: http://www.dejanews.com
Forums: http://www.forumone.com
Mailing Lists: http://www.liszt.com
Write down 3 to 5 keywords of what types of things you
are interested in and then search through each of these
databases to find groups which specialize in those
subjects.
Join them or mark them in your favorite places. Then,
make it your job to sit down and at least read a few of
them every day for customer research. What is it they
want?
If you can answer that question, you are well on your way
to developing an extremely successful Internet concept.
If you would prefer to just do your own thing and assume
what people want, then you are starting your business on
very shaky ground.
Number 3: Give them what they want by developing it or
Joint Venturing.
Once you have found a market and determined what it is
that they want, give it to them. If you have to develop
the product yourself, do it.
An easier way of providing your first product to this
market would be to Joint Venture with an established
business which has the product those customers are
looking for. Start doing some investigative research and
look for the types of products those future customers are
asking for.
Then, once you find the right product, make a deal on a
50/50 profit split or whatever is necessary to make the
deal...then begin endorsing that product to your
prospects.
Here is how you could apply this process even greater to
your web site.
Several web sites I know of right now have very
successfully applied the principle of finding your
prospects before finding your products.
They would built a site focused on content, participate
in networking online, trade links with other sites, and
place high in search engines. They would begin building
up a large number of visitors and repeat visitors who
would keep coming back for the content.
They would do this for months or even years all at the
same time building loyal visitors and building an Opt-In
mailing list. Then, when the time was right and they
found out what their visitors were seeking after, they
either developed the perfect product for them or they
made a Joint Venture deal and endorsed someone else's
product to their
site and their Opt-In list.
Many of the major sites which are extremely profitable
online right this minute followed this exact same
strategy of success.
What about you?
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