Showing posts with label customers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label customers. Show all posts

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Survey your potential customers - E-Business Success Blueprint Workshop - Part 9


Online Survey
Today's lesson depending on how far you have gotten with your previous assignments might feel a bit early.
In fact I believe that in a settings different than an online course, you could spend 2 weeks to one month on previous assignment where you join groups of people who might be interested in your product. You would need some time to analyze those people and start establishing yourself as an expert or as a person passionate about this area.

The problem is that if we wait 2 weeks or one month with the next assignment, we will be taken away by other tasks of our life from this course.

In fact previous assignment should be your ongoing activity from now on.
Reading newsletters of your competitors, and watching them how they are doing it, should be always on your mind.

At least this is what I do. I learn from my competition all the time.
I'm subscribed to lots of newsletters. Maybe over 50. It is impossible to read them all, but you can just skim their headlines and if you see something of interests then read it.

So here it goes.

Now I will explain your next step, which will be one of the last ones in an ongoing effort to determine what your business should be. If you have business running already and are wondering if this is the right business to be in, this step will allow on testing this.

Since you are a member of various groups (Previous Assignment), you are following their discussions and you are seeing what the main topic of those discussions is.

The topics which you will see might be something totally different than what you expected from a group with this kind of focus.

You should identify what is the main need this group has. e.g. If you are into fishing, you will run into discussions about people asking what is the situation in certain areas of the country in regards to fishing. They will be talking about certain lakes or rivers.

What if you would come up with the idea of putting together a site which would provide e.g. live weather information in specific fishing areas. You could also provide other important conditions like access to the area, accommodations and supply of fishing equipment in this specific area. Info about other attractions available in the area.

You could send email reports to your members about conditions in the area they need.
You could have private site for a fee to those who are interested in exchanging information (community site).


Remember some anglers are nuts. They will pay any money you ask if you have something of value for them.
Believe me that this is true. I'm fishing myself and know a few of my friends.

Bogdan Fiedur with the Pike


This is just to demonstrate how you should be thinking to formulate your product.
Let's assume that you have an idea already, based on the above concept.

Now you need to approach your list and ask them a question.

**Side Note***
When I was writing this workshop I asked readers of Adland Digest, if they would be interested in paid version of this newsletter. I received about 200 responses with suggested prices and the reason why someone would be willing to pay for it.

I was given tons of ideas.

I did the same with my recent book "E Business Success Blueprint". Before I have decided to write it, I sent many emails where I asked for price and I have provided topics of my future product just to test if there is demand for it. I received over 300 emails, which gave me confidence that I'm on the right track.

**Side Note End***
In my case  I had already emails of my subscribers before I asked my questions, which might be not true in your case. Don't worry, I will show you how to build a list while you are testing your idea, before you even spent time on creating it.

You will be asking people from groups (previous assignement) to which you have subscribed, to fill out a survey for you. There are many sites which will allow you on running free surveys, but I use this one and recommend it to you.

You can run up to 100 surveys for free.
http://www.surveymonkey.com

Create an account for yourself at the above site and play with it to create your first survey.

1. The first question on your survey should be name of the responded and possibly email address. You can tell them that you will give them free gift if they leave email address with you. We will talk later on how to come up with attractive gifts.

2. Second question  would be as follows -
If I would offer you product/service XYZ would you be interested in it.
You can provide option e.g. from 1 to 5 where 1 is not interested to 5 very interested to get more clear info.

3. The third question.
How much would you be willing to pay for this product?


When you created your survey, test it and obtain link for your respondents.
Now go to each of your discussion groups and tell them this.
Add your own style to it. This is just basic idea.

<---Letter start--->
Hello member(s) 
I need your help.
I'm working currently on the product which based on my feeling would help at least 90% of subscribers to this list.
I need you to go to my site and answer couple of quick questions.
The survey won't take more than 2 minutes of your time and will help me determine if the product I'm thinking of is for you.
Once I have the product ready, I will give you 50% of my main price, just to thank you for your feedback.
I'm also offering free gift for you right now for helping me with my decision.
Your Name.
<------Letter end---->

Note that you are not sending any ad to the group, yet you are advertising your future product. You are asking for help, and most likely those who are actively participating in this group will give you their feedback.

Freebie seekers will want your free gift.

You will accomplish 5 things in this assignment.

1. Create a free survey site. No html needed. Anyone can do it.
2. Test your idea.
3. Build mailing list.
4. Build your list of future customers.
5. Show that you are an expert in testing the market


Believe me there is no other more effective way of obtaining your customers.
The only other way is buying mailing lists from list brokers which can cost a lot of money and also be disastrous if you don't test it or get ripped off.

This assignment I want you to repeat for each of your ideas and use it once you have established purpose of the group which you have joined and once you know their needs.


Bogdan Fiedur

Next lesson...
Adlandpro.com Copyright 1998 - 2013 - All rights reserved . 

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Saturday, April 20, 2013

Start looking for your customers - E-Business Success Blueprint Workshop - Part 8

Customers lining up for goods
Customers lining up for goods
Previous lessons...


Once you determine the product of your choice, I'm planning to introduce you to the concept of product launch. Product launch should be organized as an event in order to make your customers aware about it before it is actually offered.

More on this later.

Anyway, let's jump to the next lesson, which today will be about obtaining tools to test your best selected business. I assume that you have tested your keywords and determined which are most advantageous to start new business. I also assume that you have visited sites of your competition, signed up for their newsletters and joined their affiliate programs.

Have your keywords ready for this step.

You've noticed that part of the subject of this message is "Start looking for your customers"
My assumption also is that you don't have your product yet.

As you know my approach is that you should  have customers first before you develop your product. You need to know that there are people who want your product before you spent time and money on creating it.

Now we will be jumping into real world and do the testing what kind of demand we have for the product we want to offer.

For this we will be using following existing communities.

Yahoo groups http://groups.yahoo.com
Google groups. http://groups.google.com  and G+  https://plus.google.com
Facebook  http://www.facebook.com
Twitter  http://www.twitter.com

and following online communities

http://community.adlandpro.com
http://www.ryze.com
http://www.tribe.net

I will explain the concept in regards to Yahoo groups and you will apply it to all other ones.
What you want now is to access existing interests groups on Yahoo and join them.

1. Access this link. http://groups.yahoo.com
2. In the search box where it says "Find a Group" type your keywords.

e.g. for "piano lessons" I found 16562 groups.
Each of the groups has shown number of members subscribed to it just below the heading for the group.

3. Research all of the groups and look for ones which have the largest number of members. If you see a group with 5 or 2 members, just forget it. Anything bigger than 50 consider as your target.

4.When you click the heading of the group, you will be given option to subscribe yourself to it. Do this by clicking button which says "Join This Group"

5. Set your settings to receive contribution to this group by email as "individual emails" under "Edit Membership" option

6. Read past messages in this group. Join as many such groups as possible. Now do this with Google groups. Remember when you looking for groups within G+, access communities https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities and when searching select "communities" from the drop down box.




On Facebook type your search term in the search box at the top and first results will be pages dedicated to your search topic.  Visit those pages and like them. Ask their owner to become your friends.




On Twitter, search for your term and follow people who you find in search results.


Join Ryze.com, Tribe.net.
This tasks itself can take more than a day of work, I also know that you are asking why you need that.
You will be member of those groups for as long as you are in the business you have selected. You need to follow your competition for as long as you are in this business.

I want you to monitor messages which will start coming from those groups to your email address.

Notice who is most active and visit their websites. This is your competition who knows how to utilize free online resources and how to build trust with others who are interested in the same topics.

This is how I started my company. This was in 1998 and I didn't have all the tools which are available today.
There was also no Yahoo groups, Facebook, G+ and Twitter. 

I used News Groups for that and they was a source of my first customers.
I won't reveal yet other steps so I don't overwhelm you now with information, but that will be your most practical task to this moment where you will actually see results of your work to date paying off.

If you've done your homework properly, you will start seeing some shape to these steps and results will become tangible.

The other important move is that when you join following communities
http://community.adlandpro.com
http://www.ryze.com
http://www.tribe.net

you start learning how to build your network of associates, friends and how to find people related to your business.

Just determine how to do this and don't offer anything to anyone.

No ads. I can tell you now that you won't be placing any ads in any of those communities now or later.
Your goal is to monitor those groups and become their members.
The next step will be very exciting.

Next lesson....

Bogdan Fiedur

Adlandpro.com Copyright 1998 - 2013 - All rights reserved .  

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