In my first article about market research “Crucial To Your Internet Business” I gave you the basic research techniques you need to learn who your market is and what your market wants.
In this article, I’ll discuss some advanced market research methods that will give you tools to help launch your business into the stratosphere of marketing success.
The techniques you’ll learn about here are generally unknown by entry-level entrepreneurs. They are typically used only by the more successful marketing aficionados – and even they normally take a while to learn these methods.
Google Offers Market Research Nuggets Of Gold
When you need help with any aspect of your business management efforts one of the first places to look is often Google. They provide easy access to information about how to create your content to statistics about visitors to your website, conversion rates of those visitors from prospect to buyer (or not) – and more.
The same is true when you need to gain knowledge about who those visitors are. Look to Google for help with your market research.
The first stop I recommend for you at google is Google News.
After you arrive at Google News go to the search box and type in the following keyword terms along with your niche term, and put them in quotes. Say your niche is “nutrition” – your search should look like the following:
“nutrition products announced”
“best new nutrition products”
“best of (current year) nutrition products”
“hot new releases in nutrition”
“best wished for nutrition products”
Study the results to get in-depth insights to coming events. It’s like having a crystal ball look into the future.
With this information, you know what your customers will want to buy next because you’ll know what new fads are about to enter the scene.
Start now to create content and arrange affiliate associations – even create some products of your own – that relate to those fads.
You’ll be way out in front of your competitors who aren’t in the know about what’s looming on the horizon.
The next stop is Google Suggest to get nuggets of gold for your market research.
Google Suggest is the list of recommendations you see pop up every time you enter a term into the Google search box. I’m sure you’ve noticed these. Enter a term like “nutrition” and a list of related terms pop up just below it.
Those terms are what people are actively searching for on the web. Play around with them in Google’s Keyword Planner. Use each term to create website content and to identify product in your niche to present to your customers. Since they’re likely already searching for the information and products you’ll be putting it in front of them at the right time – and before the competition has figured out what you’ve learned.
Click on Google Suggest if you’d like a tutorial.
Let Twitter Aid Your Market Research
Log into your Twitter account (you do have one don’t you?) and look to the left sidebar. There you’ll see a list titled Trends. In that list are links to subjects that other members are currently involved in. You can customize the Trends to fit your niche in order to get access to the whats-happening-now events for your niche in Twitter.
Study the events to gather knowledge about the potential customers who are posting there.
Check Out What Yahoo Has For You
For popular topics in the form of books, news, and videos you can have a look at Yahoo Trends and gain a lot of insight into what your target market is looking for.
For a number of niches trending events show up here before they do anywhere else. Yahoo Trends can give you a jump start on your competition when you make it an integral step in your market research projects.
Last – But Not Least – A Google Trick
Here’s a little Google trick that very few marketers have a clue about.
When you enter a search term for your niche add an asterisk to it and put the whole term in quotations. Perform the search and scroll to the bottom of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Check out the Searches related to “…” list. Do you think if you designed individual websites around each of those terms you just might be able to get some free traffic from Google???
When you include these tactics in your market research arsenal you’ll know the coming trends related to your niche well before your competition and you’ll have the weapons to use toward outpacing that competition to business growth.
To your success.
