The 4-Step Quick Guide to Test Market Your New Product Idea

The 4-Step Quick Guide to Test Market Your New Product Idea

Okay, let’s take a quick detour from reality for a moment…

You’re a 3-time Archery champion in the Unites States. You have a wall full of medals and trophies, and you feel you’ve accomplished everything you set out to do in the sport. So now it’s time to officially retire.

In the last few months, you’ve had this awesome idea for an information product that would teach beginning archers some of the secrets you’ve learned for becoming a world class archer extraordinaire. You’re super pumped about the idea, but continue to be plagued with the nagging question… “Will anyone actually buy my product?”

Okay back to reality…

While you may not be a champion archer, you may have found yourself in a similar place… you have these awesome product ideas (in your mind) that you want to launch on the web, but are not 100% sure if they’ll really fly or not.

Well, there are a few smart, simple (and low-cost) ways to test market your new product idea to ensure you’re launching a product that will actually convert!

Here are four quick steps to consider…

1. Be actively engaged in target forums and social network conversations

Research the top forums in your market and join the conversation. Look at what posts seem to be generating the most comments and make note of common topics that keep resurfacing.

You can also search relevant keyword conversations in Twitter and Facebook or review videos in YouTube and see what common challenges and pain points keep recurring.

Taking our archery example, the archer forums might reveal the most common struggles that a beginner will experience when they’re just starting out. This is golden information that can give you a starting place for the types of things your audience would like to learn more about.

2. Research similar products in your market

If I wanted to create a killer “how to” archery info product, I would spend lots of time Googling relevant keywords to see what types of products currently exist in the market. This research will help you uncover potential gaps in the market, as well as ways to improve upon existing products.

WARNING: One serious pitfall many people fall into is identifying a noticeable gap in the market and just assuming that a product here will sell like crazy. There is still another step that needs to be taken before moving into full product creation mode.

3. Set up a simple squeeze page with a free offer and run a small test

This is a terrific next step… set up a simple squeeze page (opt-in page) that includes a free offer. It might be something like a quick PDF guide revealing “10 Archery Secrets from a Three-Time World Champion”.

Then, test out how the page and offer converts.

Share the squeeze page with your social network connections and in target forums. You might also run a small Google Adwords or Facebook Ads test and see what the conversions look like.

Again, this is a simple way to quickly find out if there’s a potential market for this type of offer.

Now, of course, you may find that you need to test a number of different squeeze pages and offers to see what resonates best with your audience.

4. Run a “Seed Launch” to test market your idea BEFORE you create your product!

The Seed Launch is pure magic when it comes to test marketing a new product idea.

It originated from the creative mind of our fearless leader Jeff Walker, and has been used by thousands of entrepreneurs around the world to effectively test market new product ideas.

There are 9 simple steps to setting up a Seed Launch that are ideally suited for anyone with a new product idea that would like to test their idea before actually creating the product. It’s the perfect way to converse with your audience, uncover their biggest questions and needs, and ultimately identify what the market wants.

So, there you have it… a few ideas for market testing your new product ideas.

Remember, the product creation process doesn’t have to be a guessing game. You can use these practical and repeatable steps to ensure you create killer products your market will buy again and again.