How do we assess customer needs & wants?

Himani, there are a variety of ways to do this. It will also depend on the specific niche, their demographics, buying behavior, etc.

I will share one way on how I do it. It will involve a modest investment in using paid advertising, but the data you will receive will be invaluable. You can certainly use social media for this, but paid traffic is much, much faster and easier to scale up if needed.

1. Onced you've identified the niche that you want to research, set up a simple website with a simple survey where you will ask your target market a few simple questions.

The questions will vary, but you will want to tap into their biggest challenges, hopes, and dreams. Let's use the dating advice for men niche as an example:

a. Are you male or female? (I'm not going to assume that only men would be interested in this topic, by keeping some questions open-ended like this you will find some real gold nuggets).

b. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to learning how to become better at meeting women?

c. How old are you?

d. How often do you leave your home to go out and meet new people?

e. How would you rate your social life on a scale of 1 to 10? Ten being totally awesome and 1 being you have no social life whatsoever.

f. Have you ever purchased a product or service to help you with this area in your life?

g. If you answered yes to "f", what did you buy and how much did it cost you?

h. If you could only focus on one thing to improve your dating life, what would it be?

i. Is there anything else you can think of that might help you get what you want?

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Then sign up for a Pay Per Click account at Google Adwords and /or Bing and start sending traffic to your survey. Now, there are some nuances that I won't be able to cover here, such as which keywords to use, but there are plenty of keyword tools out there that can help you with that.

Now why would anyone fill out your survey? Well, you want to offer them something. I generally will offer an 8 to 20 page report and/or my first product to them for free. This will get more people to fill out your survey so your webpage should make it clear that they will be getting something for their time.

You'll want to get anywhere from 30 to 50 surveys filled out to give you a good idea on what that market wants / needs. Some marketers will do this and they will offer a free 15 or 30 minute phone or skype consultation over the phone so they create a field for people to leave their phone numbers and/or Skype ID.

This way you can TALK to your target audience and really find out what makes them tick.

If you don't know how to set up such a website you can find people on websites like Fiverr, Odesk, eLance, etc. You can also use a service like SurveyMonkey.com.

Here's a really killer copywriting tip: the answers that you receive from these surveys can be used in your sales copy! These will be the psychological triggers that you can put into the written word to get people to either opt-in and/or buy your products / services.

There are plenty of other ways to do this type of market research, but it's one of my favorites because it's simple and it gets results fast! Now, if you don't get enough surveys in a few days then you're either not using the right keywords or you're in a niche that might not be big enough to sustain a business.

RoD

Hi Himani,

Rod mentioned a pretty popular method - The "survey" method. However, the problem with that is the information you get won't be complete truth, unlike probed interviews face-to-face with a prospect.

Besides, you also need a high statistical significance & sample size, and it can be hard to get common points from the population unless you design a linear-scale survey, which may limit the motives of the survey.

Here are some alternative (and easier ways):

==> Get your competitor's research.

Look at their sales page. If the headline is a benefit, it's probably the biggest "want" that the customers want (unless there is poor copywriting, of course). Look at their marketing. They've probably already done the research for you. I'm not asking you to steal, but competitors do this all the time.

Remember that if you want to one-up your competitor, you can't mirror what he/she is doing. You need to be one-step ahead. But this is what you can do to get to where he/she is from scratch.

==> Seek emotional words from customers, instead of prospects

Look at goldmines like Amazon, where customers post their reviews of products that they've bought.

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Key thing is to remember: Watch what people are doing, as opposed to what they say.

Why? Because, most of the time, buying is an emotional decision. And the logic that "supposedly" comes before the emotion, is actually backwards rationalization. Emotion always comes before logic.


Good luck,
James Fame

Here's something that has alway been critical to my marketing. Step way back from your product and even your customer and look at people in general. What do people want?

They want to feel good. Just about everything people buy, they buy it either to directly or indirectly feel better about themselves or where they are in life. Even the guy who runs to the hardware store to get stuff to fix a leaky faucet is doing it so his wife will be happy and in turn he will be happy. I realize that's a generalization but the underlying reason is always the same.

Okay, now apply that to your products or services. Here's an example. Why do women want to lose weight? There are a number of reasons but they always point to feeling good. Maybe they want to lose weight so they'll be able to wear more stylish clothes. Maybe they want to look better for a guy or guys in general. Maybe they want to have more energy, sleep better or be more healthy.

And what do all of these things have in common? Every one of them makes the gal feel good. Same thing applies to men with obvious variations.

You ask about writing copy and designing offers based on wants and needs. Okay, look at what I've just pointed out about losing weight. Weight loss is a massive market but weight loss for women that want to fit into new, stylish clothes is a very definite niche.

Say you choose to market to that niche. You know the underlying desire is to feel better. And the customer will feel better when they are able to buy the nice new threads they dream about.

How hard is it now to speak to their needs and desires? It's not hard at all. You might say stuff like: Imagine how you're going to feel on that momentous day that you're able to fit into that fine, satin little black dress (or whatever). Or, You'll feel all bubbly inside knowing that special someone has finally noticed how beautiful you are... (and XYZ product is going to allow you to reach that goal).

You get the idea. Start at the top (the desire to feel good) and chunk down to the emotional buttons you've got to touch to deliver a compelling way to meet the goal. Just about every product and service I've ever encountered can be marketed with this approach and a bit of creativity. Good luck.

Just a thought ... if someone already has a sizeable list, could they send an email to that list, inviting the members to go to a web page to complete the survey in return for a free gift? "I would like to know a little about you" or "We want to know more about your needs and thoughts ... please click here to complete a short survey and by way of thanks we will give you this valuable report". Or something along those lines? It may not be as scientific as a series of online surveys, but more direct.

I've heard that surveying one's list periodically is a good idea in any case. This article is dated but gives the general idea.
Three Good Reasons to Survey Your E-Mail List | ClickZ

Simple...1 letter word "research!"
Visit forums, read salesletter for products...see what they say, see what people are asking...

Forums, are an excellent place. People, tell you what they need...what their issues are...what they want.