21 Things to Research for Your Online Business

As discussed in the last post, successful online marketing starts and ends with research. All other things being equal, the marketer that does the best job at research wins.

So what sorts of questions should you being looking to answer with your research? Here’s a list of 21 to start with . . .

1. Where do your prospects “hang out” online?
2. What other products/services do your prospects buy?
3. What conversations do your prospects have going on in their heads when they’re looking for your product/service (or related ones)?
4. What specific problems do prospects want your product/service to help them solve?
5. What are the exact words they use to describe these problems?
6. What is the level of sophistication of the market (ie. is it a fairly new market that hasn’t been marketed to a lot or a mature one where the prospects have seen and heard it all from advertisers)?
7. What is the level of awareness of the market (ie. is your product/service relatively new and unique or is it widely known)?
8. What similar products/services are being offered by your competition?
9. How is your product/service the same as the competition’s?
10. More importantly, how is your product/service different from the competition’s?
11. Where is your competition advertising?
12. What are the specific offers your competition is making?
13. Who are potential joint venture or affiliates you could partner with?
14. What are the latest industry trends?
15. What are the latest national/global trends that could be influencing your prospects and customers?
16. What are the most widely read blogs in your market?
17. What are the most widely used message boards in your market?
18. What are the most widely used social networking sites/groups in your market?
19. What potentially underserved niches exist in your market?
20. What are the most common benefits mentioned in ads targeted to your prospects?
21. What keywords would prospects be typing in to find your product/service (or a related one)?

An Internet Marketing Fundamentals 2-For-1

We’ve been exploring concepts that are important to understand before jumping on the online marketing bandwagon. We’ve looked at two already – why the secret to online marketing is offline and why you should focus on just one thing. We’ll add two more today.

The first is “Do It Wrong Quickly.”

This is the title of a good online marketing book written by Mike Moran (although it’s written more for those in large companies than small business owners).

It’s also is a great phrase that quickly and clearly describes this important concept.

The web allows you to test, sometimes in a matter of hours, how well your marketing strategy is working. Faster, cheaper, and easier than ever before you can see exactly what’s getting the desired response and what isn’t.

The key is to start small and don’t sink most of your marketing budget into a surefire, slam dunk marketing plan that you and/or some marketing consultant came up with. Because it doesn’t matter how great you think the plan is, it only matters what your prospects think. And it’s amazing how frequently what you think and what they think don’t mesh.

So the get it wrong quickly concept is this: start small, see what works, quickly get rid of what doesn’t work, quickly build on what does.

And that leads nicely to the second concept in our 2-for-1 special.

It’s the Pareto Principle, commonly known as the 80/20 rule. This rule basically states the 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.

To give an example from the world of online marketing – in AdWords you’ll see that 80% (or likely much more) of your results come from 20% of your keywords.

Another example is that you’ll find 80% (again, probably much more) of your video traffic comes from YouTube. The 80/20 rule dictates that it’s not worth posting your videos on every other little video sharing site because the additional traffic you’ll generate won’t be worth the investment of your time.

Let’s put these two concepts together now.

As you “do it wrong quickly” you’ll start finding that some of the things your try work very well – whether they be keywords, Google ads, SEO, article marketing, video marketing, etc.

As you find the ones that work, focus your attention on them.

Optimize them. Refine them. Test them.

You’ll be much more efficient and productive by focusing your attention on the 20% (or 10% or even 1%) of the things that are producing 80% (or 90% or 99%) of the results instead wasting your time on the 80% of things that will only drive 20% of your results.

There are 1000s of ways you can drive traffic to your website and build your online business. You can’t possibly use them all (at least not without a large staff anyway).

So throw some spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks. Then quickly focus 80% or more of your efforts on the ones that do and build your internet empire from there!

How To Build a Fortune Online Through Sleep Deprivation

Two ideas that have the potential to make huge amounts of money came to me in the wee hours this morning while unsuccessfully trying to get our 10 week old to sleep.

1. Ambien for Babies. While I have no doubt this would be a huge seller, I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea of drugging my any child (a few more sleepless nights, however, and I may come around).

2. A membership website that teaches parents how to get their babies to sleep through the night.

I thought a lot about the latter between 4:13am and 6:47am this morning and seriously think it could be a goldmine.

You’d be serving a huge market. There are over 130 million babies born worldwide every year which means somewhere between 130 million and 260 million desperate, cranky, sleep-deprived parents searching for solutions. Even if the vast majority don’t have internet access, you’re still left with a pool of millions of parents each year on the verge of being literally willing to give up their first born for some sleep. What’s not to love about those demographics (at least from a business standpoint)?

Marketing will be a snap. It’s often said the key to effective marketing is to identify what’s keeping your prospect up at night. Not terribly difficult to do in this case, is it?

I put together a blueprint for developing and marketing such a site that I’m happy to share here:

• The site should be primarily video based. Bleary-eyed parents can’t see straight and will be in no mood to read.
• The videos should demonstrate various techniques and tips on how to get a baby to sleep, how to get them to sleep through the night, and how to get them on a regular sleeping schedule.
• When babies appear in these videos, make sure you only show them sleeping. Two main reasons. One, you’re selling hope. Nothing is going to be more hopeful to parents then to see a sleeping baby (even if it’s not theirs at the moment). Second, hearing the sound of another kid screaming could very well push sleep deprived parents over the edge.
• Include a message board so parents can create support groups and trade additional tips and techniques on how to get their little bundles of joy to sleep at night.

Once you’ve got the content developed, it’s on to marketing. I’m a big fan of Google AdWords (though as an Google AdWords Professional, I’m a bit biased). Running a campaign to sell a product like this should be a snap, but here are a few tips to optimize your AdWords campaign’s performance:

• Use the “Advanced Ad Scheduling” feature in AdWords. This lets you adjust your bid prices depending on the time of day. Be sure to increase your bid prices between midnight and 6AM. While I usually don’t recommend bidding for the top spot in the AdWords rankings, it’s probably not a bad idea in this case. You’re going to want your ads to appear as high up in the rankings as possible so they are the first thing a parent sees when doing a search.
• Keyword research is always, well, key to a successful AdWords campaign. Here are a few keywords to get you started: “How to get a baby to sleep”, “my baby won’t sleep”, “baby sleeping tips”, “baby sleeping problems” and “AAAAHHHHHHH!”.
• Be sure to also use some “turn the corner” keywords. This is a strategy where you find keywords that are likely to have people searching on them who need your product or service, but they just don’t know it yet. In this case, think keywords related to birth control and adoption.

So there you have it – a blueprint to get you started on building and marketing an incredible membership site that will have the SWISS money piling in. If you run with this idea be sure to let me know when you have your site up. I’ll be your first member. In the meantime, PLEASE post whatever tips you have on getting a fussy baby to sleep in the comment section.

P.S. Check back here soon for more on membership sites. While I had some fun with this post, creating a membership site is, I believe, one of the most viable online business models out there. I’ll have more on them in future posts, but first I need a nap.