Simple market research techniques? It’s not a dream.

Market research helps you create a high-value offer that your ideal customer will love. 

You might not love the idea of research, but never fear, my friend.

I’m going to show you three ridiculously easy and quick market research techniques that are available to anyone right now. 

And you know what else? You might enjoy the process!

Watch the video above or read on.

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When you understand your ideal customer, their needs, their challenges, and their hopes and dreams, online marketing is so much easier. 

And when you apply my market research techniques, you can get accurate information about your perfect customer. That will make it easier to create online offers that they’re interested in. 

Bonus: Accurate information makes it easier to market those offers to your customers, because you know the true needs of your ideal customer and how you can help them.

Related: Create an Eye-opening Ideal Customer Profile [Free Worksheet]

Related: How to Build a Money-Making Online Offer

Market research techniques for new and experienced online business owners 

Do you want to know how to do market research for a new business? Are you  developing a new offer for your online business? You’re going to love these market research techniques.

First off, let’s re-frame the idea of market research. The word “research” can give you visions of scientists with clipboards in labs. That’s not what we’re going to do here. 

These market research techniques are actually fun. 

You don’t need to take my word for it — I teach this approach to members of my Offer Accelerator program, and I hear on a regular basis that they actually enjoy the process. And you will, too. 

So if it’s easier for you, you can think of “market research” as “market exploration” instead, because that’s what this really is.

We’re exploring what’s out there now. We’re listening to what people are saying. We’re capturing their words, and getting inspired by what we find. 

Related: Steal These Testimonial Examples: 6 Designs to Highlight Your Expertise

Step 1 — Find bestselling book reviews on your topic

To start, think about the topic that you help your customers with. How does your ideal customer describe your topic? 

Let’s say you’re a business coach and you want to develop a new coaching offer that helps business owners hit the seven-figure mark.

One very simple way to discover what business owners are thinking about when they’re trying solve this problem is to look at where they’re finding help now. 

This is one of the easiest market research techniques to do. 

Start with the books that they might be buying. Go to Amazon and look at three to five of the bestselling books on your topic. 

For example, I’m going to look at the bestselling books that promise to help people to get to seven figures. I’m going to look for comments about what people loved about the book content, and how it helped them solve their problems. 

Then the fun part — look at what people didn’t like about the book. 

Look at the reviews that have fewer stars. Some of the negative reviews will contain amazing insights into what your ideal customer is looking for and how they didn’t find what they need in these bestselling books.

Record your market exploration results

Open a spreadsheet or a document and make four columns: Source, Positive, Negative, and Ideas. 

Note the name of the book that you’re looking at the reviews for under Source. 

Copy-paste what customers are saying that is positive in the Positive column. 

Copy-paste negative reviews in the Negative column. 

Use your market exploration results to generate ideas

This part is super important. Let your mind wander. Think about how you could create a solution that meets your ideal customer’s needs and helps them in the areas where they feel the book did not help them. 

Capture this thinking under the Ideas column. 

This easy market research technique allows you to listen to the voice of your ideal customer. You can use that person’s frustrations to inspire your solution. 

It’s important to do this slowly and deliberately so that you can get as much inspiration as possible out of this market exploration fun. 

Step 2 — Explore social media groups where your ideal customer hangs out

The second step is to take your market exploration process to social media groups — LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, even YouTube comments on videos about your topic. 

Wherever you see a group of people gathering around the topic that you help people with, you have a source of free information that will help you to see inside the minds of your ideal customer. 

Here’s what to look for: Similar to Amazon book reviews, search out what people loved about the information presented in the group. 

• What did they find especially helpful? 
• What did they find inspiring and useful? 

Put all of this in the Positive column. 

In the Negative column, note any additional questions that people have, or negative comments or complaints that they’ve shared around your topic.

Let’s say that you belong to a group of aspiring seven-figure entrepreneurs. You notice that they all share a similar frustration around building their teams. They say they’re spending too much on hiring people, and they end up with the wrong people in the jobs that they need done. 

They’ve tried listening to podcasts about this topic, taken courses, worked with coaches, and yet they still hire the wrong people and their payroll is too high. 

Note their frustrations in the Negative column and start thinking about how you can solve this problem for them. 

Take some time to do some deep thinking about how you might be able to help people. 

Think about how you can meet the needs that they express in their positive comments, and meet the challenges that they express in their negative comments. 

What could you create, or how could you alter your offer to help them? 

Take your time with this and really think it through, and then add your thoughts to the Ideas column.

Step 3 — Step into your customer’s shoes

For the last of my market research techniques, take a moment to step into the shoes of the people that you want to help. 

Pretend to be them for a few hours. Then search for the same solutions that they’re looking for. 

In this part of the market exploration process, you’re examining existing solutions and learning from what’s already out there. 

Looking at available solutions through the eyes of your ideal customer will help you build an offer that addresses the needs your competitors miss.

Note this information in a separate part of your market exploration document.

As you find your competitors online, make a list of the following: 

• Links to their websites
• Links to their sales pages
• The language on their sales pages
• How their offer is presented
• The headlines on the pages
• What their offer includes
• Pricing information

All of this information is freely available to you. And it’s so important to note this, because you’re going to step into this market and become a part of it. So you need to see what’s out there before you join the party. 

Let’s go back to our example.

Let’s say you want to help those aspiring seven-figure entrepreneurs. You find five websites that offer courses, or membership programs, or coaching around that topic. Note everything they offer, what they charge, and what’s included in their program.

Just like the first two market research techniques that I shared, it’s really important to take an extra step. See what’s out there, and spend some time thinking about how you can become a part of this market and solve problems in a way that is uniquely yours. 

How to beat market exploration overwhelm

Are you feeling overwhelmed? It’s okay. That’s normal at this stage, and there’s a way to fix that.

Sleep on it. 

Really. 

It’s important to give your brain some time to process all the market information that you discovered during your market exploration. 

Take a walk, cook a meal, take a drive, live your life. Let your mind absorb this information and think about it over a few days to see what you come up with. 

If you have a trusted coach, colleague, or friend who understands your business and your goals, take some time to talk over what you discovered with them.

These simple market research techniques will give you so much information about what your ideal customer truly needs, and how their current needs aren’t being met by the solutions that are available on the market right now. 

Use your market research powers to create your high-value offer

This work will give you profound insights into how you can help solve your customer’s problems. That  puts you in an enviable position for developing an online offer that will help them. 

Even better, you’ll learn how your ideal customers talk about their needs in the exact words they use. 

You become so much more informed about how you can serve your ideal customer and how your offer can fit into the marketplace.

This is one of the reasons that we tackle market exploration in the first week of my Offer Accelerator program. These market research techniques are so empowering!

Need help creating a high-value online offer that generates $10-20,000 a month in revenue? Take a look at my Offer Accelerator program. I’ll help you use these market research techniques so you develop an offer your ideal customer will find irresistible!