hey my friend Adam here and in this
video I want to share with you five fast
easy free but most important of all
proven and profitable market research
strategies that you can use right now
and that are going to help you figure
out exactly what to do how to do it and
who to do it for in order to give you
and your business the best chance of
success possible because in today's
hyper-competitive business World
identifying targeting and then reaching
your ideal target market is your
business's first and maybe even most
important goal after all people can't
buy from you if they don't know that you
exist and people won't buy from you if
they don't know why they should care and
market research is the tool that's going
to give you the answers to both of these
incredibly important questions also a
big thank you to HubSpot for sponsoring
this video but more on that later for
now let's Dive Right In first off it's
important to note that whether we're
using the terms target audience ideal
audience target market Target customers
ideal customers customer avatars or
basically any other combination of those
words they all pretty much mean the same
thing which is nothing more than a group
of customer members that you want to
reach or sell to now your total Market
is all of the people that could
potentially buy whatever it is that
you're selling in marketing this is
called a tam that stands for total
addressable Market but here's the thing
even though this is going to sound
completely backwards you don't actually
want to sell to everybody in your total
Market because everybody isn't the best
fit what you want instead is a segment
of the market that you can serve best a
segment made up of customers who want
what you have and are happy willing and
able to pay you for the True Value that
you provide and that segment is your
target market or target audience
customer Avatar ideal customers you you
know the terms so if you've ever been
frustrated because your customers just
don't seem to get it well it could be
something as simple as you're just going
after the wrong segment or you're going
after the right segment but in the wrong
way using the wrong words and messages
and offers now this next part is really
important so I'm going to say it as
slowly and clearly as possible feel free
to pause the video or even rewind and
re-watch this a couple times matching
your message to your target market is
the key to success and getting this
right will immediately make all of your
marketing 10 times maybe even a hundred
times more effective and more profitable
making attracting new customers and
making more sales easier than ever
before but get this wrong and well sadly
this is one of the biggest reasons that
most businesses fail and at best you're
just gonna keep going around in circles
feeling stuck and stalled and frustrated
and overwhelmed and I want better for
you and this is why one of the best
places to start anytime you're thinking
of starting a new business or launching
a new offer or introducing a new product
or service to the market is Amazon
no not the Jungle the website and here's
why the fastest and easiest place to get
ideas inspiration and do research on
both your customers as well as your
competitors is Amazon or any other
online book retailer will do this is
because books typically take a longer
time to write and to edit and to publish
than most of the other forms of media
out there which means you can be at
least a little more confident in the
information that's being presented
opposed to say basing your entire
marketing strategy off a tweet that
somebody posted at two o'clock in the
morning I'm thinking about starting a
DVD rental store it's going to be huge
bro
but you're not just going to Amazon to
browse you're on a mission uh market
research mission
which when I say it out loud makes it
sound like the most boring Mission ever
anyway what you want to do here is look
up books in your Market your Niche or
your industry and see what the titles
are what the descriptions say how many
reviews there are and what the reviews
say the titles will tell you what topics
angles and hooks people want to read
about the description of the book is
basically a mini marketing message and
is designed to highlight the benefits of
the book and you can use this to get an
idea for how other people are talking
about the pains and problems that your
customers experience and the number of
reviews the book has will show how many
people care about the topic enough to
actually post a review read the five
star reviews to find out what people
liked and why so you can make sure your
business offers those same Solutions and
read the one in two star reviews so you
can see what the book missed or what
people didn't like so you can choose
whether or not to include those things
in your marketing another thing that you
want to do here not just with Amazon but
with all of the resources and tools and
strategies that I'm going to be sharing
with you throughout the rest of this
video is start to use that information
to put together an ideal customer Avatar
or if you already have an ideal customer
Avatar then using the information that
you gather and collect and essentially
research to compare against it in order
to make sure that you continue doing the
right things for the right people in the
right place now the whole ideal customer
Avatar thing is completely new to you
don't worry it sounds way more
complicated than it actually is and it's
really just a fiction although sometimes
real representation of who your best
customer is and it's made up of all of
the things that they have in common
these are things like their demographic
details like age gender income
occupation and titles Geographic details
like wide city state Province or country
they live in and most importantly of all
psychographic details like what are
their values their attitudes their
Lifestyles beliefs or any groups or
organizations that they're a part of
another thing you can do is take
advantage of and download the free
market research kit provided by this
video sponsor HubSpot so let me walk you
through that now hubspot's market
research kit is made up of five
different research and planning
templates and comes with a free free
guide on how to use them in your market
research and will help you find out
important industry and Market factors
like the market size and Trends the
regulations gaps in the market and
Market demographics it can help you
build a buyer profile with all the
things we just talked about like age
gender income level lifestyle Trends
needs and attitudes it'll give you
guidelines for competitor research
looking at pricing structures and market
share and marketing and branding and
hubspot's free market research kit
includes an industry analysis template
to kick-start your market research and
basically get you up and running as
quickly as possible if you know you need
market research but don't know where to
start then start here as the kit
includes an instructional guide SWOT
analysis templates available as word
docs or interactive design PDFs survey
template focus group template
presentation template and five forces
industry analysis template so make sure
to click the link in the descriptions
below right after this video and
download your free market research kit
today next let me show you another
powerful tool you can use to get access
to more data and information than you
you ever thought possible using think
with Google research think with Google
research is a treasure Trove of googly
goodness but the two things that I want
to direct your attention to are number
one find my audience and number two
Google Trends so let's start with find
my audience first if you've ever run
Google ads before then it's going to
look pretty familiar as it allows you to
look over and dive into different
in-market and Affinity segments for
example if I pick in market and then
Business Services I can see advertising
and marketing Services business and
financial services business Printing and
Document Services business technology
and a whole bunch of other businessy
related services and topics and products
that people are interested in and I can
click on any one of these like say
advertising and marketing services and I
can learn more about this audience
including what other YouTube channels
they watch what other purchases they
make what other audiences they're likely
to be a part of and other subcategories
within advertising and marketing
services that I may want to check out as
well it's a powerful little tool
especially when combined with this next
one Google Trends Google Trends is
another fantastic market research tool
especially to give you sort of an
overview or high level 30 000 foot view
on a business or topic or industry or
essentially anything that may be
trending all you have to do is simply
enter a search term and it'll tell you
the level of interest that this topic
has both now and in the past for example
let me type in something random like say
sock knitting in order to see what's
going on in the industry right now well
according to Google Trends it looks like
a pretty stable topic over the past 12
months with a pretty obvious spike in
November which makes sense as these are
probably a pretty popular gift around
the holiday time but we can also take a
look at it over different time frames
not to mention breaking it down by
different countries in different states
you can also see any related topics or
my personal favorite related queries
which in this case is going to show us
the terms crazy sock lady and Centro
knitting machine which are topping the
charts with the term vintage sock
knitting machine showing an increase in
interest of 550 percent powerful stuff
and I'm sure I don't need to tell you
just how incredibly useful it is to know
exactly what people are searching for
what they're interested in and the exact
keywords that they're using in order to
find it okay next let's do a little
competitor research in order to dive a
little deeper into your competitors and
find out if they're really as smart as
they think they are now there are two
big dangers that you need to look out
for when you're doing competitor
research the first is not knowing who
your competitors are or ignoring them
completely which is inexcusable and for
lack of a better term just silly after
all even if they're doing most things
wrong well there's still lessons to be
learned and the second danger is copying
them completely which leads you coming
off as a second raid version of them and
99 times out of 100 people are just
going to want to go for the original
version
foreign
so with that said here's how you do
competitor research the right way
first off you need to make a list of
your competitors and group them into one
of four different groups number one is
direct these are people that sell what
you sell to who you sell next is
indirect these are people that sell what
you sell to a different group or
different segment of the market number
three is colleagues these are people
that sell something different to who you
sell and number four is Futures these
are people that sell something to people
who will eventually become your target
audience for example if you sell running
shoes they may sell walking shoes or
books that teach people how to run once
you have these lists you want to start
diving into their content and their
website and their social media profiles
what do they offer what do they talk
about and how do they talk about it are
they cheap expensive fast slow boring
strange interesting new novel shiny
tasty you need to know what's out there
so you could know what they're doing and
how you're going to differentiate
yourself from them but also so you can
see what's working and what's not so
here's the deal on that well I never
advise judging the success of your
business or your marketing campaign on
vanity metrics such as likes and comment
and shares they do provide at least a
small level of value at least insofar as
figuring out what Their audience likes
and enjoys what content they want to see
more of and less of that said an
important Point here is that there is a
very big difference between buyers and
non-buyers and you want to make very
sure that you're basing your business
and marketing decisions off of people
that are actually willing to pay and buy
whatever it is that you're selling not
just with likes and loves and hugs and
high fives but with money because that's
how business works so let's talk about
that next now full disclosure if you're
in the early stages of launching a new
business or starting a new company then
this next part isn't going to apply to
you yet but this is a big but I cannot
lie it's still something that you want
to pay attention to because moving
forward you're going to want to know
what to pay attention to and what to be
able to ignore in order to give your
business or your startup or new company
or whatever it is that you're launching
the highest likelihood of success
possible and if you happen to already
have a business with current or previous
customers then you my friend are sitting
on a gold mine so here's how to make the
most of it first look through your
previous and existing customer database
and rank your customers from most
profitable to least profitable then take
a look at the top 20 of your customers
and look for any common Trends or themes
or characteristics for example are they
all women or all men are they all
between the ages of 20 and 30 or 40 and
50. do they all buy the same thing and
if so what is it then once you have this
information Dig Deeper by seeing if you
can talk to them and ask them a few
questions about their needs and why they
chose you and what they love most about
your business after all they are your
best customers so it only makes sense to
use the answers they give you to build
more specific marketing content and
messages around them of course if you
don't have the option to talk to them or
you don't have any customers at all yet
there's still another incredibly
powerful market research tool that you
can use right now in order to get nearly
instant feedback so let me walk you
through that now originally popularized
way back in 2007 by author Tim Ferriss
when he wrote the four hour work week he
advised using Google AdWords in order to
test different headlines and different
descriptions in order to find that
mythical and magical winning combination
essentially running a split test with
different Google ads trying to figure
out which title got more clicks and then
using that as the title of the book
which is what gave us the four hour work
week and not what was originally
proposed broadband and white sand well
my friend good news this tactic still
works today although my personal
preference is to use Facebook ads or
Instagram ads as this not only allows me
to test simple text but I'm also able to
test out different images and different
Graphics as well as different videos if
I want to go down that road not to
mention for most people just getting
started out with online advertising
Facebook ads are typically just a little
bit easier to sort of ease into than
Google ads but if you want to know one
of the best marketing strategies out
there well I've got a little secret to
tell you a little secret that's going to
allow you to influence and persuade and
guide your customers in whatever
Direction you want all by tap into
powerful sales and marketing
psychological triggers and cognitive
biases that work no matter what business
Market or industry you're in so to show
you exactly what those are and how you
can use them today I've put together
this video right here so make sure to
check that out now and I'll see you in
there in just a second