How to determine if there is a "market" (demand) for a product/service?

Hello,

I’m sorry if this question has already been asked… (I’m sure it has!)… but I did some searching and couldn’t really find any succinct answers.

Basically, I am trying to find out how to find out if there is a “market” for a product or idea.

For example, let’s say that I have an idea of creating (and then selling) a ebook on how to make puzzles.

How would I find out the information I need to know if this would be a good idea or not?

For example:

  • How to find google stats on how many people search using the keywords of “how to” “make” “puzzle”, etc…

I hope that makes sense?

Basically, I get lots of ideas… and some of them I think might possibly be good… but I don’t want to invest too much time/money into something if there is no demand for it.

Please note – I’m not asking for information on how to market my service/product. What I’m trying to find out is if there is any demand for my service/product. I don’t want to spend weeks/months/thousands building my product, then doing advertising… and finding out that there is no market for it.

Yes, I know… everyone wants to know how to do this… which is precisely why I am posting here and hoping the replies will not only be useful to me… but other creative folks with ideas, too.

Thanks! :slight_smile:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal - The AdWords estimator for G will give you an idea on the monthly search volume for the keywords / phrases.

But as far as determining if there is a true market for a product…I’m not aware of any specific resource that will tell you that.

also u can do competitior research what they are using and what their analysis that also help u.

Best way to find out if you have a market to sell too is to invest money in adwords. You should have statcounter or a similar service installed on your site. Track all the keywords that bring traffic and track those that generate sells.

You should start with some keywords and as it was suggested for this task try the keyword suggestion tool. But use those keywords only as a start point.

  1. Install WP on a domain
  2. Get a theme that is close enough to your target market
  3. Create 2-3 pages of content and a sales page (note that you do NOT have to spend the time and money to create the actual product yet)
  4. Run Adwords ads pointing to your site
  5. Count any person who clicks the Buy it Now button on your sales page as a conversion

Do the above, and you’ll have an indication as to how many people are searching for your product/service on Google (number of ad impressions) and a rough conversion rate for visitors.

Of course, you’ll tweak your ads and copy later to increase your conversion rate and you’ll throw some SEO magic at your site to try to get organic traffic as well but the good thing is you won’t waste your time doing all the hard work until after you’ve determined if there is a market or not.

AdWords is probably the best option, as others have mentioned.

If want to get a feeling for the level of interest without spending money, you can get some idea by writing an article at eHow or eZineArticles. The number of visitors and publishers will give you an idea of how popular that topic is. You could even host a poll or short survey of some type on your website or single-page webpage (click through from the article) to get a little more data (how many actually click, how many participate) - just keep it simple and anonymous so visitors are more likely to enter the poll.

Joanna

Joanna Lees-Castro

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