Market Research. Niche It. Niche It Good.

You are not a marketer. You have no clue how to do market research to find customers that would be interested in your business. Instead, you have based the worthiness of your business idea on some unintelligent processes. You have mentioned your business idea to all your family and friends - casually, of course, you probably even waited until they were two drinks in - and they all gave polite murmurings of approval. Now, here you still are, on your couch, no further along, frustrated, clueless about what to do next, and wondering if you have an alcohol problem.

Well, lucky for all of you, I partner with Fortune 500 marketers and here are some intelligent processes for conducting market research.

Buy 5 magazines on the topic you are interested in. You need to be able to find about 5, so this may mean also getting some local newsprint papers (a regional monthly or weekly paper will do).

Next, read all of the advertisements and notice if the same advertisers or same type of advertisements are in each publication. The articles and ads will give you amazing insight on what your potential market is interested in, buys, sells, vacations, etc.

Also, take note of the financial indicators. For example, are there vacation ads in the publications? If so, get online and find out if the vacations run about $2,000 or $6,000 or $15,000. You can then further classify your potential readership into middle class, upper middle class or weathly.

This is key: look for a niche amongst all those ads and articles. Get very specific about how you can improve your potential client's life.

Think very small niche. For example, I was recently sharing market strategies with someone wanting to do personal life histories. You can't get much more specific than that.

The next step was to breakdown down potential markets into very targeted segments. For his business idea, potential niches include people that want to give the gift of knowledge: seniors, families realizing a loved one's life history is lost to Alzheimers, or new parents looking to do a family tree for newborn babies.

Another segment for market research would be people that need documented personal histories in order to associate with a particular group such as the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Also, people whose personal hobbies incorporate your business idea are an often under utilized market segment for finding customers. For his personal history concept, he could find a magazine or newletter on quilters and research the ones that make those ridiculously beautiful story quilts of people's lives. Those go for many thousands of dollars. His service would be a terrific compliment to such a quilt.

Moral of the story is, market research into smaller and smaller segments and identify unmet needs. Find people with hobbies that are targeted at the same concept as your business idea. The customers are there and they want you bad.

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