In this article, I am going to talk about different ways you can research your target market to find out what they need and what they want before even coming up with a product or service to offer them.
1. Forums
The first place you can head down to is forums in your niche. Just go to Google and type the words internet marketing, weight loss or personal development followed by that word and there will be tons of those related to those.
Then click on that link and register your account there.
After you got it verified and approved, you may post your photo and add a signature linking to your blog or landing page or both.
However, do not go about spamming people with your links.
Instead focus on providing good valuable content as in introducing yourself as a form of courtesy and then providing answers and suggestions to what people are asking in their threads through your posts.
From my experience, there are 4 types of members.
A. Those who whine and complain
B. Those who asked questions
C. Those who answered them and
D. Those who look at the whole picture and then create or recommend products based on what most people need and want actually.
2. Facebook Groups
At the time of writing this, Facebook is already becoming popular these days.
One of which is groups that you can search for pertaining to your niche and joined once you registered your account.
However the same rule applies as when you are posting in forums.
Do not go about putting links. Instead take time to address people’s concerns and build relationship with them through those.
Once you have done so, you can add them as your friends, messaged them privately and then forming your own group to invite them.
Upon having your own group, you can post your affiliate links or own products and recommend whatever is best suited for them.
3. Meetup Groups
This is one method that internet marketers hardly talked about but it is very popular in my country Singapore.
Even though it started in US in the wake of 9/11 terrorist attacks to bring people together for fellowship and build stronger bonds.
Meetup is very similar to Facebook in such that it is a social media and networking people.
The only difference is people do not just go there to interact online but to form or join groups based on their interest and common problems.
4. Yahoo Answers
This is another popular avenue you may consider.
In which people asked questions about various topics and another group answering accordingly.
But because I have not posted for a long time, I am not going to elaborate on this further.
5. 43 Things
That is another popular site in which people posted their New Year resolutions and wishes.
Find out and take note of which are the ones most frequently put up and market your products according to those.
6. Magazines.
Magazines is another hot site.
Truth being said, publishers spend a lot of money coming up with printed publications.
Hence what they intend to write and publish must be answers addressing what most people are concerned with right now.
7. Google
Last but not least, you can still do research on Google.
There are 2 ways to go about doing so.
One is just typing any keyword. Upon doing so, you will see a string of other relevant long-tail keywords pertaining to the one you just entered.
You can also head down to Google Keyword Planner to find out more as in the number of people searching for those keywords, competition level as to how many sites are being put up to address and how many marketers bid for those keywords in their paid traffic ads.
Having said that, finding out who your target market is, their needs and wants should be your first step and foundation of starting any business whether you are doing online or offline.