3 Ways to Test the Market: How do I Know My Business Will Work?
Starting a business is a massive investment. Before even launching, you will need to spend money on building a platform, gathering resources, registering the business, and more. Post-launch, you need to worry about marketing, upkeep and various other expenses.
Likewise, most people don’t want to invest all of that money into something they thought of one night after one too many beers and a whimsical chat with friends. They want to know the idea they’re investing in has a good shot at succeeding.
You’re probably thinking of it that way too, right now. So, how do you do it? How do you find a proper product market fit your business to know people actually want what you aim to sell?
Well, here are three easy ways to figure that out.
1. Surveys
What’s an easier way to get someone’s opinion than just asking them outright? Surveys are easy to pull off, typically free, and you can use the power of social media or one of many business-oriented survey platforms to get plenty of samples for an accurate result.
When you use the survey method, you typically present a description of what you’re wanting to know, and then you provide several optional answers for the surveyed to choose from.
Make sure you take the time to carefully design your survey and ensure that it is clear, easy to understand, and effective.
This is your big shot to see exactly what people think, and you want to make the most of it. If applicable, try to offer a comment field. With social media surveys, this is already provided for obvious reasons. Doing this will allow you to see more detailed responses to whatever you present.
2. Landing Page Creation
You can also opt to set the stage a bit and see how well it performs before you even attempt selling anything. Consider this a mock launch.
For this, you’ll create landing pages. A landing page is part of a website that is designed to take in leads from search results and backlinks and present those leads with marketing-heavy material right off the bat.
This can also be extremely cost-effective. You just need a hosting service, a webpage builder, and a bit of time to build a couple of SEO-oriented landing pages. Give it a month or two, and see how many clicks your site gets. With a little extra funding, you can even market the mock landing pages via cheap social media ads.
If there’s a lot of interest, go for it. If not, readjust your efforts or rethink your business idea.
3. Focus Groups
A focus group is when you assemble a small group of unaffiliated, random people, and you pitch your product to them in person. This gives you the opportunity to have a face-to-face sit down with people who have zero incentive to care about your product and you receive direct feedback from them instantaneously.
These are cost-effective and all you really need is a way to incentivize people coming in to show up for a few hours.
You can even do this remotely via Zoom or other video call platforms.
Test the Market First, Save Yourself Some Stress Later
It’s important to test the market before you launch a business. If you dive head-first into the deep end, you can find out the hard –and expensive- way that some ideas just won’t work.
By testing the market, you can get a preview of how your business will perform, and if it doesn’t meet expectations, you can always readjust the approach or tweak the type of business you aim to make.
Whatever you do, just don’t give up!