Previously we discussed why information products are perhaps one of the best ways of making money online (”Information Publishing - The Perfect Online Business!“), and why people pay for information, even though there’s so much free stuff available on the Internet. (”The Need To Know - Why People Pay For Information Products“) We’ve also looked at ways of coming up with ideas for products. (”Finding Your Ideal Niche“)

Now let’s get down to action and make some real money, shall we?

(Incidentally, if you’ve still haven’t got any ideas for a niche, don’t worry. Ideas are all around you, it’s just a question of keeping your eyes and ears out for them. As you keep reading this blog, you’ll be surprised how an idea might suddenly pop into your head from nowhere. Just make sure you write it down!)

If you recall from my last post, the #1 reason people buy information products is because it solves a problem or a series of problems they are having, or it appeals to their desires - or both.

So now we need to find out what problems and challenges face our potential customers, so we can sell them the solutions! How do we do that?

The obvious answer would be to ask. Unfortunately, asking directly as a marketer isn’t always the most effective way of finding out, because your potential market may not share this information too easily with you.

I find that the most effective way of doing research on your potential customers is by using the stealth tactic of actually getting “in there” with them, and finding out naturally.

So here’s how I’d do it. Let’s say we wanted to create a product on digital photography. We want to discover all the problems and challenges people face in this particular niche.

I’d start off by finding some of the places where digital photographers hang out - such as online forums, and Yahoo! Groups. To find the Yahoo! Groups is simple enough - just go to groups.yahoo.com and search for groups!

To find the forums, I’d go to my favourite search engine (such as Google.com) and if I were looking for digital photography forums, I’d type “digital photography forum” into the search box - it’s that simple! For most niches you’ll be able to find several forums.

Now, this is where we’re going to be a little bit sneaky - but only for research purposes. I’d join the forum using a nickname or screen name that wouldn’t be associated with my real identity.

My very first post on the forum would be in the “Introduce Yourself” section if they have one, or in the main forum if not. In it, I’d introduce my identity as someone who’s just recently got into digital photography. Something like this…

Hello! My name’s John and I’ve just found this forum. I’ve only started taking an interest in digital photography and, I realized just how much I didn’t know about the subject! So that’s why it’s great to be here, hopefully I can learn a lot, and maybe share experiences. I want to create perfect pictures!

… or something along those lines. Over the next week or two I’d make some additional light hearted posts, building up relationships and the post count. After that, I’d make a post which would be used to draw out the actual information I was after.

Hi again, fellow photographers. I’m just starting to realize that digital photography is a bit harder than I first thought and I wonder if I’m the only one! What problems have you encountered in digital photography? What was your biggest challenges in creating great photos? Maybe we can all help each other out here! - John.

The key part is in bold, and the rest is basically just fluff to make the question appear natural. Hopefully, because you’ve built up a relationship with people on the forum, you should get very honest and natural answers.

Once you’ve got your list of problems and challenges, you don’t have to post on that forum again. You might be uncomfortable with this method of research, but just bear in mind that people come and go on forums all the time, so it’s not like you’re snubbing a dear friend!

So then, we now have a list of the problems and challenges that are faced by people in the digital photography niche. If we can solve these problems for our niche market, then we have a potential money-making product!

The next step is to begin creating the product, which we’ll discuss in the next post on Wednesday 11th June. Please make sure you’re subscribed to this blog (click here to learn how) so you don’t miss out!