Best methods for market survey and execution

[scottaj74]

Hi Gang,

I don't want this to appear as an "idea thread", more so a collective of how to best survey the market to see if my (or maybe yours) service might be of value to them.

I live in a "mountain resort community" and I've been thinking of acting on offering a mobile listing/advertising app for smartphones. For those interested, it would be potentially similar to Tofino App Travel Guide - Tofino Accommodations Specials. I've seen this elsewhere and it looked quite successful with numerous listings. It's a great service for tourists so they know where and what businesses/services/deals are available.

However, I've tried a few web based businesses with limited degrees of success. If I had to find fault in what I did I would say I made numerous errors (failed to survey the market before execution, I could have done a better job of marketing and promoting the ideas, but number one on the list was there was already providers offering a similar service and it was hard to get customers to try out a new service).

I'm going to start contacting local businesses to see if they might be interested in marketing in a mobile market (which has surpassed traditional computer use). Can anyone think of any other ideas of how to check the feasibility of such a service? Some other ideas down the road I've had are: renting a billboard on the way into town promoting the app (with a large QR code on it), printing off app stickers for business owners that can be displayed on their doors (again this would have a QR code directing back to the app).

Would it be worth initially listing business and services for fee (maybe 6 months) to show owners how the service works, what their listings would look like and how much traffic is coming form the mobile listing?

Going back to the original questions, what else would you guys do to check the feasibility of the service? I don't want to do the "build it and they will come" business model again.

I know it's not really "fast lane" in and of itself, but if successful I could see using the template to expand to other communities.

 

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