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How to test your IDEAS?

Idea threads
G

Guest24480

Guest
My preferred methods are researching target market communities and generating traffic to a landing page.

Where are your potential customers hanging out? Are they communicating the pain points or needs that your product will be built to solve?

You can check forums, relevant subreddits, Facebook groups, social media, blogs, anything really. If there is a need for your product, people are likely talking about it somewhere on the Internet.

Once you find that there is at least a conversation going about the problem you're trying to solve, take all the feedback you received and cater your offer to that data.

Create a one-page landing page on Wordpress communicating your offer and make the presentation as good as possible, but make it concise. One page and no more than that. List out some benefits/features and communicate the nature of the solution. Just buy a $50 Wordpress theme if you don't have any web design skills.

Yes, presentation matters but the basics of copywriting and design should put you above the threshold of acceptable for testing purposes. Create a sign-up form and connect it to your mailing service.

Lastly, sign up for a Facebook business account and start driving targeted traffic to your landing page and collect email sign-ups. Cater your targeting to the data you've gathered in your initial research and split test a few different targeting options.

I followed this exact blueprint for validating the current idea I'm working on and got 500+ email sign ups within a weekend.

Now I am working on developing a prototype so I can get hard proof for the idea, which would be users and eventually paid sign-ups.
 
G

Guest24480

Guest
Ok, so I understand that your way is:
- check potential client groups on facebook if they are talking about problem you want to solve (if not, this is probably bad idea)
- create landing page and get people from those groups to this landing page.

Now, here are some more questions.
What should be on this landing page? I mean - you don't have any product yet. Should it be some kind of promise: "Product will be available soon", or maybe preorder: "Pay now, get it within couple of months"?

What about software or physical products? They need definately more time to get created.
Doesn't 100% mean it's a bad idea if no one's talking about it in Facebook groups. But it's good to look for before throwing up a landing page and testing. It doesn't just have to be Facebook groups either, it can be anywhere. Even real life.

The landing page doesn't have to be anything crazy. My product is software and I just outlined the benefits and features and what problem/need it is solving and how it was unique. I didn't have any screenshots or anything of UI mockups.

You don't have to state explicitly on the landing page that your product isn't released yet. You want to simulate demand as realistically as possible so what I did was make the email capture a sign-up form, then send an automated email after explaining that it was in development and that they are now signed up for the email list for updates on release. Obviously make it easy to unsubscribe so you are in compliance with CAN-SPAM laws.

You can collect pre-orders as well or link to a "sold-out" page but this is an ethical grey-area and IMO emails are better when there isn't a streamlined path to market and you're only in the testing phase.

Edit: I also must add that this entire process is outline in Unscripted if you haven't picked it up yet. Credits go to MJ for helping me flesh out the basics of this process which I then tweaked to the needs of my specific use case.
 
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Juhas

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May 22, 2019
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Hi, I was wondering are there any good ways to test wheter your IDEA is good (there is a request for your planned product) or not.
One thing that gets into my head is crowdfunding. You can get the feedback from people - you will get money or not. If not, then there's chance that your IDEA is not good. But This way of testing has another variable - your presentation. Idea without a product has to have really good presentation.
The other problem is that if you happen to get the requested money, you have to award the founders somehow.

So do you have any other ways to test your IDEAS?
 
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Marty Foley

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Mar 31, 2019
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So do you have any other ways to test your IDEAS?

Juhas,

It's intriguing how the web can be used as a mad scientist's laboratory, to test ideas for headlines, product names / information product titles, ad copy, product feature ideas, etc.

When testing product ideas on the web, it's helpful to have a site that's already generating targeted traffic related to the idea(s) you want to test.

If that's not an option, alternatively you can set up a landing page and drive targeted traffic to it through PPC ads, other related sites, etc.

There are various approaches to take, but in a nutshell the concept is to present different variations of a product idea (landing page) to targeted traffic, measure how website visitors react (by the actions they take, or don't take), and compare variation performance to determine a winner.

For example, on WP you could use a content rotation tool to display multiple variations of headlines, product titles, bullet points, etc. then measure clickthroughs to another page (or better yet, conversions) to compare variable performance.

Which types of conversions are best to measure and compare? The most valuable actions (and most accurate tests) would involve actual sales. ***

Aside from measuring conversions for those who place pre-launch orders, you could measure the conversion rate of visitors who complete survey form submissions, those who opt-in for "pre-launch notifications", or those who opt-in for "early bird discount" offers.

...........

*** How can you test the market for a product in the idea stage that does not exist? One method direct marketers have used for decades is called dry testing. I'm not a lawyer (nor do or have I ever played one on TV), but dry testing can get you into legal hot water. So consider what the FTC and DMA have cautioned about it in years past: Test Marketing
 

Juhas

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May 22, 2019
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Poland
My preferred methods are researching target market communities and generating traffic to a landing page.

Ok, so I understand that your way is:
- check potential client groups on facebook if they are talking about problem you want to solve (if not, this is probably bad idea)
- create landing page and get people from those groups to this landing page.

Now, here are some more questions.
What should be on this landing page? I mean - you don't have any product yet. Should it be some kind of promise: "Product will be available soon", or maybe preorder: "Pay now, get it within couple of months"?

What about software or physical products? They need definately more time to get created.
 
User Power
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Apr 26, 2019
2
0
32
Singapore, Republic of Singapore
Hi, I was wondering are there any good ways to test wheter your IDEA is good (there is a request for your planned product) or not.
One thing that gets into my head is crowdfunding. You can get the feedback from people - you will get money or not. If not, then there's chance that your IDEA is not good. But This way of testing has another variable - your presentation. Idea without a product has to have really good presentation.
The other problem is that if you happen to get the requested money, you have to award the founders somehow.

So do you have any other ways to test your IDEAS?
You might have heard about product testing. In this technique, you can launch the product to a limited prospectus, and see the response. This prospectus can be from the group of your targeted audience.
 

Rawseed

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Great advice from the posters above.

I agree with @holmzee. You should read Unscripted . You might start with Chapter 40 because it addresses your original question.
 
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Madman1996

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Hey man anybody some good value here can this be done with skewing value the value array to ?
 

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