10 Tips For Creating Profitable Products
Several times I’ll be asked by a copywriting client if I think that their product would sell. Below I’ve attempted to list ten guidelines to finding profitable projects.
1. Find your customers before you develop your product. Find out how many people will be potentially interested in your product before you spend time and money working on something that nobody wants. Just don’t create a product because you love it.
2. Work on a project involving something that you are passionate about. Product development takes a lot time and motivation. The more passionate you are about the project the more likely you will work on it and complete it. Chop up bigger projects into smaller goals.
3. Develop a product or service that is related to your hobbies, skills, work experience, interests or unique knowledge. You will be surprised the ‘specialized knowledge’ you have that others will find valuable.
4. Don’t strive to be original for originality’s sake. Look for already profitable business and model after them. One of the shortest paths to success is to find a successful business and use it as a blueprint. Modeling is NOT the same as copying. What can you learn from one business that could apply to your business or niche?
5. Look for a good product and try and make it better, different or find new applications. Think of the many products that you use today that were just an improvement of an already existing product-computers, cars, can openers … the list is endless.
6. Go to a major bookstore and look at the magazines section. Each magazine represents a niche that you can sell to. If there were no one interested in that subject area then the magazine will be out of business. Got it?
7. Don’t be too ambitious in your first project. If it takes too long to complete you are likely not to finish it. Try and accomplish short-term projects before going for longer ones.
8. Use search engine keyword research tools to find out what people are searching for and build a product around that. Search engines receive hundreds of millions of queries per day and this can tell you what people are searching online for. One of the best keyword tools is Word Tracker. (http://www.wordtracker.com)
9. Find out the problems that a lot of people are having by visiting forums and build a product to solve their problem. If you find that the same questions are being asked all the time then this is a clue that this information is in demand.
10. Pay someone else to create a product if you only have the ideas but not the creation skills. For example, hire a programmer to create a program that solves a common problem. Most programmers have the technical skills but not the marketing know-how to market their products, so hook up your marketing talent to their technical skills.
Filed under: Marketing Tips
