Go where the money is

If you are able to become successful without starting out by selecting your market, then it is almost pure luck that you didn't fall flat on your face. That is really how important it is to make this your absolute first step in creating your info product.

Equally important is the idea of selecting the "right" market. Ordinarily, I am of the opinion that there is no "right" way or "wrong" way, only "different" ways. The same is true with opinions. Well, with selecting a market, there actually is a right market and a wrong market. Select a wrong market, and you're actually worse off that if you would have created an info product without first locating a market. The right market is one that has buyers ... and lots of them!

The market you select to create your info product for must be hungry for information AND they must be willing to pay almost any price to get that information. By definition, a "market" is a group of people who come together for a common purpose. People by nature tend to belong to groups as they feel most comfortable associating with like minded people.

In order to achieve success with an info product online, you'll need to find the right group of like-minded people for your info product. In other words, those people who are buyers (not window shoppers) of information on a given topic. Then, and only then, can you create a product tailored to their specific needs. This will assure you of having people lining up to buy the information that you provide to them.

Marketers, especially Internet Marketers trying to sell you products, talk about ‘hot’ markets. Jimmy D. Brown calls it ‘burning needs’ (a mis-quote, I’m sure). Whatever you want to name it, it makes sense to target products and markets that have a heavy demand – lots of buyers. But that’s not all, is it?

Keep an eye out for the other side of the marketing equation – the supply side. Wading into a highly competitive marketplace is risky if you’re starting your first business. Find a market which still has room for more competition (the demand / supply ratio is high) and where the market is large enough to be profitable (targeting Ugandan farmers isn’t exactly a killer idea – targeting African farmers is a better idea scale-wise, but then you run into purchasing power.)

In other words, pick a market where:

· The buyers are willing AND able
· The suppliers are not too great in number (Internet Marketing is inherently a
tough niche to enter precisely because every one tries to sell marketing
products)
· The market is big enough to make a profit and expand in the future.

This is exactly what you learned to do earlier in this course. The same concept applies whether you are creating an info product from scratch or using other people's products to create your own ... you must still do your research before creating the product.

The Two Parts of the Equation for Finding a Target Market

When finding a market for your info product, remember that there are 2 parts to
the equation:

1. You'll need an information hungry market AND
2. You'll need that market to be willing to open their wallets.

You want to make sure that the market that you select has the money to spend on the information that you provide. You would not want to focus your efforts on creating a product that would be useful to homeless people unless you intended on making it a charitable contribution. That market would simply not have any money to spend on your info product.

Similarly, you wouldn't want to focus your efforts on creating a product for a market that usually gets their information from free sources. For example, creating an info product for a group that regularly looks for answers in thrift shops probably would not be a good idea. You'll have to put that much extra effort into selling to them. Why not create a product that is targeted to a specific market that has money and actually spends money in the first place?

So, once you've done some brainstorming and you've written down all of your ideas, you need to start focusing further on what might be saleable. You won't always have much knowledge on a subject that might be profitable. In that case, you will have to create a product on something that you know little about. Remember the goal is A product ANY product at this point - that has an info hungry market of buyers who will spend money.

Mark Hendricks, in his ebook "How To Find The People Who Will Buy Whatever You Want To Sell Them “ explained this well:

The absolute easiest way to catch fish is to put your bait in a barrel that contains ...

"a whole bunch of hungry fish."

Now I know that sounds like an over-simplification, but it's the truth, isn't it?

They're all grouped together. They're hungry. You've got the right food. You drop bait in. They bite.

Here's a little three step secret to the successful marketing of anything!

"You've got to ...reach the right market ...with the right message ...at the right time."

Simple as that.Think about it for a second.

Let's use our fishing example.

The right market - you've found them...they're in the barrel!The right message - fat and juicy wiggling worms.The right time - they are hungry - now!

Do you think they're going to bite?

Yes!

If you were to sit down and think about this idea, you would easily see that the number 2 reason why people on the internet fail to succeed, it is because they do not locate their market before selecting a product. Even then, it is 2nd only behind those who simply fail to take action in the first place.