Have you ever gotten an idea for a new marketing concept or perhaps a new business idea and the first thing you want to do is bounce it off a significant other or close friend or colleague. My suggestion is
Don’t……It’s worth repeating Don’t.
Close friends and family though they mean well, often can derail a great idea. And if you are like most Entrepreneurs, they have already heard too many of your hair brained ideas anyway.
So what do you do when something hits you?
Do your best to refrain from broadcasting your idea and begin to study
The market potential.
One of the first things you can do is conduct your own market study.
This can be done cheaply and effectively. How you do this will depend on what your idea is and who your ultimate client/customer is.
Call potential clients/customers and play the what if game. Tell them that you are a marketing company that has been hired by a startup that may be bringing a new concept to the marketplace. Write out a series of questions beforehand that will help you determine whether your idea is sound and perhaps is solving a problem or creating a solution.
Another cool trick is to do some keyword research In the category that you are exploring. Develop an ad campaign that drives traffic to an information or survey page. Google has some great tools that will monitor the traffic and tell you how many people clicked on your ad and how many people visited your site. These statistics can be very helpful in determining how the market is going to respond to your idea. Google can also be s great way to see who your competition may be.
The most important advice I can give you….. Don’t listen to the Ney-Sayers.
I’m sure there are countless stories that we could find about people that had passed up a great idea because they listened to bad advice or mis-informed well intended people.
February 13, 2012
The You Project