The Cheap Revolution

Finding Diamonds through Market Testing

Team and a Dream spent last Friday morning at the Mid-Atlantic Diamond Ventures (MADV) investor meeting.  MADV is a business cultivator that provides support to early-stage high technology businesses. Seven companies were presenting, including current and former clients Healthy Humans and Vienna Human Capital.  Since we believe strongly in market testing your idea, our team thought it would be fun to see how well these companies have validated their business models. What techniques have they used to gain insights into their market?  How well do they understand their competition?  What feedback have they received from their potential clients?  

Healthy Humans (recently launched into Alpha mode). We know that Healthy Humans has performed a competitive analysis and has done market testing using Google Adwords (because we helped them on those fronts).  Healthy Humans also conducted some early focus groups to help validate and expand their market concept.  The best way to validate a concept is to gain direct feedback with some version of the product.  Since the team has launched in Alpha mode, they can now validate their conversion rate from their free offering to the paid offering.  With their initial Alpha test group of a handful of consumers they reported seeing 100% conversion.  This conversion rate is not likely to carry forward, but the interest and energy is a powerful indicator of how well Healthy Humans may perform.

Another MADV company that presented was Life-Pack - Born out of the pain of 9/11, the inventor went to firefighters and asked them about their concept to have a "bail-out system" for people in high rises.  The firefighters asked for a smaller product to help them.  When escaping a fire, firefighters reported "All I could think about is living" - so they developed a product that only required that a firefighter to "hook and jump."  They have created an advisory board of "fire rescue" people. It is clear that the Life-Pack team have co-created their product with their target customers.

On Sept. 23, I had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Joe Douress, Vice President of Content Operations for LexisNexis, talk about his role in creating Lawyers.com,  a directory and resource for finding attorneys.  Joe was speaking at the Innovators Club.  Joe is a huge proponent of market testing.  They did an enormous amount of research through the evolution of Lawyers.com.  For example, early on their research revealed that there are 4,000 categories of businesses in the Yellow Pages, but lawyer listings account for 1/15th of the total revenue!  Lawyers REALLY want to be found!  But they didn't stop with market research.  Joe's team met with attorneys, directory companies and affiliate partners to understand what the market needed.  They test market different promotional mechanisms - from coffee cups to television advertising.  The huge success of Lawyers.com can be largely traced to this investment in market testing and concept testing.

These are just a few stories ranging from established successes to emerging successes.  Understanding your market, testing your concept and adjusting your message are key steps every e-Business startup should consider.

Anatomy of Building an e-Commerce Property

The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris revisted an idea made popular years ago by Robert Kiyosaki in Rich Dad-Poor Dad. That idea is that passive income represents the holy grail of business-savvy entrepreneurs. If we could only find products or services that require very little effort to generate repeat income, then we can literally “make money while we sleep”! 

In Rich Dad-Poor Dad, Kiyosaki takes a close look at the role real estate could plan in creating passive income streams.  The Four Hour Workweek talks about creating a “Muse” built using today’s eCommerce engines to generate online traffic.  Examples used in the Four Hour Workweek include selling specialized exercise DVDs through a shopping cart site or a stylish series of French sailor shirts through an eBay store.

In November of 2007, my wife and I took a plunge into the world of "passive income" by buying our first rental property.  This has long been a dream of mine, but it took years before we finally overcame the numerous hurdles needed to make it happen. The property is a lakefront home in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.  However, to make this work financially, we needed the property to produce revenue!

Build a Landing Page you can be Proud of

Now that you’ve read the benefits to market testing, you’re ready to build your own landing page…but how do you start?

First, keep in mind that landing pages are different than web pages. A landing page is usually created for a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign with the intent to produce conversions. Upon arriving on the page, it’s designed to encourage visitors to perform a desired action. Whether it’s filling out an e-mail form or purchasing a product, a landing page is optimized for that act.

Before constructing a landing page, perform some demographic research on your target group. Find out what your visitor is looking for and what offers would work for them. Build a profile of your ideal visitor and keep it in mind when creating your landing page. If you’re targeting multiple groups, create separate landing pages for each. The more targeted your message is, the higher probability of increasing conversions.

Now that you know some of the basic fundamentals, read on for ten tips to keep in mind when building your landing page:

1. Include an image. An appealing or relevant picture will draw visitors in and help retain them on the site. Images that can help them self-identify work best. 
2. Establish trust and credibility. Include a logo (if available) or the name of the product or service. The branding isn’t as important as the content but the visitor needs to feel like the website is legitimate. Convey trust by including your contact information as well as your phone number and e-mail address. If you're selling a product, showcase your site is secure by including a trust badge like Truste. For more on this topic, see “Building Trust with your Online Users.”
3. Include a sub-heading or questions that lead into the content. The goal is to include text that helps them understand what they’re about to read. Questions are a good way of engaging your visitor’s attention.
4. Keep the content short and sweet. While it should still convey the message of your product or service, it should be concise and only have enough information to gauge their interest. Also, keep your most important points at the beginning and make sure most of the content is above the fold. Note: People read will read the beginning and the end before they read middle of your text. In addition, keep the tone and language of your readers in mind. If you’re targeting high school students, your content shouldn’t read at a PhD level.
5. Write in 2^nd person. Using “you” and “your” will help grab your visitors’ attention.
6. Keep the tone and language of the content in mind. The tone should conform to the visitor’s values. In addition, the language should correlate with the market and with the product or service.
7. “Call to actions” are important. At least one call to action should be present on the page. These are specific actions you ultimately want the visitor to take. Examples include “Sign Up Now” or “Download Now.” For optimal results, make sure to include them above the fold. Capture e-mail addresses if possible. If your call to action includes a whitepaper or article, ask for an e-mail address. Keep these in a database somewhere and use them to send marketing collateral when ready.     
8. Motivate visitors to act. People respond to fear, greed, guilt, exclusivity, anger, salvation, or flattery. Use no more than one of these elements to get visitors to make a conversion.
9. White space is a good thing. Try not to stick as many elements on the page as possible. White space makes the web page looks clean and simple. The more clutter there is, the more likely it will drive visitors away.
10. Remember to use good SEO keywords. If you’ve done your market testing properly, then you know which keywords generate the most traffic. Make sure you splice them into the text liberally to help your PPC campaign and your search engine rank. A great keyword tool is WordTracker. You can get a free 7-day trial by clicking here. 

By: Yasmine Mustafa

Related Posts:

• 5 Reasons to Market Test Startup Idea
• The Long Tail and Internet Startups
• 30 Things Every Entrepreneur Should Know How To Do