Top 5 reasons you’d be mad not to market test

Do you have a online business idea you are thinking of starting up? Here are the top 5 reasons why it is absolutely critical to conduct market testing before you take the idea into full product development.

1. You will limit your risk

How confident are you in your idea? Willing to bet 10 or 20 thousand on it? Or maybe 500 to 1000 hours of your own time?

Why would you gamble when, for a very small investment, you can test to a high degree of accuracy whether your venture will be a winner?

To ram this point home I’ll use an analogy – would you choose to buy a $10 lottery ticket or a 10 cent report telling you whether your lottery numbers will win the jackpot?

2. You will find out about your market

Smart market testing will help you to identify a wealth of information about your target market. The types of information you can gather include:

• Market size
• Browsing habits and key phrase usage
• Potential conversion rates
• Competition strength

3. You will understand your customer’s pain points and motivation

For this reason alone you’d be insane not to market test. Knowledge of your customer, their needs, pain points and motivations must be a thread that runs through your entire project from product design and development through to positioning and other marketing activities.

Ultimately, developing a product or service that meets an acute market need is virtually guaranteed to be a runaway success.

4. You will make money and build assets before you’ve even started!

Certain types of market testing will generate income or help you to build Internet assets such as lists and traffic.

Imagine generating an income through market testing that helps to fund product development! This scenario is quite achievable.

5. You will be able to effectively prioritize

In all likelihood you have at least a dozen ideas in your queue vying for attention. From all those great ideas which one do you choose to work on? Why not market test several ideas and then focus on the one that produces the best results?

Market testing will also help you to effectively pipeline your projects. Have some business ideas in the market testing phase while others are in product development. This is a great way to accelerate your asset building.

I hope this top 5 list has convinced you that market testing is a must in your online business.