Using Your
Mailing List As A Test Market
Your mailing list is a great way to promote
your products and stay in touch with your customers. You may not realize
it, but it also serves another purpose. You can use your mailing list as
a test market for new products and services you may be thinking about
offering.
A test market is a limited group of people you offer a product to in
order to receive feed back before you put the product up for sale to the
general population. Using a test market will allow you to get feedback
on your product. Your test market may suggest adding a feature you
hadn’t thought of or offer other advice which will be helpful in fine
tuning your product.
Your mailing list is a natural choice for a test market, as they have
already expressed interest in the type of products you offer. For
example, if you have sold an information product on starting a home
based business before, perhaps you can use your mailing list of people
who have bought that product as a test market for an information product
on marketing techniques. You already know they are interested in
starting a business; therefore, they would probably appreciate learning
how to market their new business.
You can choose to offer
your test products at a normal rate, a reduced rate, or even for
free. Let them know that you are still working out the “bugs” and
that the product you are offering may be different from the finished
product you are going to sell to the general public. Letting them
know this in advance can ward off any ill feelings; if one of the
people on your mailing list buys a test product and later sees a
similar product with slightly different features for sale, they may
feel they got ripped off.
If you are going to offer the product at a reduced rate or give it
away for free, let them know you would appreciate their feedback in
exchange. Have a form set up online where the customer can fill out
their opinions and advice. Ask them to leave a recommendation that
you can use on the landing page once the product is finished.
You can also use your mailing list to get feedback when you are in
the development stages of creating an information product. For
instance, you can send out an email with a link to a questionnaire
form and ask them to fill it out. If you know the general topic you
would like to create a product on, you can ask your test market what
are their three biggest questions about that topic. If you end up
receiving a bunch of questions in the same general areas, you know
that is the area of content you would like to focus your product on.
If you have a service based business, you can still use your mailing
list as a test market. You can ask what type of services they would
like to have. If you offer tangible products, you can ask your test
market what type of new products they would like to see you carry
and which features can be improved upon in your current inventory.
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