Introvert-Friendly Market Research for Course Creators

Ever wondered how you can effectively conduct market research without the dread of small talk or lengthy conversations? Well, you're in for a treat as we'll reveal strategies to tap into the pulse of your potential course's demand by smartly evaluating your competitors. From decoding the specific problems they solve to understanding their pricing strategies, each tidbit of knowledge will act as a stepping stone towards validating your course idea.

But that's not all! We'll also be exploring alternative, time-efficient methods of carrying out market research that steer clear of traditional sales calls. We will talk about the underestimated power of application questions, course completion check-ins, and making the most of polls or surveys on social media platforms. By understanding and answering your customers' questions better, you'll learn how to showcase that you indeed have the solution they need. Get ready for a wealth of insights into an introvert-friendly approach to market research!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You may or may not know this about me, but I am an introvert and I really generally don't enjoy talking to people in general, let alone having small talk conversations with people. So in today's episode I'm going to share my secrets to doing market research, which is very important for your business, without having to talk to anybody. So stay tuned.

Speaker 2: 0:21

What change becomes possible when 100,000 people are impacted by your work? This question came to me one day and I have been working to find the answer ever since. Hi, I'm Jess and I help online course creators amplify their influence and create a movement with their message, and on this podcast, I am sharing the simple strategies and systems to help you impact more people with your programs so you can create quantum growth in your industry. You are listening to the Quantum Course Creator podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:53

Hey there and welcome back to the podcast course creator Jess here with the Quantum Course Creator podcast, and today I am so excited to talk to you about ways to talk to less people. Yes, I do understand the irony that I am in your earbuds right now, but here's the beautiful thing about podcasting I am not actually talking to you in person or on a call. I am talking to myself in a room by myself. It's really the perfect medium for an introvert to get their peopleing out. But on today's episode I am going to share how to get more information from your ideal clients, get that powerful market research done without actually having to talk to anybody at all. Now I want to say that market research is a very important piece of creating any kind of offer, but especially a signature course, and one of the first things that I look for when somebody is telling me that they want to create a course is have they done the at least initial step of market research to see if there's even a market for what they're selling? Now, there's lots of different market research styles and different things that you should be looking for in market research, but the very first thing that you need to look for is, is there demand for what I want to create? Oftentimes, when people come to me and they're like nobody else is doing this, I am the first person to ever create this course. That's a big red flag to me. If you are literally the first person and nobody else is doing it, it's because nobody's paying for it, unless you discovered something brand new. But even then people probably aren't paying for something that they don't know they need. And so doing this initial set of market research is really important when you're going to validate your idea before you ever create it, and I often see that there's like these two pieces of a Venn diagram together that need to come in the middle.

Speaker 1: 2:50

To be a profitable course idea, first you have to have passion to create it. You have to have knowledge, expertise, you have to have a unique angle right. That's all in the passion to create circle. And then the second circle is market need. There are people who are seeking a solution to this problem. There are people who are paying for a solution to this problem, and they are. It's a problem that people are aware that they have, and usually you can find those things by looking around and seeing who else is solving this problem. So that's really the first level of market research that you want to start considering when you go into creating a course is looking at the market, need discovering. Is there a niche for this? Are people paying to solve this problem? And so what I like to have my clients do, and what I do myself when I'm in this phase of creating a new offer, is I look for three to five competitors who are successfully selling the same promise to the same niche.

Speaker 1: 3:52

Now, this may seem totally backwards, and if you're somebody who feels a little bit self-conscious about your expertise or what you're doing, this may trigger you a teeny tiny bit. But this is actually really important, because if nobody else is selling it, that means no one is buying it right, and so it's not a bad thing to have competitors. In fact, you should have competition in your niche. There should be other people doing what you're doing, because that is proof of concept. So don't look at it as competition. Look at it as proof of concept, because the way that you do it is going to be different, the way that you teach it is going to be different, your audience is going to be different. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it. In fact, it means that there's a market for it and that is a more effective potential offer, as long as there is a market for it.

Speaker 1: 4:41

Now if you start doing market research for the problem that you think that you solve and there's nobody solving it, but they're solving problems that are adjacent then I would look at am I trying to sell a course that solves a problem that somebody doesn't know that they have? And this is something I've talked about a couple of times recently on the podcast but really understanding, like, do they know that they have this problem? Step one Do they care enough about solving this problem that they are seeking a solution? Step two and are they opening their wallets with monies to solve this problem? Step three and if those three things are the case for that problem, then you know you have a profitable problem and then you need to find three to five people who are also selling that course or that solution to that problem for that niche, and then you know that you have a profitable course idea.

Speaker 1: 5:35

So that's the first one is to do that market research and say like, okay, I want to create a course on baking sourdough. Who else is selling a course on sourdough? What are the specific problems that their course solves? Who are they selling it to? Are there other things out here that people are willing to pay for? What are they charging? What are they covering? What are things that they don't cover that I think should be covered right. That's all important market research that you can get just by kind of examining the field and seeing what else is out there and, again, not comparing yourself to them, but allowing yourself to look at it objectively, as through the eyes of your ideal client, and see what you can learn about what they're offering and what gaps there are in proving like viability of your offer with that competition.

Speaker 1: 6:26

So the second phase of market research that you really should be focusing on is getting your ideal client's words to use back for them. Now I've been in programs that teach this, but they all say that you have to hop on a market research call, and I don't know about you, but hopping on a video call with a complete stranger and asking them questions sounds quite terrible. I really value my time and it's not that I don't want to talk to you, it's I do, probably, but I also like have a lot going on and I don't particularly enjoy talking to people. So my answer to this is your ideal client is already sharing their problem. You just have to figure out where they're at, and, in my opinion, facebook groups are the perfect place for this, because people like to ask questions to total strangers who have no expertise in whatever they're asking, right Like. Why do we do that? Why do we go to a group of people who we assume know better than I do and expect that we're going to get good advice? I don't know, but people do, and so find the Facebook group where your ideal client is at and see what they are asking.

Speaker 1: 7:32

This can be all like there are Facebook groups for everything. You guys, I have learned there are Facebook groups for everything. And if you want to see how wide and far the Facebook group like goes, find your suggested groups. I actually did that this weekend. I was looking through my Facebook and I was looking like what is Facebook suggesting groups I should join? And I've never really looked at it before because I don't randomly join groups, but I saw it and I was like what are the suggested groups that Facebook thinks I would be interested in? And it was really interesting not only to see what Facebook thinks I would be interested in, but to see what groups there are on Facebook in general, because I've never really looked and so I was being suggested into homeschooling groups even though I don't homeschool and into like homesteading and sourdough groups that should be no surprise, honestly and all sorts of things that I had no idea that I was being suggested to join. And so there are Facebook groups for literally everything. That is my point in this, and so it will tell you what like Facebook groups will tell you what you need to know. So I just found it. So right now I'm being recommended a Colorado 14er group.

Speaker 1: 8:49

Colorado hiking moms. Colorado 30s ladies. It's really weird. They really think I'm more active than you think I am. Lots of hiking and climbing what else? Friends of Rocky Mountain National Park. Denver women any, oh nice. Divorced in single moms of Colorado. It gets real specific.

Speaker 1: 9:08

And so there are so many different groups out there, and so your ideal client is likely in one of these groups and they are likely searching for things in these groups. They're asking questions. So find a group that they are in and then join it and then see what they are looking for. What are they asking? Are they asking technical questions? Are they asking questions that are belief questions, and start seeing what they are asking and write that down, because these are all content ideas. And if you are still working on the outline of your course, these are course content ideas. If somebody is asking a question about, like, how do I let's go back to sourdough for some reason how do I, like, plan the best planning period it's been a minute since I did sourdough and then you can say, okay, here's my formula for picking the best like, whatever, and so when you can see what they're asking, you can then develop your own way and then develop course content around that so that you can answer that question with a solution directly from your program. And so find where they're at stalk Facebook groups, see what questions they are asking and then write them down and start answering them in your content. Don't necessarily go into the Facebook group and answer them, and you're not going to prospect the Facebook group for people, but you're going to look at it for market research and write down the questions that they're asking and start answering them in your content, in podcast episodes, in videos, in emails, in blog posts, all sorts of things to like. Start attracting what they are looking for.

Speaker 1: 10:49

And then the third way that you can do market research without talking to anybody is by leveraging the people that you're already connected to. You likely already have clients and an audience, and so this is a great opportunity to ask them. So one of the things I like to do with a course is have a welcome survey. So when somebody purchases a program, they fill out a few questions that are really helpful in market research. As far as, like, what is the problem that you're having? Like, why did you purchase this course? What are you hoping to get out of it? And these are important things to not only hear your messaging resonating back and making sure that you're getting the right people in, but also to use that information to continue in your content and say, oh, they want this and I didn't even think about that. I'm going to make sure to market toward that angle, because they are clearly searching for that.

Speaker 1: 11:38

This is true, too, if you don't have a course.

Speaker 1: 11:40

If you have like one-on-one coaching or things like that, you can use application questions or sales call questions, things where you have people's actual words saying what they are struggling with and what they're hoping to get from this.

Speaker 1: 11:55

Another great way to do this is course completion check-ins, so something I teach inside my course framework is like having check-ins in the middle of your course that allow you to assess their progress and also get feedback from them as they go along, and so in here you can ask questions that answer, like that, give you market research ideas going into creating more content.

Speaker 1: 12:17

Another way you can do this is, if you have any audience on social media is ask them, poll them, do a little survey on social media. This can be as simple as like an Instagram poll, or you can send an email to your list asking them to answer a couple questions for you. So there are so many different ways that you can do market research without having to hop on a market research call. And when you start to get market research and get the words that they're asking and get the specific questions that they have, that's when you can create content that more specifically answers their questions so that they know that you can solve the problem that they have. So I hope this was helpful and I hope to see you in my next episode.