Topic: Incredibly Cheap and Simple Market Testing
Length: 1500 priceless words
Investment: About 6 jaw-dropping minutes

(Drill Sergeant Voice) AWRIGHT,  Steppers! And… HALT!

I assume that yer reading this post based on its fabulous title.

Stop right this very second and be advised!

…I blatantly STOLE the title from  www.startupbros.com.

HERE is THEIR blog post: http://bit.ly/12zDAKB

(Back to regular Frankenberg voice)

Ahh, whew. Okay, so I’m not in any kind of idea-poaching competition with the StartupBros.  I’ve been plagiarized before and believe me, it’s a terrible feeling. “Plagiarism” comes from the root word plagaris which doesn’t mean “stealing another Bro’s stuff”; no, it actually means to kidnap. 

But don’t worry. Here you won’t be reading a kidnapped idea. Fact is, the StartupBros have inspired me quite a bit. So I highly, HIGHLY recommend that you visit their blog… immediately if not sooner… and check out THEIR “3 Steps” post.

It occurred to me, however, that since I’ve got 3 totally DIFFERENT Steps to Validate Your Bizness Idea for FREE– Almost— that I oughtta get it down in pixel form too and share it with my Bros and with the other cool people. (that’s you, Steppers 😉 )

First Step: Free GotoWebinar Account

I’ve been using GoToWebinar for about six years to explain ideas to small and large captive audiences.

It’s kinda cool… you send a link to folks to register for your online event. They see whatever you put on your screen, hear whatever you say into your mic or old-fashioned tele-o-phone.

Also, you can poll your audience… gauge their level of interest and participation… interact live… all while you educate, motivate, stimulate.

But one of the BEST parts is that along with all this data, wrapped up in a nice li’l downloadable report… you capture everybody’s contact information.

How About A Web Page With 52% Conversion?

I had been using GotoWebinar for years to generate over $1M in sales for my info product. But what I didn’t really think of was this interesting tidbit. Kudos to @BrittanyTLynch at www.brittanylynch.com for pointing out the following fun fact:

The registration form that you create at GoToWebinar is itself a web page… and the conversion rate on that page is around 52%.

Say you are holding a free webinar about “How to make Your Own Underwater Basket Weaving Supplies”. When folks that are into Underwater Basket Weaving get sent to your webinar registration page, about 52% of the time they register. And that registration includes their name, email address… plus as many other fields as you wanna have ’em fill out. I’ ve even gotten maiing addresses and phone numbers in my registration forms.

For whatever reason, there’s just a lower resistance to turning over the contact info when it’s for a free webinar, than for a webpage with your site’s

Doing a webinar positions you as an expert in your space and gives you a matchless platform for getting to know your target market. Currently, I sell a big-ticket info product, a $599 home study course on how to trade the stock and options markets. I sell the home study course almost exclusively through GoToWebinar by showing two or three of my eleven strategies every week for free.

Doing webinars sells pretty darn well for an investment of about three hours a week and $99 per month!

So Step ONE for validating your business idea for FREE– Almost– is to go to http://www.gotomeeting.com/fec/webinar and look about in the middle of the page for the 30-day free trial. You’ll have to give ’em your credit card info, and if you’re not careful at the end of the 30 days you will be charged $99 for the following 30 days. So be sure to do the other two steps before the thirty days is up, then cancel. OR, if you have a winner, you might want to keep using GoToWebinar like me, at $99 per month generating tens aor thousands in sales.

Second Step: Free Facebook Event Page

When most folks think about using Facebook to promote their small bizness, they think about the ads you see on the right. These bad boys can be used (very cheaply and effectively I might add) to test your small biz idea.

But there is a POWERFUL and often overlooked way to use Facebook for market testing: the Event Page.

So you’re hosting a free webinar on “How To Make Your Own Underwater Basket Weaving Supplies”. Kewl. Next step is to take:

1. the GoToWebinar link you just created,
2. along with 3-5 images of Underwater Basket Weaving,
3. plus your own pic,

And put ’em on a free Facebook Event Page. Include a date, time, and brief description of What be covered in the class and hoW it will benefit Underwater Basket Weavers that come.

(You might find two “W” examples of Shoestring Step TWO: Find Out The W’s in the above sentence 😉 )

Once your event page is lookin’ snazzy… there’s a clear call to action (e.g., click on this link to register for your FREE UBW Class)… it’s time to send invitations to everyone you know. Start with known fellow Underwater Basket Weavers. But don’t forget friends and friends of friends. Ask ’em to “like’, ‘share’ and forward your free class to anyone they n=know that might be interested.

If you DO want to spend a little money at this time, it’d be okay… just remember we’re on a Shoestring 😉 so don’t go crazy. The best way to promote your free event with a Facebook ad is to select your target market (Facebook is WONDERFUL for segmenting a market) and go with their recommended bid AT FIRST.

Use a picture, your Unique Selling Point even though you’re not selling anything (yet), a clear call to action and start gettin ta clickin.

Here’s a TOP SECRET:

If you are getting clicked on often enough, you may then reduce your bid… a LOT… and still get the clicks rollin’ in.

Facebok would rather have a low revenue, high clickin’ ad than a high priced one that no one pays any mind to. So test a number of different ads and go with the one getting the clicks. Then reduce your bid to just a few cents and you may find that you’re getting the same result for scads less cash. Which we Shoestring Steppers appreciate.

Whether you stick with friends (and friends of friends) only for free, or if you use affordable segmented ads, you are now ready for the next step:

Third Step: PowerPoint, KeyNote, or OpenSource Presentation. Or Not.

Here’s the final Step for testing your biz idea for FREE:

Write your content for the webinar.

Now, a lot of folks would have put this Step first. But that’s bass-ackwards.

Think about those poor souls on Shark Tank. I don’t mean the ones that get the Sharks fighting over their cool biz idea… because even though they will get a lot less out of their biz than they might have by using the 10 Shoestring Principles on this site… at least they will get SOMEthing.

No, I’m talking about those poor souls that poured their heart and soul and (gulp!) MONEY into an idea, only to find out that there really isn’t any market.

THAT is a shame.

SO I’ve decided never to make a product first… first I discover the market.

Go ahead, do Steps One and Two as outlined above. If you only have a couple of nibbles… and they are your aunt Mary and her roommate… you can cancel and not give it a second thought. Just two apologies.

BUT..! Say your event page goes viral. Underwater Basket Weavers you’ve never even met inundate your event page with questions. Your GoToWebinar stats say that 23 people are registered for your free webinar and there’s still a week to go.

THEN!

…then you make sure and create some top shelf, valuable, USEFUL content on Underwater Basket Weaving and be ready to share it.

Use PowerPoint if ya got it.

Use KeyNote if you’re a cool Mac user 😉

Use Open Source software if’n ya gots to.

Heck, you don’t even really NEED to have a formal presentation. You might scroll folks through your blog, or someone else’s blog with your browser.

Just make sure that the content that you share is visual, interactive, and above all USEFUL.

Do this, and you’ll have won yourself an audience. And once you check your GotoWebinar stats, you’ll see that you also have a mailing list.

Even folks that didn’t show can get a follow up and a link to your recording.

Oh… and in case ya didn’t know, that recording can become a product that you sell later on.

That’s a Wrap… for Now

So if we were following directions, we know to go to www.startupbros.com and check out the original post that shows ONE Three-Step Method for determining if you’ve got a winner of a bizness idea.

The Startup Bros would have ya get a $100 Google Adwords coupon and see if people click on it (grave oversimplification… better go to their site and check out the real poop).

That’s one really great Three-Step Method.

So’s mine: start publicizing a waaaaay cool, FREE event in which you drop the knowledge on something you think a lot of folks wanna know. Then, after capturing their contact info, you either hold the event… or DON’T… but you know if there is a market for the problem you want to solve for people.

Steppers, that’s all I’m going to write on today, though we could go into greater detail on each of these Steps as well as what to do afterwards. YOU get to determine where the conversation goes from here. So send me your comments and questions below!

Keep Stepping,

Kurt