I recently wrote about a podcast I had heard that discussed a method for developing and selling e-books. This was not the ‘download my e-book, rebrand it, and sell it’ get rich quick approach. They focussed on identifying potential products, evaluating the potential market, market testing, and then producing and selling. It is a very systematic process.
Product evaluation and market testing has been high on my mind since I heard that podcast, so I started doing some research on the subject. I found a few very interesting resources. Links to them are at the end of this article.
I came across one great website called www.PragmaticMarketing.com. There were two really interesting articles there: ‘Due Diligence For New Product Ideas, and ‘Seven Things You Can Do To Improve Your Credibility On The Web‘. Very solid information with little hype.
They also have a free newsletter and magazine. I signed up for both on the basis of these two articles – they were both features in an earlier edition of the magazine.
The other resources I found were mostly from college course materials posted online. Some deal with traditional physical product design and some with the conceptual framework for doing analysis. They all looked interesting to me and I plan to go back and spend more time studying them. They are:
- Product Analysis How-To
- Product Analysis and Design
- Material And Process Selection
- Conduct A Market Analysis
If you know of other resources for devising a method of evaluating the profitability of a potential new product, let me know. I will be testing a few ideas for online information products soon and will be writing about the different methods I used.
Andrew Seltz
The Go-To Guy