Product Launching Part 2

You've already seen that potential products exist all around you. The next step is to choose a good medium for research.

Many marketers teach you to hit the keyword research tools first, but I believe this is going about things backwards.

It is much better to pinpoint existing markets or potential markets first - get your idea and your target group in focus first, then check the statistics to see how many searches are done per month on relevant terms.

Why? Essentially, all keyword data tells you is what people are searching for and with what frequency. This does indicate existing markets, but it doesn't tell you exactly how hot that market is, or give you an idea of the types of products being purchased...

A much better place to look is in the trade and special interest magazines you find right on the shelf at your local bookstore.

Generating Ideas: A Case Study

I have in my hands right now an art magazine called "Expressions"...

Each issue of Expressions covers a handful of crafts project, and features top notch artists teaching their trade. At the back of the magazine are the mail order advertisements. You can learn a lot by browsing through these.

For example, there is an ad here for pre-made stamps.

This ad has run in every issue of Expressions for the last year. Obviously, the merchant must be doing very well in this niche and pulling enough revenue to keep on advertising. This is a hot market - as are all the other craft supply niches. However, we can also say that "how to" art information is a hot market as well.

What type of craft project product could we create?

Well, let's take a look and see what's already out there in the public domain. If we find enough material, we'll have a product in no time. We're going to let the product come to us by browsing for content and thinking of ways to piece it together.

My first step takes me over to a search for "art" on Archive.Org. Wow! There are dozens of results here, including books, screensavers and freeware. As I scroll down the page, I see something that catches my eye: "Do-It-Yourself Sand Brownies Craft Kit".

Something like this would be perfect to turn into a product. I could bundle this with an e-book on using sand in craftwork (which I would find via public domain or by hiring out someone to write it for me), or I could look for similar "Do It Yourself" kits on this site and compile all of them into an e-book I'd title "Ten Great Do It Yourself Crafts for Kids".

Now, that was easy wasn't it?

This is one way of approaching product creation. Let the idea come to you as you browse through general public domain content sites. You can generate your ideas and create you product at the same time simply by making use of what's on hand.

If you're a bit pickier than this, then another approach is to come up with your idea prior to content sourcing and then going out and searching for the relevant content.

I find this, at times, to be a bit harder to do. It is much easier to create a product by spinning off ideas from what you have in your hands than by getting your heart set on one idea and struggling to make the available content to conform to it.

You might not encounter this problem if your chosen niche falls into a broad or popular category, however.

Essentially, almost anything you can think of can be turned into a product. All you need to do is start thinking in terms of value. You might be wondering how to place value on a product you didn't create from scratch, especially if you employ public domain material. Just remember this: you are doing the work of locating and packaging the information that you sell. You are charging for your time and effort - as well as your own intellectual property: the idea!