There were several important comments on yesterday’s post .   I’d like to respond to one of them in particular:

Joey Atlas (a fellow PPC marketer I definite respect) asks:

“Would you say the marketer who has yet to finish/complete his product (name, logo, color scheme, etc…) and website is at an advantage, in terms of honing in on the hyper-responsive elements – as opposed to the marketer who already built the product, etc… – and can only consider the ‘hyper-responsive’ elements in sales copy, PPC ads, funnel, etc…??”

I’m going to re-phrase the question more generally in order to provide an answer helpful to every ppc advertiser  … “Is market intelligence more valuable before or after you’ve developed your product?  Is there a value to doing pay per click research, and in particular, research to identify the wants, needs, and concerns of hyper-responsive ppc visitors AFTER you’ve already developed your product and/or your business?”

The short answer is there are benefits on costs on both sides.  

If you haven’t chosen a market or developed adverising + products, I definitely recommend doing your research first.  There’s no point in playing “blind archery” when you can get an incredible amount of market intelligence and laser-guide your arrow to the mark.

The down side of gathering market intelligence from scratch, however, is the money and time required.  It gets easier and easier as the internet evolves (you can now legally steal your competitor’s hard work), … but it’s still very frustrating to entrepreneurs eager to jump in and get things moving.

On the other hand, EXISTING BUSINESSES stand to benefit tremendously from market intelligence, and it’s often much cheaper and quicker to gather.

For example, one of the absolute most powerful and leveraged things you can do (if you evaluate dollars and time invested vs. the return you get) is to survey you in-house lists … including BOTH existing customers and prospects, especially your opt in lists.

That’s because people who already have a relationship with you, and who are deriving value from it,  are usually VERY eager to give you feedback, and are pre-disposed to evolve into hyper-responsive customers if you tweak your systems to adjust more to their needs.  

It’s not uncommon to see 1,000 responses to a customer and prospect survey in 24 hours (make sure to track them separately … and include some data in the survey so you can determine who is who, and which customers have purchased more from you)

Furthermore, reaching existing customers and prospects to obtain the feedback is usually MUCH cheaper than reaching new prospects.

It’s true though, that it’s a downer to get feedback which makes you realize you need to redesign your sales systems, products, customer service, etc. But not knowing this information doesn’t make reality any different, it only makes you blind to it, and vulnerable to the marketer who figures it out.

Lest I seem to harsh, let me say I’ve made these mistakes in my own businesses, and have to deal with the consequences just like anyone else.  There are products I’ve already developed, and sales funnels with literally hundreds of autoresponder follow ups which need to be rethought and re-worked due to these new insights.

But I won’t shrink from the task.

I WILL prioritize the efforts and allocate resources accordingly.

Hope that makes sense … look forward to all your thoughts!

Dr. G 🙂