eBook topic research

Market research is one of the first steps when developing an eBook topic and really it’s the first step in exploring any business idea. Market research is broken up into two types of research, primary research and secondary research.

Primary research

• Surveys
• Questionnaires
• Direct observations, etc.

And

Secondary research

• Census bureau data
• Trade association data
• Internet

Secondary Research

We’re going to start off with secondary research; secondary research is very broad research into trends. There is a wide variety of information that is available from census bureau data, trade associations, library publications and the internet. The purpose of secondary research is to determine the size, demographics and tendencies of your target market.

So how do we conduct secondary research?

Well, one of the easiest places to start is the internet. We can simply take key words that fall into our target market and plug them into a search engine such as Google. From there we take the top results and plug them into one of the free market research sites such as Quantcast  or  Alexa.  Both of these sites will give you tons of information about the visitors of the websites, traffic stats, demographics, etc.

We can also use free tools such as Google Trends and Google Key Word Tool to gather information about search volume trends and advertising competition which will help us gauge the size and profitability of the market.

Once we have gathered some information about our target market it’s time to assess the needs of the market. With the advent of social networking sites, web forums and blogs it is now easier than ever to get in contact with your target market. Once you find the spot where your target market hangs out you can then begin your primary research.

Primary research

Primary research is going to be accomplished through surveying your target market on forums, blogs, social networking sites, etc.  If you are already established in your niche then you can email out questionnaires, or hold focus groups.  Lastly you can directly observe your target market through the aforementioned sites.

The goal is to determine the needs of your market as well as gauge interest.   It is also at this stage that you will get a clearer picture of what the competition in the market looks like.  You can look at the products that are recommended by those in your target market as well as advertisements that are placed on those sites.

Market research is something that a lot of people avoid because they believe that it’s something they can’t do or that you need advanced techniques to get results. The truth is that market research is something anyone can do and it has never been easier.