Like Kids In A Toy Store

Once you get your head in the right space you can find brilliant marketing lessons in the most ordinary situations. And I had a little adventure to the toy store with my children the other day. Some thing happened. I thought I should share it with you.

And I also thought I’d share a little secret information source with you. Don’t tell my clients about it. I charge a small fortune for my market research consulting. If they found out how I do it, and that I was giving away the information freely they might try to haggle me down on price.

Great for them, but it could mean less trips to the toy store for my kids.

Sage, Noah and myself found ourselves standing at the bottom of an escalator in a big shopping center on the Gold Coast which led up to possibly the biggest Toys R Us store in our part of the world. It had a kind of funny magnetic hypnotic pull and before I could say “let’s go to the library” we’d been sucked up the escalator and shunted into alternative reality where every toy imaginable spins, flips whirs and goes bing… and cash registers say Ch-Ching!

Well, in my hypnotic state I lost my senses, removed the reins from the two freeloaders who call me Dad and set them loose.

And it was a very clever move on my part. Because I had absolutely no idea what to get them for Christmas. I just wondered around for a while and ignored Noah and Sage long enough for them to realize they were free to dream. Then after I’d done a full grid pattern of the whole store I went looking for them again.

Sure enough each of them were to be found exactly where the objects of their desires were located.

That is the best Christmas present research I’ve ever done. And strangely it’s almost identical to how I do the high level insights market research for my clients.

See, there’s no point trying to win the affections of my children by giving them gifts they don’t want. When I was a teenager I wanted a big loud stereo to play AC/DC “For Those About To Rock“. My father gave me an electronic science kit and told me I could figure out how to make one. He wasn’t popular that Christmas.

Similarly, you will never become a stand out leader in your market niche using a message no one is interested in hearing.

Part of my job as a copywriter is to develop a message which resonates deeply with the market I’m trying to communicate with.

In the toy store my daughter was found sitting on the floor in a dream state picturing herself in the miniature world of Sylvanian Families (see the picture at the top of the page) and my son (and consequently me) was to be found drooling in an isle full to the rafters with Nerf guns.

Now wouldn’t it be great if you could do that with your target market? Take them to a great big toy store designed especially for them… free them of any limitations… and let them loose so you can just watch what they naturally gravitate towards.

In other words – find out exactly what they really want for Christmas.

Well you can. And you can do it from home. And you can do it for free.

Active Online Forums are just like great big niche specific mega toy stores. If you’re into breeding rare Finches… there’s a forum for that. Lot’s of forums for that. And people get on there and show you exactly what they are really interested in when it comes to breeding finches.

For example, Harvey11 wanted to know about moving his Canaries from one house to another. And over a two month period 1531 people were interested enough in that very same topic to want to go and read the thread. And 94 Finch lovers had shown enough interest to participate in the discussion. Many of whom were asking even more specific detail oriented questions.

Can you see how valuable that information is? People want to know about moving Canaries. It’s important to them. They want guidance. They need help. And they are willing to go to some effort to find out. Maybe they’d pay someone to do it for them. Maybe they’d pay for a book about it.

It doesn’t matter. The point is – like my children in the toy store – we now know what will make the dreams of Finch keepers come true. We know exactly what they are interested in and how interesting it is to how many people.

That’s the beauty of online forums. You can see the numbers.

• The date the question was asked
• How many people viewed the thread since it was posted
• How many people have joined the conversation
• How many members belong to the forum
• How many are active members
• Which members are the most active (these will often have a lot of influence over the group)

And you can see the specific details. You can see which areas are the most interesting for people in the niche, and which are the least interesting. And you can see exactly what people are having problems with and therefore create products and services to fill those specific needs.

And most importantly. You can clearly see the attitudes, beliefs, and motivations of a good cross section of a particular market which means you can tailor your advertising messages to resonate with that audience.

Go check out a forum now. Any online forum. And just have a look at the numbers. You’ll instantly glean important information about that particular niche.

And please share in the comments below which other sneaky free tools you use to get insightful market research data. It’s good for us to learn from one another.

Remain Awesome

Scott Junner
The Unlikely Ad Man