Good morning 🙂
A few weeks back I changed my email opt-in process…
So that when people are accepted to my list…
They’re asked to share the biggest question they have about copywriting, business, mindset, etc.
I’ve gotten a lot of interesting🤔 questions from people so far…
And one of the most common ones that keeps popping up…
And how I come up with ideas💭.
This is an interesting subject to me…
Because on the one hand, yes research can be systematized…
But on the other…
How do you actually teach someone to come up with an idea❓
Well, in this blog post I’m going to attempt to provide an answer…
And we’ll see how it goes.
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When it comes to doing research about the customers and products…
There are really just two main places I go:
Forums (#1 by far) and Amazon.
For this blog post, we’re going to focus on forums 📄…
And we can always come back to Amazon at a later time.
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Okay, so why forums?
I do forums because this is an easy place to see what my target customers are thinking, feeling, struggling with, etc.
Plus, as I go through threads that are relevant to the offer I’m creating…
I’ll often find that specific topics or beliefs keep coming up again and again.
So I’m looking for patterns…
Commonalities…
And then I’m figuring out how those patterns and commonalities fit into the promo I’m about to write.
So, for example…
I’ve been doing a lot of research for a skincare product I’m writing for…
And what I’ve found through the beauty forums I’ve been in…
Is that a LOT of women👩 spent a LOT of time talking about TCAs.
I’d never even heard of a TCA before…
But it’s a term for a Chemical🧴 peel…
And while the market is somewhat polarized on chemical peels…
What I’ve found is that anytime a woman posts about their experience with a TCA…
It’s one of the most viewed👀 and commented🗣️ on thread in the entire forum.
Which makes sense, honestly, since…
1) TCAs are kind of expensive🔥…
And, more significantly…
2) They basically burn🥵 your face and leave it red and discolored for WEEKS.
It’s nuts to me that people do this…
But I’m not here to judge in this context…
Instead, I’m like the anthropologist who is studying a lost tribe for the very first time.
So, here’s why this matters…
First of all, I know that if I talk about TCAs in my sales letter (including my lead)…
That there’s a good chance that I’ll increase⏫ engagement.
Plus, once I start thinking about TCAs and reading all of the stories of women who have used them…
The wheels⚙️ in my brain start turning too.
I could do the skincare promo around the idea of a TCA horror story…
Or when it comes to the USP of the skincare product I’m writing for…
Without the chemicals, cost💰, or weeks of hiding your face from the outside world.
That gives me some ammo right there❗
Plus, let’s not forget what I mentioned earlier…
Which is that up until arriving at these forums…
I’d never even heard👂 the term TCA before.
But, now that I know about it…
I can commandeer it.
And, when I talk to prospects…
I can talk to them in their own language…
And increases⏫ the chances of me being able to make the sale💲.
But there are additional reasons why I love forums too:
– I can uncover common objections or biases the market has…
– Find emotional horror stories that I can use in the lead of my copy…
– Plus, I even get ideas for product formulations, and unique mechanisms… because if someone mentions some weird solution on the forum that I’ve never heard of, and it’s intriguing, I’ll immediately start researching it.
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Anyways, hopefully, this helps.
There are some other dimensions to research beyond this…
And when I finally come out with my RMBC Course…
I’ll go super in-depth on this subject…
And even film myself doing research for some different niches in real-time…
Which I think will be really valuable!
– SPG
P.S. For all of the women👩 on my blog, I know you might read this and think I sound like an idiot. Almost like I just mansplained what a TCA is, right? But that's the thing – as a dude, I had no idea about this. I'd heard of a chemical peel but didn't know much about what it was, or how it worked. And I'd never heard of the term TCA😄. So if I didn't do the research, then I wouldn't sound very knowledgeable in my sales copy. And it's the same for you, too, when it comes to a niche that you're less familiar with. So that's the big point – you've got to research🔍 no matter what, but especially when you're not intimately familiar with a topic.
P.P.S. If you know someone who would find value in posts like this one, feel free to share. Also, they can apply to join my list using this link here.