A Simple Way to Mine for Marketing Gold

The great thing about marketing is that you never stop learning – even things you thought you already knew!

I recently had an awakening. I haven’t been practising what I preach… About research this time.

You may have heard me talk about the need to use both creative and analytical thinking when trying to optimise a process. How creativity only looks forward at what’s possible, while analysis can only look back at what happened.

Well, this doesn’t just apply to conversion optimisation. It’s just as important for market research.

Here’s an example. A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting with my team, Marie, Jimmy and Dan, in one of our month end meetings. We were brainstorming what people want from the Pro Web Design Course.

• Who’s most attracted to the course?
• What do they want most from the course?
• What should we be doing to persuade more people to sign up, etc.?

That’s when it struck me. I was only using creative thinking, and I was neglecting the analytical side. We have a goldmine of information right under our noses, we just weren’t digging.

So I emailed contacted all my students, and asked them a few simple questions. The response was absolutely amazing! Below you’ll see just some of the answers.

I’ll tell you the 5 questions I asked, explain why these questions are important, and how I may be able to use the results.

The five questions I asked were:

1. How familiar were you with me and my work before you got interested in the Pro Web Design Course? (e.g. Had you bought my books, were you on my mailing list, or did you just come across the site one day?)
2. What three things most appealed to you about the course?
3. What concerns did you have about signing up?
4. Why did you finally decide to take the course?
5. Please describe what you’ve gotten out of the course so far?

This is a really good sequence of questions, because they form a human story, which makes for good testimonial material. Testimonials are authentic when they’re honest and complete, which is why it’s important to ask about concerns and doubts.

Let me walk you through the feedback here