So How To Find Top Selling Products To Sell?

In Michael Ross' thread-- "WANTED: Your Participation - The info in this post could make you money" Michael posed the question to me about how I would go about finding top selling products to sell myself or possibly even "tweak" a little and sell as my own product.

Before I get into some of the steps I would take to uncover top-selling products I'm greatly interested in how some of you would go about identifying top-selling products.

So "spill your guts" and then I'll spill mine -- how would you go about finding products that have some potential to make you some money?

Please consider this a brainstorming session-- there are no "bad" answers!

Michael,

Thanks for ASKing.

As I mentioned already, but consider it better placed in this thread, one method is for finding a product which sells (it might not be top selling, but does sell) is ...

1: Do a Google Search for something. For example, "How to repair rust".

2: Save a copy of the Google Ads in a Text File. In this case there is Only 1 ad which reads...

Repair & Prevent Rust Now
Stop Rust For 10 Years, Guaranteed.
No Prep, Easy To Apply & Maintain!
www.RustBullet.com

Note: A Search for Rust Repair got three ads on the side...

eBay Rust Repair
Make money, sell your Rust Repair
Compare Offers, Get Our Best Deal
www.eBay.com.au

Zero Rust for rust repair
Corrosion Coating, rust protection
barrier at the steel surface level.
www.zero-rust.com

Easy Quick & Inexpensive
Treat-Stop-Prevent Rust & Corrosion
for tough safe & lasting protection
www.floodaustralia.net

3. In two month's time do the same search. In fact, it's wise to save the Search itself - copy the location bar - and then paste that back-in two months down the track. If you see the same ads from the same company you Know they are either Making Money (people are buying their stuff) - or - they are insane and are spending money to get Brand Awareness without the matching sales (something the Big Boys do but the small guy generally will not do).

If you assume they are making money you have identified a Viable Market. A Market and often a Product people are buying.

4: Check out their website for Finer Details - how they market it on the web, do they do email as well, bonus items, etc. Even BUY their product as Additional Competitive Research.

This should not only find you a Viable Product but also show you Part of How it is marketed. And I say Part because you will only be aware of the small marketing methods you have seen. They may also use Offline methods you aren't aware of.

There are Other Methods, but let's see what others share to see if those other methods are revealed.

Michael Ross

[Ankesh]

Thanks Michael for asking.

I tend to follow what Bill Myers et al teach:

1. First find the crowd.
2. Then find / create what products they want.

Finding the Crowd:

* Through magazines (consumer as well as trade related)
* Workshops and seminars and trade shows
* SRDS and rental list services
* Online Groups
* eBay

Then just research - either online or offline - to see what these crowds are buying.

Ankesh,

Thanks for the Two Step.

Would you Expand on your answer please.

HOW do you Find A Crowd in a magazine or online groups?

HOW do you Research to find what they are buying?

Michael Ross

[Ankesh]

Thanks Michael for asking "How."

Btw - I do agree with you that because not many people write "how" to do things - readers don't follow through. But I think that makes a good barrier. It will get rid of people who make excuses.

Anyways, back to your questions.

>HOW do you Find A Crowd in a magazine or online groups?

I dont find crowds "in" magazines and online groups. The magazines and online groups themselves represent a crowd. If there is no crowd, there will be no magazine.

For further research, just ask the magazine or the online group owner to send you more information about their readers / visitors because you are thinking of advertising with them. (The industry term is demographics.)

Most magazines will send you a very glossy rate card that has their number of readers. Assume its inflated.

Many online groups may not have anything like that available. But you can see the action happening on the websites - the number of posts per week, the number of regular posters, the number of new posters.

>HOW do you Research to find what they are buying?

Just as you do. By reading and following ads or "wishlists".

* On Google (how many ads are there for the keyword)
* Other websites like ebay, clickbank etc
* Top lists - like amazon, New York Times etc
* How many ads are there in the magazine
* What kind of ads are those
* Have they been running for a long time

* On forums, I try to see if a question is being asked again and again.

I use a number of tools / techniques / questions / criteria. But I don't rely on just one of them to make my decision. And there is no formula that tells me tool A is worth 20% and tool B is worth 15%. Its more a feeling after going through a lot of information.

I would love to know if someone has a more scientific process.

Sellers are everywhere for everything and anything.

Concentrate on finding the buyers.

One Hundred buyers are worth far more than One Thousand sellers.

Jim

Ankesh,

Thanks for Touching on magazines.

Here's a couple of ways mags can be used.

Ads: You briefly mentioned this. But there is More Depth to it.

Bill Myers used Ads as a way to Figure Out if something related to the product advertised was viable. And in his case it was newsletters. That is, if he saw a consistently run ad he figured you could write a Newsletter based on the product sold.

In his case it was a Greenhouse. And so he started the Greenhouse Gardeners Journal. The idea being, the product (Greenhouses) has a following as proven by the longevity of the ads which sold them. And those who bought the product would Want Additional Information to Help them with their product. Problem solving, tips, etc.

As the subscriber base would be rather niche, then advertising could be accepted from companies who wanted to target that niche.

He ran Workshops to teach these concepts to people. All attendees started newsletters - but - as far as I know, None were able to keep one going for any length of time. Bill blamed this on Bad Topic Choice, and not his advice which was followed to come up with the topic.

His advice might have some validity for creating a single product or small product range to Ride Along with the advertised product. But being able to create a newsletter around it is more difficult - not impossible, but difficult, and your success would be more due to happenstance than good management.

Going back to the Greenhouse... A book on Making The Most Of Your Greenhouse would have been a better product to create. Less time and effort needed. And could be done using the Halbert Technique I mentioned elsewhere in the thread.

Of course, Bill's Market Identification Technique is mentioned by Jim in one of his reports - Mailorder, maybe - but with the advice to Still tread lightly. Because not all ad running means the product is selling.

Another point to be Aware of is, running ads do not tell you much about the State of the publication - Paid Subscribers, Bought Circulation not just Distributed Circulation, ad so on. Just because a publication is being published does not mean its readership is not Declining.

Articles: Generally speaking, people buy magazines for the Content and not the ads - even if they do enjoy Looking at the ads. The content (articles inside) is Often advertised on the front page by use of headers. To entice Newsstand Browsers to pick up the magazine and buy it. Because I'd imagine that the hardest thing with magazines, as with books, is getting the customer to pick up the items off the shelf in the first place. Which is why Time is spent on the Front Cover Teasers.

The idea then is, create a product based around the Main Articles within the publication - people read the publication because of the articles and are interested in those topics, so maybe they would like Additional Stuff (information or goods) on those same topics.

This is Close to the Ebay idea of...

People who are shopping on ebay for _______, might also be interested in (and be willing to pay for) Instant Information on _________.

E.g. People who are shopping on ebay for silk flowers might be interested in (and be willing to pay for) instant information on how to make a flower arrangement.

That Same Approach could be used with any Product advertised. However, this doesn't mean you have found a Good product To Sell - as this thread is leaning towards - but how to find something people might have an interest in and be willing to spend money on. They BUY the mag because of the Articles (in a sense they are buying the articles) and so it could stand to reason those readers might also be willing to buy more articles or information.

Any Examples pop into your head when you think of the Sentence above "people who are shopping on ebay for..."??

Michael Ross

Ankesh,

Thanks for mentioning the SRDS.

A few words about using them...

While it is great for finding what people bought, and thus letting you know a market Does exist, the catch is, almost always you cannot market a similar product to the same people.

E.g. You see a list of people who bought a Special Interest Video on Great Bicycle Tracks of New York. You Think, based on this knowledge, that you'll rent the list and sell them a Part 2 version of the same, or slightly different version of Family Bicycle Tracks. The Problem is, Your Product is Similar to what was sold and so the original seller will not allow you to rent their list.

E.g. 2. My Celtic Jewelry catalog will not be allowed to be mailed to a list of buyers of any jewelry - be it Mexican Jewelry, General Jewelry, Hand Crafter Jewelry and so on.

So even though the SRDS let me in on something of value I cannot market my Similar Product to the same people.

Michael Ross

Thanks for this Michael...

[ E.g. You see a list of people who bought a Special Interest Video on Great Bicycle Tracks of New York. You Think, based on this knowledge, that you'll rent the list and sell them a Part 2 version of the same, or slightly different version of Family Bicycle Tracks. The Problem is, Your Product is Similar to what was sold and so the original seller will not allow you to rent their list.]

One has to be creative on this....given the above example we know that these people are probably outdoors people, believe in healthy exercise, interested in health and fitness,etc.

One creates a product around one of these areas of interest, rents the list, offers the product for free with such great copy they can't resist but only after becoming a free member of the site you have built for it.

Then once they are members of your site you add another section to the site, and then you can create your "new" product for the bicycle track list that are now your members.

C.

If my memory serves me correctly, for a given list the SRDS will tell you the number of units sold, the average price of a sale, and how the sales were generated (i.e., direct mail, TV advertising, etc.). If it were possible to research and find the actual advertising that the markerter used to get those sales, perhaps one could successfully emulate their marketing campaign. At least it seems that having that information would increase your chances of success. One could also get on the other marketer's mailing list if their campaign is still active.

Just a thought.

BTW, Michael, I thought of you when I heard this: "Guns kill people like knives spread peanut butter on bread".

---- Hugh