So How To Find Top Selling Products To Sell?

[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