So, how do you find a hungry market that is desperate for the solution that you have to their problem?

Well, there are a few ways that I am doing it – and this is really the first step in this market testing process that I mentioned in my last blog post.

1. You brainstorm things that you are good at, problems you have solved, or problems that people frequently come to you for. Think about anything – hobbies, activities, work, interests, family – you name it. The point here is to get a bunch of ideas down on paper, and then you can narrow them down as you go.

2. Brainstorm things that people you know are good at, problems they have solved, or problems that people frequently come to them for.

3. Do a search on clickbank – one of the best resources and largest marketplaces for information products – and look at offers that are out there that correspond to your brainstorming list. You can also look at other affiliate networks like Commission Junction. At this point, I am looking for offers I can test with PPC to see if I can get them to convert. After all, I might find a market with a CPC (Cost Per Click) of $3 or more – I don’t want to compete with super pricey keywords. I am looking for smaller niche markets and cheaper keywords. You can use Google’s Keyword Analyzer to estimate the traffic, and use www.wordpot.com (free) to get an idea for more keywords.

**(A sneaky competitive intelligence trick that I learned from Rich Schefren is that you can do a search on Amazon.com and see what books are out there that solve the problems you are looking to solve – you can read their table of contents and see what points they thought were the most important, and even better you can see the comments from people who have read the book and see what they thought of the book. Sometimes you can find ideas to create a better offer or a common problem that most people are commenting about)**

Then I start looking at the keywords for my niche market to see how much competition there is. You see, I don’t want to be competing with 50 bazilion advertisers on Google PPC. Although competition is a good sign that there is a strong market and demand for my product, I am looking for keywords with less advertising competition and a lower CPC.

I recently stumbled across some awesome free videos that can really help you speed up “digging for golden keywords” process! Take a look and let me know what you think.

Next post I’ll show you exactly how I set up and test out my offers using PPC. I spent quite a bit of money a over the past few months to learn PPC from the best PPC marketers, and I just found out that they are giving away their training for free! I’m not sure how long they are going to keep it open for free, but I paid several hundred dollars to get their training a few months ago, and it was worth every penny. For free- it’s a total no-brainer!

These are the exact tools that I am using right now, and I’ll continue to show you how I do it – be on the lookout for my next post showing you the next step in setting up your golden keywords.

Adam

So as I was rushing out the door on my trip to Florida last week – and I don’t know how I did this – but I left my iPhone at home.

Yes, my beloved iPhone that I carry around with me everywhere.

The one I had loaded up the night before with a bunch of audios and other good stuff so that I could have something to do on the long plane ride.

Yeah, I left it at home…

And I didn’t even realize it until I got out of the car and checked my pockets…and it was gone!

In my rush off to the airport in the morning, I was out of my normal routine and had left my iPhone at home on the bathroom counter of all places.

Luckily, my wife had her cell phone and gave it for me to use over the weekend.

And so, my lovely wife dropped my off for me to catch my plane, and she went home to find my phone and see if she could overnight it to my hotel in Florida. $25 she said, and she had to send it before 11:00 am to get to me in time- I told her not to worry about it and this it wasn’t worth overnighting to me for the weekend. After all, I was mostly wanting to use it for the plane ride anyways…

So I get on my plane, and went to turn off her phone and realized that her phone had next to nothing for batery life. “No problem” I said to myself – I’ll see if I can pick up a replacement charger for the phone when I land. After all, how much are cell phone chargers anyways, like 5 bucks? No problem.

I forgot that I was trying to buy something in an airport. (If any of you have heard Jerry Seinfeld’s airport comedy skit, you can play that right now and know what I’m talking about…)

So, I had a few minutes before I had to catch my connector flight, and it took me looking at like 3 or 4 store in the airport before I found one that had the charger that I needed. But finally, I found it. Price tag you might ask?

$25.

I paid it…sure…even though by now I really could have overnighted my iPhone to me in Florida for the same price tag.

So why am I telling you this story you are probably asking yourself?

Let me tell you the marketing lesson behind my little unfortunate circumstance:

It is easy to sell to a market who are desperate for what you have to offer them…and you can charge outrageous prices!!

Perfect example- the airport. They can charge whatever they want, and they don’t have a great selection. Jerry Seinfeld jokes – “‘Tuna fish sandwhich? $10. Tuna is very rare here’…What…do they think they are they’re own country or something?!?”…

I was desperate – I left my phone at home, my replacement phone had no batteries, and I was stuck in an airport. I figured it would probably cost me more to take a cab to a walmart to buy a cheap charger, than to just bite the bullet in the airport store.

So, the question is really – how do you find a hungry market who are desperate to buy what you have to offer them you might ask yourself?

You just need to look around – there are hundreds of different markets and niches out there that solve people’s problems, but some problems are easier to find answers for, and some are easier to solve.

Now I have been doing my own research and testing lately looking for niche markets that are hungry for the solutions that I can provide them, and I’ll be sharing that process with you in the coming weeks, so stay tuned…

Post your comments here in the meantime and let me know what you think, and what’s working for you.

And until next time - best of luck with your efforts online…and try not to make the dumb mistake I made at the airport.

I’ve been busy applying the bundle of notes I took and the things I learned down on Boca Raton, Florida at Rich Schefren’s office last weekend — it was an amazing weekend. The best part about the weekend for me was that because it was a small group, we were able to have one-on-one access to Rich and his staff. I was able to get e-mail copywriting tips, sales letter critiques, launch techniques, amazing PPC and SEO strategies and more while networking with 60 other successful online marketers. And after seeing Rich’s office and the strategies that they are using right now at Strategic Profits – it’s pretty amazing and inspiring. –Oh and did I mention the weather was amazing down at the beach?

And I finally got to meet Alex Jeffreys in person and talk with him about his business and plans to make $1 Million this year– and man can that guy party!

I’ve got my own big plans for this year, and one of the biggest takeaways for me was something Rich showed us about planning your work and working your plan — he showed us this little scoreboard that he uses daily to prioritize his projects. You can check out and download the guide for free on David Seah’s blog.

When you have a job, your boss is there to keep you in line and your boss will let you know when you’re not working on something that will contribute to the company. But when you’re an entrepreneur, it’s a little more difficult to tell if you’re on the right track — you can get easily distracted and end up being a “busy fool” as Alex says — busy working, but not productive. Let me give you an example – cleaning my inbox: do I need to do it? Probably. Is it a good use of my time? Definitely not! Developing a new product, or a new JV relationship – those are going to contribute directly to the money I make and would definitely be a 10 on my sheet.

I am a very competitive person, and I need something to keep score so that I can look back at my day or week, and not only know that I was working hard, but that I was working hard at the RIGHT things! Especially when I am working on long-term projects that I won’t necessarily see an immediate result, I can score my activity and know if it is a 10, a 5 or a 1.

Go right now and download your copy from David Seah’s blog – you’ll be glad you did. And then you can go and customize your sheet for you and your business. What things are a 10 for you? What things are a 5? What things are a 3, a 2, or a 1? The best part about it is that you can adapt it for your business, and your priorities will certainly change over time as your business grows.

But the biggest thing is just to use it!

And then use it – this will help me take my daily journal one step further, and really score myself each day by the things that are the most important in my business right now.

I’ve got more of my takeaways from Rich Schefren’s office to come in the next few days– I’ll be making a few more posts, so stay on the look out.

Adam

P.S. (I’ve also got a special treat for you in a few weeks that you don’t want to miss…stay tuned!!!)

I had someone ask me earlier today about using Skype, and so I thought I would make a post about it to help everyone out.

I love skype –it is one of the coolest free tools that I use!

You can call anyone in the world, and do a video conference with them, for free. Way cool.

And if you want to call landlines, it has the lowest unlimited world-wide calling plan I’ve seen out there. I’ve found that the sound quality is even better than normal phone conversations too.

Right now I am working on collecting a bunch of testimonials for a launch that I am in the process of, and guess what I am using? You got it–skype.

There’s a cool little application called Pamela that you can get a free 30 day trial — and it integrates seamlessly with skype. There are a few other skype recorders out there too that you can try out, but this is the one I’ve been using.

I get on the call, a press record, and voila — I’ve got a great audio testimonial or case study. I can then go and transcribe the conversation or whatever I want to do.

I also use it a lot for when I am brainstorming with partners, or when I am on coaching calls– we get going talking about different ideas and our ideas are flowing–with Skype and Pamela I can record our conversation and play it back in case I missed something in my notes.

You could even do an interview on skype, and record the conversation, and that could give you the makings of your own product! You could add a transcription of the interview, and that would be even better.

If you have skype, what others way are you using it?

Adam

**SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT**— For those of you in the F500, go check out Gary Simpson’s blog to stick up for Alex Jeffreys and make your vote count!

So, a few weeks ago Alex Jeffreys mentioned a number of other top internet marketing blogs that many of you have mentioned in other recent posts that I’ve read– Jason James, Andrew Fox, and John Chow.

Now, I know that I’ve got a ton to learn about blogging still, but the main thing as Alex says is to just get going, don’t get it perfect. You learn failing forward faster than not doing anything at all. And you learn best by watching the experts.

That’s not to say that we don’t have our own group of experts here in the F500! We have to look no further than the ever-mixed-up Gary-Duo: Garry Parkes and Gary Simpson, along with our very own “resident expert” on blogs: Dean Holland, and the newest winner of the comment contest on Andrew Fox’s blog Thomas Northrup! (Very clever and well done Thomas!)

There are many others–but my point is that these are some great people to keep an eye out for, to watch what they are doing, and incorporate elements into your own blog!

So, I’ve been following John Chow’s blog over the holidays, and wanted to give you a review of his free ebook with some of the highlights that I found.

First off, John’s ebook focuses over and over on delivering value to your readers (so that they come back), doing and writing about what you love, and focusing on people by writing for people instead of Google. (Basically the same points that Alex has been talking about–give great value).

John Chow makes his money through affiliate promotion and the ads that he has on his blog, and he gives some great resources for bloggers for different ad networks that have worked best for him. John blogs about 3-5 times a day he says (WOW-that’s a lot!) and he says that whatever you do with blogging, just be consistent.

His ebook a bit dated (I believe he wrote it in 2006) but the gems I found in his ebook were pretty cool and still very applicable today.

Here are some of the cool plug-ins he recommended that were new to me:

• Brian’s Threaded Comments -This plugin let’s you add a reply to a direct comment, to make it easier for your readers to come back and see your reply
• Subscribe To Comments – The best way to get more page hits — get people to keep coming back to your blog, and this plugin lets them subscribe to the comments and stay updated with the conversation on your blog
• Top Commentators Widget – Highlights the top commentators on your blog, and gives them some link love.

I liked these plugins that he mentioned, along with some of the SEO tips that he gives for blogs.

If you haven’t yet, check out John Chow’s blog and get his free ebook here –he’s got a bunch of great blogging tips and content.

I know I’ve been really happy to see all of the activity lately on my blog, and I’ve seen my page rank and alexa rank go up as I get more traffic and more readers–the comments have been great lately, and I’ll be working on getting some more video posts for you guys soon!

Are you ready for 2009?

I tell you what, after being with my family and taking a little time off during the holidays (along with my annual college football overdose with the bcs bowls…) I am feeling great!

I am a huge USC football fan, and I had a blast watching them clinch another Rose Bowl victory. And how about those Longhorns last night? It sure turned out to be a good game there at the end of the 4th quarter. Sorry OSU fans, but Ohio State has had a pretty sorry showing the past few years in the BCS bowls, but they did put up a good fight and almost beat those Texans.

I just wish that they would institute a playoff! For the life of me, I don’t know why they let a computer decided the rankings–I think they should leave it all on the field (and I think USC, Utah and Texas all have a pretty valid argument to be able to play for the championship) But enough of my little rant here….

With the holiday break and the fresh start of a new year, I’ve found that I get a lot of my best ideas when I take a step back from my business to think and have a little R&R–that’s how I get some of my best ideas! I can’t help that I’m a little bit of a workaholic, and that even while I was on vacation, I had my iPhone near me, and whenever I had an idea, I would do a little voice record using Jott for short recordings, or another recording application for longer recordings. I’ve been putting those ideas down on paper, these past few days, and now I am ready to work my plan!

I know that sometimes when I first look at my list of to-do’s, it can be a little bit overwhelming with all of the things that I want to accomplish. But one of the biggest things that I’ve learned from working with Rich Schefren and Alex Jeffreys is to organize my goals and my plans in a way so that I know what the most important things are, and what I need to do first. I draw myself a little tree diagram mapping out what comes first, second, third, etc…, and keep it all together.

This month, I am working on putting together some more articles to submit, as well as some more traffic videos. I also had an idea about going through all of the PLR and MLR downloads that I have on my computer, and see if I can sift through it and find some of the good stuff to help me jump start on more articles and make more videos. What do you think?

I’ve been so glad that I set up my google reader with all of the students blogs and other blogs that I follow so that I can easily get all of the latest posts quickly. And I have sure been impressed with all of the great posts that I’ve been seeing lately! As I was telling the Gazz-man the other day, there are definitely going to be some great JV partnerships out of the Fortunate 500.

How is your blogging traffic coming along? What else have you been finding to work well for you?

I’ve got some more of my behind the scenes traffic videos coming up for you…so stay tuned!

Well, Christmas is almost here, and I just finished the last of my Christmas shopping last night…whew! What a relief. I am definitely looking forward to taking a break over the holidays and just being with my family. In fact, we had a huge snowstorm come in over the weekend, and I had a great time making a little snowman with my little boy yesterday–It definitely feels like Christmas and it is a great time of year!

Earlier this week I showed you one of my traffic methods that have been working like gangbusters– JV Giveaways. There are many otheres here that I’ll not for you:

• Submit my blog to RSS feeds like RSSMatron, FeedFury, Dapper, Feedage, GoldenFeed, and FeedAgg
• Social Bookmarking with multiple directories and multiple accounts (using sites like Social Marker and Onlywire)
• Blog commenting and “rig hopping”
• Article submission using specific keywords and www.submityourarticle.com
• Video submission using Traffic Geyser
• Setting up FriendFeed to sync with my RSS feeds and Twitter for Twitter marketing (I set up an RSS feed from my ezine articles, and my bookmarks, my Google Reader, even my blog posts, and I can share the pages I like in my google reader with my friendfeed and have it update my Twitter account as well–whenever I see an article or webpage that has good value, I can share it with people on my friendfeed and twitter account with a click of a button.
• Facebook polls and page creation — I’m just getting started with this and learning how to maximize traffic and friends in facebook.

AND I’ve got a new, secret traffic tactic that I’ll be woring on after the holidays that you guys are going to LOVE! I just had the idea a few days ago, and all I can say is that it is pure genious!

Stay tuned…

and a Merry Christmas to you and yours!

I just put together this new video (in continuation with my free traffic weekly video series), and I think it’s really going to help you out this week!

A lot of people have been asking me about traffic generation using JV Giveaways–this is a little method I learned from Alex Jeffreys, and it will show you how to get loads of free traffic by submitting to these giveaways the right way.

Click here to view the embedded video.

P.S. Make sure that you follow the rules of each JV Giveaway, and that you make sure that you promote the giveaway as well.

Here is the link to the JV Giveaway I mention in the video

These are other HOT JV Giveaways I am also doing:

New Years Giveaway – HOT

Autopilot Cash Streams – HOT

New Year Free Gift Giveaway – HOT

Newbie Training Giveaway- HOT

Stay tuned next week for my free weekly traffic videos!

Wow–the response has been amazing!

I have just been blown away by the great group and community of students here!

As I have gone through all of the comments–reading everyone’s experiences as they are learning, applying and are starting to see some success online–it is truly inspiring. (And believe me, trying to pick just ONE winner was MUCH harder than I ever thought it would be).

After going through the comments over and over again….the winner of the 60 minute coaching session with me is…..

Dean Hohn!

Congratulations Dean, and to all of you–it was a close choice and I will still be answering any questions and helping out as much as possible! You guys have all been so great to me, and I’ve got some more special surprises coming to you to help you with your online business. (you’ll have to check out the new videos that I have planned to release this week here on my blog!)

After all the comments were tallied, there were a total of 37 in a very short few days. And at $1 a piece, that drops my $97 Social Traffic Explosion course to $60.

And I was thinking this morning–what could I do to really beef up this special contest bonus for everyone?

Well, and since it is Christmas time and all of Alex’ students have been so good to me and everyone else here in the community– I thought I would triple the bonus for all of Alex Jeffreys students!

That’s right–I am tripling my bonus and I’m going to take $37 off of all 3 of my traffic products!!

Social Traffic Explosion: Normally $97-$37 = just $60 (for Alex Jeffreys students only!)

Big List Bucks: Normally $47-$37 = just $10 (for Alex Jeffreys students only!)

Fast Cash For Newbies: Normally $47-$37 = just $10 (for Alex Jeffreys students only!)

Or, you can buy all three jam-packed traffic courses ($191 value) for just $60!

I was a little apprehensive about discounting all 3 of them, but I thought with Alex’s traffic contest this week, that these courses (along with the other videos on my previous blog posts) could really help you out to start generating loads of free traffic in a very short amount of time for Alex’s $1000 contest!

Just enter your name and e-mail address here, so that I can make sure that this only goes out to Alex Jeffrey’s students, and you’ll be directed to a special page to access my “Student’s Only” special bonus!

This award goes out to ALL of Alex Jeffrey’s students–so make sure you let everyone know and trackback to this post so that you can get the word out on the blogrolls to get this award while the page is still up.

Let the Traffic Frenzied Games Begin!!

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FRIDAY UPDATE: Wow! I’ve been blown away by all the comments and experiences everyone is having!

We’re coming into the home stretch here–I’m going to be extending the contest over the weekend

to give everyone a chance who is just getting their blogs up and running right now.

Keep an eye out on Monday as I announce the winner here

and give out a secret link to my underground traffic course!

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UPDATE: 36 hours to go on the contest!

Man–the hits have been crazy today, and the comments keep pouring in!

Keep ‘em coming!

We’re at 23 comments right now–with a dollar for each comment

Updated Price: $74

You’re going to have to keep spreading the word and keep the comments coming

….if you’re gonna be lucky enough to get my underground traffic course for free…

Spread the word to 5 people on the blogroll–you’ve only got 36 hours to go!!!!!

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UPDATE: 48 Hours to go on the contest!

I’ve been fielding e-mails and comments all day–the response has been great so far!

Thank you to all of you who have commented and helped spread the word.

we want to get everyone’s amazing experiences on here.

and if you guys really want me to give this away to you for *free*…

you’ll need to help spread the word and e-mail or comment on 3 other student’s blogs.

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I was just looking at all these blogs on the different blog rolls out there–and man! I have been blown away with all of the talents in the group, and all of the amazing action that everyone has been taking!

I’ve seen a lot of people with some pretty incredible results already, and I’m proud of people taking action creating a blog for the first time!

I was reading about the special award on Coleen Cook’s blog (AKA Queen Snitch…and Teacher’s Pet), and then over on “Gary-Land”, and also over with Garry Parkes and his amazing newsletter and seeing all of the talents and experiences that everyone is having, and I had this idea…I wanted to put together everyone’s experiences with their new blogs and the coaching program. And I wanted to give out a real award to all of you who are taking some pretty incredible action right now in your online businesses!

Some people may think I’m crazy, and I’m not talking about any of this “nickel” stuff–I’m talking $1 for every experience and comment on this post!

Here’s the deal—just write your comment below on this post about your new blog and Alex’s coaching course–the action you have taken and the results you have seen so far—and for every comment, I’m going to be dropping the price of my Social Traffic Explosion course that I sell for $97. (Now this is a fast-paced course showing you how to get tons of free social traffic using underground traffic tactics, jam-packed with 8 videos, audios, and transcripts for you to plug and play in your business.)

So for the next 72 hours, I’m going to open up the comments of your new experiences with your blogs and the coaching, and then we’ll tally all of the comments, dropping the price of my course by $1 for each comment. (Just think about it…with all of the people in Alex’s coaching program, I’ll be giving this course away for *free* with all of the comments pouring in!!!)

PLUS - The person with best comment/experience will get a full 60 minutes coaching session with me personally working on your business! (And I’ve been working with Alex Jeffreys, Rich Schefren, Jeff Walker, Michael Cheney, Mike Filsaime…these marketers have been the key in getting my online business up and running so quickly, and I’ll be able to show you the same things in your business that they have done for me and mine in such a short amount of time.)

Now, a lot of people have been commenting on my blog about my new ebook and my free videos, and I’ve been answering a ton of e-mails helping people get started–I’ll still be doing all of that. But for the person with the best comment, I’m going to be able to work with you one-on-one in your business for a full 60 minutes.

So, post your comments, spread the word on all of the blog rolls and tell all your friends –and look out for my post in 72 hours with the contest results and the winner of my 60 minute coaching session!