An Email Players subscriber (don’t know he wants me naming him) asks:
“In the November’s Email Players issue you mentioned that a good way to do market research is to talk to the market. When talking to them, are you looking for anything more than the 50 questions in the Copy Slacker book? One more if you don’t mind: how can you tell if they’re lying or not?”
My answer:
When talking to them make it conversational, just asking about how they are, whats going on, like you would anyone.
Ask questions when/if it makes sense.
It is not supposed to be an interview, and there are no canned questions. It is supposed to be a conversation. Ideally get them telling you stories. “Really? Tell me what happened…” “That’s interesting, tell me more” “I didn’t know that, tell me more” “It’s all good, what happened next…”
A lot of answers will come out naturally when lost in their own stories.
Just be a regular guy having a regular conversation let it go where it goes.
You’re just listening, paying attention, being present, and you never know what will happen. Lying only happens if they think you want to hear something specific. That’s why it’s not an interview or series of canned questions. You don’t want to overthink this stuff, just have genuine curiosity and let them talk.
In short:
Be interested.
Thus the 2 greatest market research “hacks” ever invented:
Your ears and your mouth,.
More ears, than mouth, of course.
On a related note:
There’s no shortage of people who ask me questions, and I always appreciate it.
But, while I do appreciate them, what I can’t do is answer them all. I reserve answers primarily for my paying Email Players subscribers, which the above is an example of how I help them. That access is, in my biased opinion and many who take advantage of it, worth many times the subscription price.
Sometimes I also answer them in these daily emails, too.
But even then, it’s as a demonstration like this email is.
You can learn more about it here:
Ben Settle
