 Today on The Journey, you're going to learn five strategies for product marketing testing on a budget. So I'm sure you got a great idea and you're super stoked on it and you just want to get out there and start selling it. Make that money. But before you do so, you want to be smart and that is starting with some product market testing. And if you want to give yourself the best opportunity to succeed, you want to make sure you're doing the product market testing and what product market testing is, is to make sure you can find that great product market fit. What that simply means is you have a product that people find beneficial and they'll pay you for it. Now, Emma, say you decided to open up your own surf shop, tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, so I definitely look at where I'm at, right? Like if I were still in Indiana, not much of a market there, right? Not much. Surfboards are just going to be collecting dust, well, I guess unless you did some wake surf on the lake. But that's not what we're talking about, we're talking about surfboards. And so you look at your market and you want to definitely think about how can I get people stoked to catch some waves and how much should I charge for this? So maybe to be competitive, you have some surfboards around the 500 range and you need to sell like 25 a month. So how can you sell 25 a month? Will that be enough and are you in the right market? That's just the beginning of making this dream come true. All right, so that sounds great, Emma, but what if the market is already over saturated? Well, I would be surprised by this because personally I have like three boards, so I feel like everyone wants to get another board, but I hear you, you're right. There might be surfers out there that are like, hey, I'm good with what I'm catching waves on. This isn't really something I need. An idea that comes to mind right away is pivot, sell skateboards instead. So with pivoting in mind, is there anything else that we can do? Yeah, so definitely one way that reeled me in surf lessons because there might be a ton of potential surfers out there that are just a little hesitant or nervous to go catch some stoke. So you offer some surf lessons and you get some new surfers, they're hooked and then they're about to buy one, two, maybe three boards from you over the years down the road. So it just seems like with product marketing testing, you have endless options. All right, so we're going to take you through five tools for product marketing testing, starting with market research. Yes, you want to make sure that the people, you know enough about the area, what the people are into, so if your product is going to fit or not. Totally, and you can hop on Yelp. I mean, again, with the surf example, I currently live in San Diego. Yeah, there's a lot of competition, but I could go ahead and look up surf shops and see what am I working with? What am I dealing with? What am I competing with? Now, step two, you can put it on Facebook. You can figure out if the network that you have is interested in your product, but also don't forget, it's not just your friends, but it's your friends of your friends. That extended network, that's going to be valuable to you to figure out if these people are interested in your product. They can like, they can comment, share your posts. That will give you some good research. All right, number three, levered sign up forms and landing pages. And the cool thing is, I know email is a big one for me when it comes to surf boards. And it's a great way that you can keep your audience up to date. Like, for example, when it was the end of summer sale at the last place, I bought one of my boards. They sent an email letting me know about some discounted wetsuits that they had as well. But yeah, some summer suits before we get into those cooler temps. The ocean's going to cool down a little bit and they're selling the thicker wetsuits. So it was a great way for me to know, hey, I need to head back down to the surf shop or online and order myself a discounted wetsuit. But you might have some updates about new boards that you have in or some discounts. So that's one great way. Also, you don't need to have a website. We recommend it. But you can do a lot in the beginning just with social media. And it's good also to have something of your own, that landing page. Just really simple, one page where you can actually control it. This is something you own. So anyone that is interested, they can have the opt-in form where they can leave their email to stay notified when you're ready for that product to come out. Or as Emma was saying, even after your first product, maybe you can build it up and you have another product coming out and you can keep them up to date with that. And number four, surveys. You can have surveys to learn about your market. And also, if you don't know who your actual market is, surveys will be a great way to figure out if people are interested in your product. You can use things like Google Forms or Survey Monkey. Those are pretty popular. Pull Daddy. Pull Daddy. Where you can make sure that you can get enough people letting you know that they are actually interested in your product. So our fifth and final tip is to use Google AdWords to get in front of searchers. I mean, we already talked about the importance of creating a landing page. Put some AdWords behind that. And again, it's a great way to get in front of a larger audience, get them to sign up. Good call to action. And we've actually done a video on that with SEO. So if you're interested in learning more, just click over here. Also, I forgot to mention, draft some simple ads, send them to the landing page and then do a bid on keywords. Like, for example, with surfboards, some keywords that might be good to include or consider surfing, surfboards, leashes, fins. Wipe out. Wipe out. Let's sue. Wax. Rax. Dimension racks. Think about that. It will help you to get in front of that target audience. So any engineer knows before you invest thousands or millions into a product or your retirement. Exactly. You want to build a little prototype first. So the same thing when it comes to your product. You want to make sure that you're testing the market so that you know when you bring it out and you're ready, you already have a following and they are willing and ready to actually pay you for it. That's a wrap. You just learned five strategies for product marketing testing on a budget. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe. And ring the bell so you're notified when we have our brand new content. And thanks for watching. This is The Journey. See you next time.