Testing demand for your new product: 4 methods!

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Creating a new product can be overwhelming, terrifying, fun and downright exhausting. Take it from me—over the past year, we’ve helped dozens of companies conduct demand testing for their new products. 

In one example, a niche SaaS product, we even found out that the demand was not there for the anticipated audience, but was there for a totally different audience the client hadn’t even considered. Once we did demand testing, we had a clear picture of how to shift their Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and funnel strategy and their new software tool was in business. 

These types of learnings are critical to your business. And sometimes, when you already have an offer, experiments that go beyond just a survey can be far more effective.

Here are 4 ways to find out if there is interest or need for a new product:

1. In-depth Interviews + Journey Mapping

   By understanding and mapping your audience’s journey and what they struggle with along the way. Identifying pain points will help you design solutions that really matter.

2. Email Marketing Pre-orders or Waiting List

   Have an engaged email list who knows and trusts you? Use it to your advantage by sending out an email with your offer. Instead of asking them if they’re interested, ask them to actually sign up. Even if the offer isn’t ready yet, a pre-order or waiting list is the perfect validation for your concept. It’s totally ok to accept money from your customers, even without a product. If you wind up not going through with it, you can always refund and tell them there wasn’t enough interest.

3. Create a Funnel and “Fake Door” Test It

   Fake Door Testing means that you create an ad, offer, landing page—basically map out your whole funnel. Once people sign up, it takes them to an error page or a coming soon page. You will base the demand off the number of clicks. The more click-throughs, the more interest, the more demand there may be.

4. Google Trends

Google Trends will help you to find the number of Google searches for a specific keyword or phrase over time. 

For example, if your new product is a travel related app, you can search the keyword phrase “travel app” in the search bar at the top. You can then get more specific by choosing the time frame in which people search (ie. in the last hour, day, month, etc.), the specific country, region or even city you are interested in, and a specific category. You will then be given the specific number of people that searched for your keyword or phrase, what subregion searched for it the most and any related searches, and suggestions for related terms that might be even more valuable for you—especially if you’re in a niche business.

Raise your hand if you’re old enough to remember the Newton from Apple. 

The Newton was designed to be your personal assistant on the go: a handheld device that you could take anywhere that could take notes, hold contacts, manage calendars, send faxes and translate hand-writing into text. Yes, I said faxes! This device came out in 1993, before handheld computers were even a thing and before WiFi was accessible from basically anywhere. If Apple had taken the time to do more demand testing, they probably would have seen that customers were simply not ready for this futuristic device. 

Of course, the Newton did lead Apple to creating the first iPhone so some may argue it wasn’t a total fail. But in the case that your product doesn’t lead to the next iPhone, rushing a product launch before making sure there is an actual demand for it can be a big loss for your business. 

There are many more ways you can test demand for a new product, but these four are a great way to get started. Try them out and see what you find.

And of course, if you need help, the team at Bixa is always here.

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My blog post on Four Reasons to Use Video in Your Market Research

InstaBrain: The New Rules for Marketing to Gen Z (grab your free chapter here)  

Sarah Weise is the CEO of award-winning marketing research agency Bixa and the bestselling author of InstaBrain: The New Rules for Marketing to Generation Z. For 15 years, Sarah has been a guide to hundreds of leading brands including Google, IBM, Capital One, Mikimoto, PBS, and U.S. Army, to name a few. Sarah helps brands achieve a laser-focus on their customers and build experiences that are downright addictive. She lectures at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business and speaks at conferences and corporate events worldwide. 

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