Web Development Blog

Continuing on from our the first part of this article where we examined how to determine whether or not there is an online market for your product or idea - in this second part, we're going to examine more closely how you can determine whether your product stands a chance of competing successfully in that market niche.

We'll look at the ways in which users react to your site and possible ways in which you can take your product or website from beta to market ready. And how you can determine whether your product fits the market niches that marketers are always on the look out for ...

UserTesting.com: One of the best ways to research the public's perception of your product is by testing it on UserTesting.com. For a fee of around $20, you can get a running commentary of a user's experience of your site. This is great for 'look-and-feel' testing, interface testing and usability in general. You can also choose your testers by gender, income, age and other characteristics.

Yahoo Answers: Forums, mailing lists and online chat channels might be a good place to get feedback on your product. However these places, by their nature are geared towards more general chat and often users are hostile to overtly commercial-based questions. Yahoo answers on the other hand is a more friendly environment for these kind of queries in our opinion. Questions about price points, usability, design of often asked and answered sincerely on Yahoo Answers and what's more - it's free !

Online Questionnaire: For any website launch, it's important that there's an online questionnaire on the site for people to fill out. Here you can address some key questions that'll need to answered in order for you to give a 100% customer-focused product.

Alpha Invite: An alpha invite of a product, usually involves giving users a free product or free test run in return for them giving you feedback. Forums and mailing lists are usually more friendly when you're offering users something for free. Alpha invites can also be used to create a marketing buzz about a product before launch.

Early Partners: If you're launching a service for a specific niche or industry. Then taking your product to some well-respected names and asking them to use if for free is always a good idea. Not only will it help test the product and make sure it's marketplace ready, but also - if the product performs successfully - you can ask these companies for testimonials and maybe even use their logos as endorsements on your site. The key here is to approach companies that are well-respected and are willing to take the product on. Make sure also that your product is working correctly before asking outside companies to test.

These are just some of the ways of getting initial user feedback on your product, before you spend $$$ on an expensive launch. Pls feel free to let us know which methods work best for you ...