Where does one get the market data to figure out what people want? (What courses will sell?)

I’ve been asking for questions from folks so I could be sure I’ll doling out the info that’s interesting. This blog and the video version, are in response to one of those questions.

The next question in this series is: Where does one get the market data to figure out what people want? In other words, how do I know what will sell?

So first and foremost, I am not a marketer. I withdrew from my marketing class in college. I am a learning experience designer that happens to know a lot about marketing and the theory behind how we market to people (my PhD is in Rhetoric and Writing).

So what is the market? The market is the people who are going to buy the things. What you want to figure out, or what this question is asking, is what the people that are going to buy the things and stuff want.

So where do we find out what people who might buy the thing want? We go to the people. Which people? The people who have bought something similar to what you want to sell AND/OR the people know or engage with IRL or online.

The best way to get market data to figure out what people want is to go to the market. You might do that in a couple of ways.

Option 1

First, you might go to some of the popular course hosting platforms and see what courses are doing the best, what courses are popular, what courses have high ratings. This isn’t a bad way to get an idea of what’s out there and what's selling already.

Words of warning:

Just because you don't see something similar to your course idea, doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea.

If you see the exact same course, it doesn't mean there isn't a market for your particular idea, you just need to figure out how you put your flavor on it.

While I’m suggesting this as an option, don’t get too caught up in it. When I looked, I found NOTHING that was doing what I’m doing. That’s both good and bad.

Option 2

Let’s return to our core idea: your market is the people that might buy from you.

That means your second option is going to real life people. This does require having people, like groups you’re in or a social media following or an email list, but it doesn’t require that that list or following is huge - just that they have the problem you want to solve and would potentially pay to have it solved.

You can do this a lot of different ways. Like polls, surveys, one-on-one chats. Regardless, you’ll ask similar questions, just perhaps in different ways. 

I’m going to focus on polling and surveys here, but these can all be adapted to a one-to-one setting.

Polling & Surveys

You might start by putting a poll out there or a one to two question survey that's asking them what they'd be interested in from you. If they're following you on social media, they have a good idea about the stuff that you talk about. Find out from them, the people that know your or your stuff, what they’re most interested in. What do they want to learn from you?

You want to throw a few topic ideas out there, of course, with the option of “other” and catching things in the survey or in the comments. “Other” is always a good idea because you can't think of everything and sometimes others see our strengths better than we do.

If you're not sure about the topics that you're interested in teaching about, or you just have no idea what you could teach about, then you can try out my Free Course Creation Jumpstart.

Yes, it’s a PDF, but it’s fillable, has a video at the top to walk you through it, and has clear cut action items. I walk you through some ideation steps, and after you get through Step 2, throw those topics in a poll or survey.

Your poll might looks like this:

I’m thinking of creating a course, but need some help narrowing down. Would you be more interested in a course about

• X
• Y
• Z
• Other (share the idea in the comments)

The key here is that you don't want to stop with that poll that says what course topics would you want to take from yours truly. That's just sort of to get an idea of where you should focus. You want to make sure that how you're developing that topic is in line with what the market wants too.

And that's sort of where you get into more targeted market research. It's a delicate balance of what you can and what you want to deliver and what they want from you.

That's where we find that sweet spot.

Continuous Feedback

So in that freebie that's linked above, that last step is writing descriptions. You can use these, too. Get feedback on those descriptions. This can be done as a poll, as separate posts that ask a question.

People will tell you what they like and what they don't like about the thing that you're trying to put out there.

Don’t stop there. Every time you plan another piece of your course, throw it to the market.

Got yourself some learner goals at this point? Ask the market if they share those goals.
Do you have a course map or an outline? Take bits and pieces and ask if those things are interesting to them.

Remember They WANT to Learn

Those are good recommendations for doing targeted market research for your course. When you're doing this, don't forget that you're trying to sell to a learner. 

They're coming to you because they want to produce change through learning. 

Think of your course as an experience instead of a product. So you need to also learn about who they are as a learner, and that should be part of your research.

Ask things like

• how much time do you have in a week?
• what's your favorite way to consume content?
• Reading
• Listening
• Watching
• how much support do you need for <insert some activities you might have them do>?

This way, when you get to the point in your course map where you’re outlining the types of tasks that you're asking them to do, you can pull those in. (Don't know what a course map is? Check out that post).

Support Needs

If I'm asking you to journal on 1,2,3, how much support do you need with that journaling process? 

You might phrase that as 

• “how easy or difficult do you find it to respond to journal prompts?” or
• “how much extra prompting do you need?” or
• “how much help do you need in synthesizing and looking back at those journal responses?”

Finally, ask HOW they like to receive support. This is a really important part that can influence both how you market your course and also how you design your course. Knowing if they expect live support or you can manage asynchronously tells you a lot about how you’ll need to market the course, what you might consider building in, and what kind of support they want as you decide what kind of support to offer.

So that was a really long story for a really short and simple question of “where do you get market data to figure out what people want?”

The answer is “the market.”

You go to the people, you ask the questions, you get their feedback every step of the way, and then both the marketing and the course building process become easier.