Testing Product Idea Fast - For Adult Dating Sub-Niche (34)
Hi Guys,
PRODUCT IDEA
I have an idea for a product that is aimed at a certain sub-section of the adult dating market.
This follow-along is really me trying to quickly evaluate whether this idea is worth pursuing.
REASON I AM POSTING
Mostly to motivate myself to get this done quickly and post the results :-)
But I'd also love to hear any feedback or advice from people.
PROPOSED EVALUATION SYSTEM
Traffic Sources --> Surveys for information --> Thank You & Upsell
Where
* Traffic Sources: Tell people they have the chance to get the product for free if they answer a few questions
* Survey for Product Information: Get enough information to find out exactly what people want
- What is the Most Important thing you'd want in the product.
- How Difficult has it been to find this type of product.
- Why Do You Want The Product
- When we start selling thie product, what do you think a fair price would be?
- Ask for Demographic information (age, sex, etc)
- If we really want to WOW you with this product, what would we need to do?
- Name and Email
* Thank You & Upsell
- Thank you and if we go ahead with developing this product - we will send you one of the first batch for free.
- BTW we also found this great deal you might be interested in --> upsell.
PROPOSED EVALUATION PROCESS
1. Test different free traffic sources first to see if worth pursuing -
* People are interested in this product (i.e. high % filling in survey)
* This product is filling an unmet need (i.e. highly difficult for them to find this product elsewhere)
* The price people are willing to pay is good enough to be profitable
* Is the traffic high enough to make it worthwhile.
2. Test different paid traffic sources later to see if worth pursuing -
* People are interested in this product (i.e. high % filling in survey)
* This product is filling an unmet need (i.e. highly difficult for them to find this product elsewhere)
* The price people are willing to pay is good enough to be profitable enough to cover marketing cost
* Is the traffic high enough to make it worthwhile.
That's a good idea: surveying people is almost always worth it. Starting with free traffic sources is a particularly good idea - I'd recommend Reddit as your first port of call, and any forums for the particular niche or kink you're targeting.
Don't forget to sell the product before you start surveying. If you open with "please answer these questions!" people will stop reading. If you explain, in brief, what the product would be and what it would help your readers with, then say "and you can help make this a reality!" then you're far more likely to get a lot of responses.
Awesome - thanks Caurmen !
One thing to keep in mind here, asking someone to fill a survey for you in order to get a freebie ... this equals to incentivized traffic, that is always rather low in quality. So expect lower conversion rates on the upsell and also bogus/random answers to your questions ... people will simply type in some shit comments in order to get the free stuff. You will be able to spot a large part of the poor answers, but it could be a good idea to also run the survey without any free offer, to see if you can get people interested anyways ... those answers would be way more representative.
Hi Everyone and Thanks for the input.
@matuloo - I've done something similar in the past but had promised them a freebie for filling in the survey. Did not so that this time, and the survey answers were much higher quality!
@caurmen - tried reddit and aghhhhhhhh (more info below)
UPDATE
Free Traffic places I've tried to get traffic for the survey
* 2 forums specially for this niche
Posted Messages on the Free Forums ---> Got Great Response !
Send Messages to people who just joined the forum ---> Really poor response. Too close to spam so I stopped doing it.
* Craigslist
Tried sending messages to people but too close to spam and got 0 response so stopped doing it.
* Reddit
Found some awesome groups which specifically in the niche I am targeting. BUT can not seem to get a FREE post to get past spam filter.
Interesting Things I Found So Far
1. I originally thought this thing would go for $9.99 at the most.
BUT when I asked people in the survey how much they were willing to pay for the product:
* Average = $33
* 16% of people --> $0
* 40% of people --> $5 to $10
* %20 of people --> $75 to $100 !!!!!!! <-- WTF!
Seriously !!! Wow.
Still collecting data but seriously thinking of starting the price at $99.99 (which is 10x what I thought I'd initially price it at!!)
That way I'll have room to price down or give discounts.
Questions
1. Anyone have tips on pricing (see above info) or cautionary tales?
2. Anyone have tips on getting a free post up on Reddit? I'm looking for something which I can do in next 2 day to test the site out (might even pay a little money to test it).
3. I'm seeing some facebook groups with my target market. Is there any other way to quickly get in touch with those groups (except for asking the owner of the group to post my stuff and hope they do it for free or for only a small cost).
4. Is there any way to quickly target my audience on tumblr? Or like with facebook, I'd need to approach people with a big following and ask them to post it?
What I found out during many years of promoting paid adult sites with members areas, is that people do not care for the price all THAT much... price plays a role, but I expected it to have a much bigger effect than it had.
I did countless tests to compare conversion rates with different price tags ... $14.95, $19.95, $24.95 all the way up "lifetime" memberships worth as much as $999 
It was very hard to sell the lifetime access, but still, some people bought it.
When running tests with monthly memberships, there was VERY small difference between $14.95 ... $29.95... some decline started above $34.95, but it worked well in case of a rare niche. I made the most money by selling multi-month memberships (6-12 months), which were priced between $49 - $99.
I came to these conclusions ...
1. People do not care about the price almost at all, as long as it is withing the industry standard, which was $20-$30 in the vertical I was working with.
2. The price started to pose a problem, when the users thought it is overpriced... so like $40+ per month. In case of a rare product or a niche, it still didn't matter, cause the supply was limited.
3. People were willing to pay higher amounts of money, in case I could make them believe they are getting a special deal or a discount. In many cases, it was easier to sell a $59 3-month membership, than a 1-month access for $19.95. Quality presentation and well presented value pretty much made them ignore the price and buy anyways.
So, you can start with $99 but present it in a way that will "SCREAM" how much valuable it is and how perfect deal it is
Whatever your pricing strategy will be, do include upsells, even if they provide no value.
Here is how I do it.
I have a digitial guide that contains 150 pages and 12 chapters.
On sales page i claim:
100 pages guide
10 chapters
29.95 euro
When he does the 1x sale, he is offered and upsaled aVIP version,
for a price of 49,95
with 150 pages, + 2 extra chapters
Upsell rate is 30%.
The takeway here is:
Everyone actually gets the same product.
Its only 1 product, even the 29.95 guys get the VIP version, I just dont tell them that.
Same could be applied to:
fast shipping, express shipping (using only 1 courier anyway with identical shipping)
priority support, standard support (using identical slas for both packages)
priority handling vs standard handling (+few bucks upsell easy, everyhting is send the same day anyway
etc etc...
@matuloo - Thanks! Will definitely sell it hard using all the copywriting tricks before giving them the $99
@johner911 - Wow. Thanks for the info. Can easily see how I can upsell this as well.
UPDATE
1. Got tired of trying to get free traffic from reddit. Now I'm going to try paying for ads on there and see if I can cheap traffic.
LESSONS LEARNT
1. Most of traffic to surveys at the moment are from forums which have a set number of members e.g. 20k members and maybe get 20 new members a day.
I got a heap of traffic the 1st day I posted ... but it is now dwindling down.
Went from
* Day 1: 22 responses
* Day 2: 12 responses
* Day 3: 8 responses
For long term forecasting of traffic, I'm going to keep it running and see what it levels out at.
Lesson Learnt - Going to get a spike of traffic/responses/sales when launching in a new forum on the 1st day ... but will quickly dwindle down once most of the people in the forum have seen it!
Going Forward
1. Going to investigate Tumblr and facebook traffic (paid)
Question
1. Is there a rule of thumb about how much the upsell should cost versus the initial price (e.g. initial price is $99 ... then best to have upsell which only add %X to price)?
2. Does facebook allow you to setup ads that go to a survey to see if people are interested?
@Matuloo - the product itself is not adult. Its just the target market are easiest to find on adult platforms. So going to try facebook ... but make it very whitehat and try it very carefully.
**Quick Update**
I'm going to collect 2 more days survey data but I am about 90% sure I'm going to quickly build and test this online business.
** QUESTIONS **
The product is not adult in nature but the audience is.
1. Can anyone recommend any solutions that allow me to quickly build a site with following?
- Be Mobile Optimized and Compatible with other Devices
- Have Sales Page
- Have Upsell Page
- Have Popup if they leave Sales Page (either asks what is stopped them from buying ... or give them option of cheaper product)
- Integrate with a Payment System which is able to do refunds if necessary
- Integrate with Email Autoresponder System
- Able to Integrate with Affiliate System in future (i.e. so others can promote product later once everything is tested)
Are there any solutions like this you know of?
Or good places to get templates like this?
I've seen things like clickfunnel ($99/month) but do not know if that is the best.
Otherwise my other thought was just to rip the pages off the most successful clickbank sales pages.
Just means more coding for me so it will take longer to launch ... and all the little bugs that may creep in which might have been taken care of in a 1 stop solution (e.g. device compatibility)
2. Does anyone know a good hosted email autoresponder which is ok with this type of traffic?
If I want to play it safe I could ask for good 'adult' hosed email autoresponders.
I'm currently using YNotMail for 'adult' - any others around you would recommend?
3. Does anyone know a good payment processors which is ok with this type of traffic? For example paypal?
If I want to play it safe I could ask for good 'adult' payment processor.
Hello,
I don't have an answer for all your questions, but let me give you a few hints.
1. You could start with something like wordpress and a nice template. Most of what you are looking for, are just html pages that you can interlink in a logical manner. Combined with a good tracker, like funnelflux for example, you could build funnels that simply use the wordpress pages as landing pages to send traffic to.
Email collection, popups, autoresponders ... all of these things can be sorted with wordpress plugins too.
There would be some additional coding/configuration needed, for example to incorporate some payment gate.
Clickfunnels might be a solution too, but that is more about building just a funnel, while wordpress would give you more options and you could actually also build a site by using it and turn it into a members area, that you could sell access to.
Another option is a custom coded solution, which would be the most time consuming and most expensive.
As for having an affiliate program, that's a more advanced option and you could utilize some affiliate backend like cake or hasoffers ...
2. Blacksadhorse.com could be another option
3. Ccbill and epoch are the most popular 2 for adult and high risk billing. Zombaio is also used a lot.
But I don't think showing 3 pics would more troublesome than showing just 1, I'd say the contrary actually ...there is bigger chance for them to like 1 from the three, compared to having just 1 choice.
Clever thinking with the upsells/backend sales ... time will tell if you plan to ask to much or not.
@matuloo - thanks !
I heard back from Zombaio and apparently they do not do non-membership sites.
But you know what they say about 'assuming' .... well I rang up paypal and it seems like they would actually be ok with my site!
I'm going to send them an email to double check though (and get a written ok).
Originally Posted by grofit
As for Zombaio ... that's a pity, maybe there is a workaround though ... how about putting the edited photos in some password protected area, so basically a members area? Not sure if they'd be ok with such a solution, just crossed my mind
Yeah - I was surprised myself - which is why I am waiting for a written ok (i.e. email) from paypal before going ahead.
Kinda cautious about this since I had isses happen with an aweber account.
Content was non-adult but the audience was adult .... and worked well for years ... then out of nowhere the account for banned.
But really want to get this sorted so I can get this tested fast (worst happens is that I'll switch payment processors later).
So if I do not hear back from paypal in the next 2 days - I'll ring them again but also start applying at other processors (e.g. instabill)
Originally Posted by grofit
Here is an article I found for you, might be worth a read : https://www.cardpaymentoptions.com/c...sing-services/
@matuloo - thanks for the link. Started the process to join a few listed there so that I can keep my options open.
*************************
* UPDATE
***********************
1. Got Payment Processor - Paypal (and CCBill in the future)
2. Committed to Launching by Friday 9th March !!
*************************
* LESSONS LEARNT
***********************
1. People want your business.
Do not think you are disqualified just because their website says you are ... send them a quick email or phone call.
I assumed paypal would not like me since the product could be viewed as adult. I phoned them and they were ok with it (got it in writing too!) --
That took me 5 minutes and lets me launch this week instead of waiting 2 weeks to get a merchant account,.
CCBill says they will not process mastercard or visa if your company is in Australia.
I contacted them and they had a way around it (have an 'office' in the USA with a contact person there - I could still use Australian bank accounts)!
Now I have a way to plug into a proven affiliate system if thing do well.
[2] Have a Deadline to Launch Your Business
I am a perfectionist - which means I'll never be 100% ready to launch.
Give myself to Friday and I'll have the most important things ready by then ... and start getting real world feedback.
*************************
* PLANS GOING FORWARD
***********************
1. Launch and Make 1 Sale by the end of the week.
That took me 5 minutes and lets me launch this week instead of waiting 2 weeks to get a merchant account,.
CCBill says they will not process mastercard or visa if your company is in Australia.
I contacted them and they had a way around it (have an 'office' in the USA with a contact person there - I could still use Australian bank accounts)!
Now I have a way to plug into a proven affiliate system if thing do well.
Looking forward to the launch of your product, really interested to see how you manage to pull it of.
2 DAYS LEFT TILL LAUNCH
*************************
* UPDATE
***********************
1. All Web Pages for initial Sales Done (Sale, Upsell)
2. All Product Delivery Pages, Processes and Email Templates Done
3. Payment Processing in Place and working
4. Tracking Solution Working (google analytics with goals +
*************************
* LEFT TO BE DONE
***********************
1. Support Desk/Contact Us - Looking at Zendesk (TBD)
2. Getting an Experienced Copywriter to review my Sales Page and Upsell Page (ongoing)
3. Getting Sales Pages proof read (ongoing)
4. Template for Email/Pages to get Backend Sales on Product Delivery
5. Template for Follow up Email 1 (10 mins after product delivery)
- Get Suggestions on improvement (surveygizmo)
- Get Testimonials (surveygizmo)
- Soft Sell on Relevant Affiliate Product
6. Final Review & End to End Test
7. Process to BLAST out email to initial 100 survey respondents that site is up without getting put into spam (TBD)
(get some free traffic from people who were interested enough in the idea to fill in survey when I was doing upfront research)
-- Not Sure How to do this apart from just sending out batches of 5 emails at regular intervals?
*************************
* QUESTIONS
***********************
1. Anyone know how to do 7 above (i.e. send out a blast to about 100 emails without triggering spam?)
You should try some email platform, where you could also manage your list and collect new subscribers.
I'm afraid you will run into the "adult" limitations again.
With low volumes, even some server side script could handle it, based on what kinda email server you have access to.
You can also purchase a ready made script like : http://www.sendblaster.com/en/buy
But using a dedicated email platform is always better, since they are able to deliver more. You will need to try ask around and find out who accepts adult ... there is ynotmail.com and blacksadhorse.com that are both ok with adult, but not sure how much this is suitable to what you wanna achieve.
This will need some research on your part again
Originally Posted by grofit
Questions:
1. No limit here. Just need to provide the value.
2. Hire someone who can do it. Fiverr or Upwork?
3. Hire someone to do it.
4. Tumblr I have no idea... haven't been too successful with that one.
I haven't promoted CPA offers in a really long time. What's been working for me is PPL, so much so that we just created our own dating PPL offers and we monetize the backend; kind of taking responsibility for the traffic being sent and making sure it backs out for our promoters. Depending on what your adult offer is, you might want to send them our offers... PM me if you want to discuss.
@Proteinbrie - Congrats on setting up the dating ppl offer!
Also with hiring someone for 2 and 3 above, have you had any luck doing it and any tips on how to make sure they know what they're doing and won't wreck things with reddit or more importantly facebook?
@Matuloo - Thanks. I've got a YNotMail account from a previous project. I'll look into using that
1 Day to Launch
Biggest Lesson so far, is to get your Sales Material Reviewed by an Expert Copywriter EARLY.
I'm an amateur copywriter.
Been learning about it off and on for about 10 years.
I like to think I'm pretty good at it.
But getting my sales pages and emails reviewed by a professional copywriter (who has been doing this for decades) has been humbling.
It is going to be great for sales ... but seeing how much better everything looked after a review and proofreading was damn bad for my pride!
DID THE SOFT LAUNCH ... now time for bed lol
Have a list of 120 people who were interested in this potential service and completed a survey when I did market research about 3 weeks ago.
Sent out an email to 30 of them (used YNotMail) to do a soft launch.
Hope to get a few sales (not too many) to make sure there are no issues in sales/paypal/product delivery processes.
One that is bedded down, will send an email to the other 90 and open the site up to everyone else.
Time to get some sleep. Hope to see at least 1sale when I wake up!
Well, you got a sale, right? So it's not complete flop
Now you now how long it can possibly take too, which is a valuable lesson.
People also don't buy just straight away in case of a higher price, so late sales might happen too.
The good thing is, you have a working setup now and you can properly test with more traffic.
Looking forward to your results
Yeah - I'm seeing a lot of people returning to the website for multiple views (google analytics), so could get more sales today.
In the process or outsourcing the service with written instructions so I can concentrate on the marketing funnel :-)
(no more product delivery for me .. yes!!)
No matter how it sounded like in the last post, do feel great about the sale.
And I'm getting the feeling I could grow this a LOT if done right.
So I'm Excited!!
*************************
* UPDATE
***********************
Only 1 Sale ... ouch !!!
[1] Sales Page - Percentage of people clicking the 'buy' button SUCKED
SalesPage1 - 1.17%
SalesPage2 - 2.27%
What I'm doing
* Setup Google Analytics so that I can see how LONG people are staying on my site based on the Ad they clicked.
* Testing different headline and pictures of the ads I'm using to drive to traffic to this site from Reddit
-- See which ads got best CTR in reddit (what hook worked)
-- See which ads got people to stick around on my site longest (what is getting the right crowd)
-- See which Ad had most people click buy button
-- Hopefully see which ad got the most purchases (but probably not enough data there to be statistically significant)
* Installed Exit Surveys using Survicate to see why people are bailing (only works on desktop though. Look for exit surveys for mobile)
* Going to try and get user feedback from the initial market research group (I still have their emails)
-- Then develop new Sales Pages variations to test based on feedback
[2] Upsell Page Sucked
73% of people were dropping out when they hit my upsell page.
Obviously it sucks. Got rid of it for the moment. Will introduce and work on the upsell page once I get the main sales page working better.
[3] Payment Page is Paypal.
Had 4 people get there and then drop out. Not enough data to be significant. But am putting a exit survey on that page.
*************************
* LESSONS LEARNT
***********************
I overbuilt.
I made a whole sales funnel of upsells and backend sales.
When I should have been FOCUSED on just getting the initial buy.
Should have had most of my focus on the sales page first
And only then spend time on setting up the rest of the funnel once that was doing ok.
Oh well. A learning experience :-)
Now comes the fun bit.
Turning this 'suck' sales page into something 'awesome'!!
*************************
* QUESTIONS
***********************
1. Does anyone know how to setup a good exit survey for Mobile?
Do not know if there is a service that does it, so might just need a good exit pop script and set it up myself.
Anyone know how to get a good exit pop script?
Exit pops get blocked a lot these days, you might want to try one of those email catchers that pop when you hover mouse over the exit button ... optinmonster for example. Setup some simple lead magnet and try to upsell to these people, or maybe promise a discount to those who get on the list.
I think what you need to do is somehow verify that the product even has potential ... are people really willing to pay for this or are you beating a dead horse here ... you need to throw some more traffic on it, quality targeted clicks that would give you the answer. Do you think the product would fly on adwords? That's great traffic to test potential with.
@matuloo - I came to the same conclusion. I've had 2 sales off fairly small cheap traffic (nearly pure profit)... so it works.
Problem is that the two traffic sources I validated the idea on during market research do not have large traffic.
Would be ok for 3 or 4 sales a week on autopilot.- which was the initial plan.
Was initially only doing this to have a proof of concept of my process to build a online business fast.
But I got greedy and want to see how much I can scale this :-)
Market Research Traffic
* Forums - getting a steady trickle of traffic there. maybe 2 to 3 sales a week. Nice but not enough to test
* Reddit - having issues with it at the moment but get 1 sale a day once optimized. Again not enough to optimize.
I'm looking at options.
Best 2 would be Google and Facebook
Problem is I'm not sure if the product would fly on those two platforms.
And I really want to be careful not to get banned on them.
So I'll try to find some experts to ask.
And also ask facebook and google directly if it is ok.
Will definitely test on google it they say it is ok!
In the meantime also looking at -
1). Google - if they say it is ok !!
2). Banner Ads inside Dating Sites targeting Transgender users
- Quickly test on Adnium
- Sent a few emails out to people I know at AFF and TheDatingNetwork to see if we could do a test
- find top cd specific dating sites to see if they allow advertising
3). Banner Ads on Porn Sites
- Specific Niches they watch. Will quickly test on exoclick and maybe trafficjunky
4). Backpage
- Ads on the personals area they frequent
5). Facebook - again if they say it is ok
If none of the above pan out and I can't get at least 5 profitable sales/day in the next 2 weeks,
I'll put this onto autopilot and go onto the next project.
In case you're certain that the product is vital, then definitely go for it
Adwords or facebook could definitely deliver the volumes you need, curious myself to hear what they say to your inquiry.
Dating members areas could be an option, but since you need to target a rather small niche, the volumes won't be there either.
Niched campaigns with adult networks could work, you will need to find the right sites though ... try to google sites in your niche and check what ad network they use, if any. I don't know much about your products, but from what you've said so far, I doubt it would work on a standard tube ... I could see it selling on forums/blogs/story sites ... adult sites come in many forms and shapes, some of them might be a good fit with your product.
BTW: it wouldn't hurt if you could PM me the url of your product, would be easier to give you more targeted advice if I knew exactly what we're dealing with here
@Matulook - PM Sent (should be in you inbox)
Been doing some research today and to update
1). Google - about 95% sure it is allowed but waiting on their ok.
* If this is ok - then definitely using this to optimize the page.
BELOW WILL THEN BECOME NICE EXTRA TRAFFIC SOURCES TO DO ONCE OPTIMIZED
2). Banner Ads inside Dating Sites targeting Transgender users
- Adnium came back and said there was a way to niche it down. So going to test
- AFF is a no go (they said they do not niche it down - they sell bulk).
- Found 2 top niche specific dating site. Started a conversion with them
3). Banner Ads on Porn Sites
- Know the hypersensitive kws this niche types into porn sites. Really interested in testing trafficjunky. But will wait until the site it optimized first with clean google traffic, before trying porn traffic :-)
4). Backpage
- A big nope. After further investigation - not going to use it.
5). Facebook - could not find 'interest' groups for the audience. Looks like facebook does not like making groups for this niche.
UPDATE
I had 49 people click the Buy Button.
Only 3 complete the Payment.
WTF !!!
Industry standard is about 25% of people dropping off during payment.
(not sure what the % is for adult).
I'm getting a 94% drop off !!!!
I'm using a PayPal button.
I did it to just get the site up fast and test it out.
Now I'm putting everything on pause until I get a proper payment solution integrated in.
LESSONS LEARNT
Paypal buttons suck lol
For real - Do not start testing until you have a proper payment system integrated and on your site.
Going Forward
[1] I've register and going through the process of joining PinPayments.
Since paypal was ok with my site (and I got it in writing), I'm hoping these guys are (and so I won't have to play use an adult payment processor).
[2] I've paused all traffic until I get this setup.
The more payment options, the better of course. But I'm not sure you can expect such a dramatic increase ... I'm very curious about the final outcome though.
One think just crossed my mind, due to the specific/sensitive nature of your product, you need to assure your buyers that their privacy is gonna be respected and that the payment won't be linked to the site itself on the account statement. This is a standard feature with basically all adult stuff, something like : "... your card will be billed discretely as compxyz Inc. ...". This might help the sales too.
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