How to Use S.E.T. Trends To Develop New Product

As you know if you follow my ezine at all, I’m a big advocate of doing 12-product surveys to find out what people want to buy before you go to sell it to them.

The problem some people have is coming up with 12 good product ideas to START with!

Let’s talk about HOW you come up with product ideas. Here is a new angle I didn’t discuss in Product Dashboard.

Step 1: Survey the S.E.T. trends of the market

S stands for social changes. An example of social changes online would be the way people are using Facebook to hook up with friends and to meet new people.

There are MANY social changes you can identify.

Here are a few social changes I’ve identified in my market:

– Use of Facebook for networking
– JV’s built around “clans” of marketers
– Isolation of top tier marketers
– Growing popularity of Warriors forum
– Huge increase in the number and variety of seminars
– Events specifically designed for JV’s (joint ventures)

You’ll want to write out the social changes in YOUR market.

E stands for economic changes. As changes occur in an economy or industry, and as price points raise or lower in a market, new opportunities are created.

Here are a few economic changes I’ve identified in my market:

– Growth of $10,000 seminars and programs
– Big ticket seminars and programs commonplace
– Less quality ebooks on the market
– Paypal being accepted in more countries

T stands for technological changes. YouTube, Facebook, online video, social sites — all these are fairly recent technological changes that create opportunity.

Here are a few of the technological changes I identified in my market:

– Advent of CMS (content management system) software
– Addition of an affiliate module to Amember software
– Cheaper/easier direct mail
– Print on demand publication of books
– Fancier packaging being used on info products
– Lowering email response
– Email deluge
– Email deliverability problems
– Online video
– Name merge on outside voice broadcasts
– Improvement of webinar software

Those are the technological changes for MY market.

What you do is write down the SET factors for whatever market you’re considering. The premise is that CHANGE creates opportunity. So you look for the social, economic and technological changes.

For more info on doing 12-product surveys, refer to http://www.productdashboard.com

For more info on the SET method for coming up with product ideas, refer to: Creating Breakthrough Products by Jonathan Cagan and Craig Vogel.

Step 2: Find the new opportunity

Then you ask yourself, “What NEW opportunities will these changes create?”

And write there you have a product idea.

I know of one marketer who has done very well by developing a system for generating leads off of YouTube then teaching that system to others.

Here’s a change that is still undeveloped — Amazon just came out with this Kindle ebook reader. Someone is going to make a tidy fortune creating and selling an info product related to Kindle.

Within the market you’ve selected, look at the social, economic and technological changes. Then find the opportunity created by the change.

Step 3: Stay within one step of the market

The secret to good ideas is to look for ones that are only one step ahead of where the market is right now. If you go two or three steps away, you’ll be too far ahead of the market.

You want to sell and idea whose time has come. Not an idea whose time will come in five years.

Step 4: Find the next logical progression

If all else fails, look at what’s selling and ask what the next logical progression will be.

Products follow a chain of innovation. One thing leads to the next which leads to the next. What you want to be is “the next.”

But base this on what is ALREADY selling. You sell into demand. You don’t sell into a gigantic sea of uncertainty.

What I mean is, you find out what’s already selling then you try to improve on it just enough to be the next big thing.

Step 5: Know your USP going in

You wanna know what your Unique Selling Proposition is before you even create the product.

USP is the 1 the “ONLY” factor of your product. Only your product gives X benefit or has Y feature and benefit.

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Marlon Sanders is the author of “The Info Product Dashboard.” If you want to create your own info products, go to: http://www.productdashboard.com