If you want to invest big money into launching a new product to sell on Amazon, then I highly recommend that you conduct a focus group. An Amazon product launch with a focus group is the best way for Amazon sellers to do Amazon product research and launch successfully the first time.
What You Will Learn
In this article, I’ll be explaining why focus groups are super effective for helping Amazon sellers create an incredible product, build a high converting Amazon listing page, and conduct accurate product research so they can launch successfully the first time. Apart from avoiding tons of negative reviews, an amazon product launch with a focus group can prevent you from wasting thousands of dollars on an unsuccessful product launch.
Quick Introduction
Before I jump into it, if you don’t know me, my name is Ian Smith with Evolve Media Agency. We’re an Amazon marketing agency that helps sellers boost the conversion rate of their listings, rank higher, get more reviews, and increase PPC performance. We can provide sellers with their Amazon customer data like names, mailing addresses, emails, and phone numbers. We can also help sellers bring in new customers through off Amazon marketing strategies to increase their sales. So if you need help scaling your Amazon business, book a free consulting call with me.
So now let’s talk about why you may want to consider running a focus group for your next product launch…
How Focus Groups Can Help Amazon Sellers Get Accurate Product Research Results And Launch Successfully
Focus groups are one of the most effective market research methods available today. They could literally save you thousands of dollars from going in the wrong direction and help you make millions just from better understanding your customer. You’ll learn what sales copy is going to resonate best with that customer and how to refine your product, resulting in little to no negative reviews.
Overall, an Amazon product launch with a focus group is a great investment to make in the early stages of launching your product to sell either on Amazon or any of the other e-commerce websites out there. They’re a quick and affordable way for you to gather accurate data about your potential customers.
Getting Your Product In Their Hands Is The Best Way To Do Accurate Product Research and Launch Successfully
You can literally put your product in your potential customer’s hands and then get their opinion on what could be better, what do they think about the quality of materials, etc. You could get completely free advice from them on how to make their shopping experience better, how to improve your product, and how to beat out your competitors.
Focus groups help you get very valuable feedback before you go and place that large inventory order and send it into Amazon. Only to find out later that you had a product full of faults that could have been improved with just a couple of minor tweaks.
Imagine being able to avoid that massive accident in front of you on the road before you actually get involved in that accident. That’s what focus groups are going to do for you when you invest this time into product testing and getting feedback.
These product testers are going to help you avoid bad reviews in the future and instead help you get more positive reviews for your newly launched Amazon product.
Invest A Little Into Focus Groups To Make A Lot
Doing customer research is going to help you build credibility with the people that are involved in the testing, and word of mouth is a very powerful form of marketing these days.
Imagine if in the very early stages of your product launch you can get those people talking about your product and get that exposure. They tell their friends and family about your product so that once you’re ready to launch, you have more people knowing what your product does and how it can help them. Those are potential customers who may buy your product after you’ve gone through the tweaking and the prototype phase.
Talking To Your Potential Customers Is The Best Way for Amazon Sellers To Do Amazon Product Research And Launch Successfully
Starting your Amazon product launch with a focus group is going to give you a lot more insight into what really resonates with your ideal customer. Then when it comes time for you to write that copy on your Amazon listing, create product photos, and shoot product videos, it’s going to really help you make that content better so you can address any objections and concerns that these customers may have. You’ll be able to write your copy in a way that resonates best with shoppers so that they’re not on the fence for very long. Wouldn’t it be nice if shoppers purchased your product without much convincing?
Get Focus Group Insights Your Competitor Doesn’t Have
The information your focus group participants reveal could also lead to you bundling different products together to increase your value and beat out your competitors who don’t have more to offer. Or if you don’t want to bundle products together, then it could open your eyes to a great cross-sell opportunity. Because now you can put different products in your product line, and you already know that the chances of those products selling to that same customer base are very high. All because you were told by multiple people in your focus group.
Focus groups can also help you understand your competition better because you can ask your focus group why they like that other product, or how could it be improved. Then you are going to be able to take that information and make a better product and market it better to steal more customers away from your competition.
Understand Your Customer & They’ll Buy More From You
The more you can understand your ideal customer, the better you’re going to be able to sell to them and truly provide them with solutions to their problems. Because you know the pain points that they’re already experiencing, you can understand their sizing preferences better, get insights into the colors that are more in demand.
Maybe you’re debating on which color shades to go with, should I get inventory for the darker blue or the lighter blue? Well, you can get that information by simply asking them what they prefer. You can even get important insights into what your price point should be and what kind of value you need to provide to make that price fair to your customer.
I see it so many times that sellers are undercutting themselves because they’re just trying to be the cheapest option, but really sometimes increasing your price actually increases the sales velocity of your product.
We Can Help You Run A Focus Group
By the way, if you’re wanting help with putting together a focus group and getting your product in their hands, my team and I would love to help you out. Simply book a call with us at EvolveMediaAgency.com so we can talk about your product or your future product. We can definitely help you put together a focus group and get this whole process started.
So now let me give you a couple of focus group tips so that when you’re actually running a focus group, you can make sure that you’re maximizing your time, maximizing your investment, and getting the most information from your ideal customers. It’s truly the best way for Amazon sellers to do product research and launch successfully the first time.
My Tips for Running A Focus Group
1. Have Your Product Ready
First and foremost, focus groups are absolutely going to work the best if you can get your real-life physical product in their hands. Not a prototype. You want to have the exact product that you get back from the manufacturer after they’ve created you know 15, 20, or 50 items. This allows them to touch and feel, or smell and taste your product so that the feedback they give is truly accurate.
2. Choose Your Ideal Customers as Participants
Next, you want to get participants who are actually your ideal customers…people who are right with in line with the demographics of your ideal customers. So you need to ask all participants for this information, you know—what is their race, their age, their marital status, do they have kids, what is their income level, etc. Make sure to get a lot of information from your different participants so that you know for a fact these are your ideal customers and these are the right people that are going to give you the most accurate information that matters to you and your business.
3. Pre-Plan Your Questions
Also, I highly recommend that you do some pre-planning so have your goals in mind of what information you want to extract from these people. Really do your research on the front end. Research your competition, and decide what open-ended questions you can ask these people. Don’t ask them questions that are going to give you short answers like ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Ask some open-ended questions that really gets them talking and make them feel like they are being listened to. You want them to talk and voice their opinions as much as possible.
4. Keep Your Mouth Shut
It might not be easy for you, but when they give you their opinions, don’t shut them down and don’t be negative or disagree. That’s what you’re paying them for—their opinion and honest feelings about your product.
5. Record It All
Lastly, you want to make sure that you record all of these focus group meetings via audio and/or video, or really both. I’m a huge fan of being able to playback these videos and listen to the audio over again, so I highly recommend you get both video and audio recordings. Doing so allows you to catch things you missed in the live meeting which means you can really see their emotions.
Sometimes you can get more information by looking at your participants and how they react to your product. You know, are they initially turned off or are they kind of disgusted? They may not say that to you in person, so I definitely recommend video and audio. Then actually spend the time to go back and watch those recordings and take notes from those recordings.
Stay Neutral
No one likes to hear that their baby is ugly. But try to stay neutral when conducting these focus groups. Otherwise if they give you negative feedback and you get all huffy and mad, that’s not good. Then you got them thinking, ‘oh I don’t want to give him any more negative feedback because he’s going to get all mad at me.’ You want their feedback to be honest and you want a lot of it, so try to stay neutral with your demeanor.
In Summary – Focus Groups Are The Best Way For Amazon Sellers To Do Product Research And Launch Successfully The First Time
To sum it all up, I highly recommend that you look into focus groups that you invest in them to get an edge over your competition.
If you want more information about implementing a Focus Group, book a free consulting call with me. We can talk about leveraging your amazon product launch with a focus group to scale up your Amazon business. We can also help you reach your Amazon customers off Amazon using our data download solution. Thanks for taking the time to read about how Amazon sellers can leverage Focus Groups to create and sell better products.
