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It’s frustrating, right?

You want to monetize your blog by offering a product or a service. Because you

know advertising is a terrible idea.

But you don’t know how.

How do you come up with a monetization idea and make sure it’s profitable? How

do you avoid wasting time?

There’s a secret to this…

Find out what your target audience needs and wants – what their biggest struggle

is with your blog topic - and then offer them the solution to the problem.

Yes, it’s that simple.

If you can fix a pain point for your target audience, you can monetize your blog in

an ethical, profitable way without selling out.

If it sounds difficult, it’s not.

After reading this post, you will know exactly how to do this research to find the

perfect product idea that people will actually pay you for.

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How to Find Out What Your Audience Needs (Even If You Don't have One Yet)

You don't need a business plan, focus groups, or to shell out a bunch of money.

You just need to read the minds of your audience.

And if you don’t have an audience yet? That’s okay. You just need to get into the

minds of your target audience.

Because all successful products and services solve a problem for their target

audience.

With these free tools I’m about to tell you about, it is like reading from the

dictionary of frustrations and struggles.

Solving these problems will almost guarantee your success and you will make far

more money with your blog than advertising will ever pay.

So pull up a spreadsheet, get your copying and pasting fingers ready and start

researching.

Read on to learn which tools I’m referring to.

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1. Use the Front Page of the Internet for Market Research Gold

If there is one tool that I find to be the most lucrative with research it’s Reddit.

In fact, it’s so rich with information about what your target audience needs that it

feels like cheating (but don’t worry, it’s not).

There are two ways to use Reddit to find your perfect idea to monetize your blog:

1. Subreddits

2. Search Reddit

To illustrate this example, let’s say you have a photography blog and want to

monetize it by offering a product or service.

I’ll use this example throughout this section to show you how I would use Reddit

to do this research.

Subreddits

Subreddits are sub-communities within Reddit about a specific topic or niche.

You can find a Subreddit by:

1. Typing in the Subreddit keyword using this

formula: reddit.com/r/[keyword]

2. Using the Subreddit directory.

For example, with my target market of photographers, the photography Subreddit

is: reddit.com/r/photography.

You’ll see in the example below that there are arrows pointing up and down. The

number in the middle shows how often the question has been “upvoted”.

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Reddit works on an “upvoting” system. Other “Redditors” upvote the questions or

articles that they like. So, if the question has a lot of upvotes, other people

probably have the same question.

Paste every relevant question into the spreadsheet, and be sure to paste the

entire question, including the wording that the asker uses. This will come in handy

when you’re writing copy.

You can find out more about what the person is asking by clicking on the

question:

Remember that some questions are just rhetorical or conversational, so you don’t

need to include those in your spreadsheet.

I found a lot of Subreddits that met my needs for the photography example. For

instance:

/r/itookapicture, /r/photocritique, and /r/analogphotography

If you spend some time combing through these Subreddits, you’ll find a lot of

market research gold.

Search Reddit

Reddit is a super active community online, so important questions and issues can

be quickly pushed down to later pages.

To ensure you’re capturing all of the problems your target audience is

experiencing, use Searchreddit.com as a search engine to plug in some keywords.

In the photography example, I typed in “should I” and “photography?”:

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As you did with the Subreddit questions, copy and paste these questions into your

spreadsheet.

Search Phrases

Because we all phrase things differently, also use different keywords.

I might use the phrasing: “How do I change the shutter speed on my camera”, but

you might phrase it differently, like: “how can you adjust the shutter speed on a

camera?”

Therefore, you’ll get the best range of questions if you search different phrases

with your keyword.

To get a wider range of results, I also typed in “what should I do photography?”:

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Luckily, using a word like “photography” will also bring up results for

“photographs”.

Try out these different keywords:

What is [keyword] ?

What are [keyword] ?

Which [keyword] ?

How do I [keyword] ?

How to [keyword] ?

Can I [keyword] ?

Is it possible [keyword] ?

Be sure to use different wording as well. In the photography example, I would

use “camera," “photo editing," “DSLR,” “lighting," and anything else related to

photography.

Just as you have for all of the other methods, copy and paste all of the questions

and issues you come across into your spreadsheet.

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2. Read Between the Lines

Market research sounds like a huge task, right?

It's a business term describing and action (or series of actions) that you will

probably do a lot as you blog, unknowingly.

But market research is simply researching information about what your target

audience wants or needs. Your target audience is the "market".

Luckily, that's as deep as you need to go into the term to be successful in actually

doing the research.

And with this method, you’ll definitely find a lot of answers.

First, make a list of popular books in your niche. What is your target audience

reading?

These books need to be as specific as possible.

For instance, if you have a personal finance blog about getting out of debt,

brainstorm books about debt management, as opposed to saving or investing.

If you can't think of any books, go to Amazon.com and type in your keywords.

Then, choose the "Books" category, and find any books on-topic that has more

than 70 reviews.

In this example, I used "get out of debt" and found a list of books on the topic. I

found "Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey. The book is about more than

just debt, but is debt focused. It had 808 reviews.

Scroll down to the section that lists Customer Reviews, and click on the 3 Star

reviews.

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This is a goldmine of information.

Read through the reviews to find out what the book lacked in the minds of the

readers.

Some of the reviews will not be helpful to you. Focus on the ones that are 3 or 4

star reviews, that give some constructive criticism on what they wished would

have been in the book but aren’t just bitter (like the 1 stars may be).

Copy and paste the questions or comments that hint at what the person is looking

for into a spreadsheet.

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3. Steal The Idea From Your Favorite Blog’s Comment Section

I know, stealing is bad. Right?

Not if you're stealing it right out of your target audience's minds with this tip.

Here’s the process:

1. Find 1-3 very popular blogs in your niche (if you’re not sure, use

Alltop.com to find the topic)

2. Find their most popular posts about your topic (a great tool to find

popular posts is Quicksprout.com – type in the blog’s URL, go to the social

media tab and it will rank the results based on social media shares)

3. Read through the comments section of the post

4. Copy and paste the relevant comments into the spreadsheet you started

from above. Any comments with a question or a request for more

information should be included)

For example, if you have or are thinking of starting a photography blog, one very

popular blog in the niche is Digital Photography School by Darren Rowse.

If your blog is about beginner photography, the blog's Tips and Tutorials section

may be the most helpful.

This blog happens to have a "Popular Posts" section under each category. Choose

a post with a lot of comments.

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In this example, 10 Ways to Take Stunning Portraits had over 500 comments.

Scroll through the comments searching for questions or comments about a

struggle or frustration.

In these examples, I pressed command + f on a Mac (control + f on a PC) and

typed in a question mark.

This took me to all of the question marks on the page, and as you press enter, it

will take you down to commenters who used question marks in their comments.

This commenter asked for advice on how to make a photo look soft and glowy:

This one asks how to make his or her photos look less average and plain.

Use the same process that you used in the method above and paste all relevant

comments into a document.

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4. Find Inspiration From the Perfect Forum

Forums are golden opportunities you simply can’t miss out on.

Some people think online forums are dying, but I disagree. They are still popular

and are very useful for your research.

Let’s say you have a small gardening blog and you want to take it more seriously.

You want to offer a service or product to solve a problem that your target

audience has, but you don't know what.

This is a screenshot that I pulled from the very top of the gardening forum on

Craigslist:

The question is: "Will a cover of heavy plastic be sufficient to protect plants from

freezing or would it be better to cover with cotton sheets?"

This is the first question I noticed when I logged onto the forums and as

somebody who has a garden but not the sense to do anything to my plants during

the cold weather, I was curious to see the response.

I would paste that question into the spreadsheet.

Forums are just one piece of the puzzle but they can be very helpful.

A quick Google search of your topic keyword + forum will help you find more

forums.

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5. Let Your Audience Tell You What They Want Or Need (Without Actually Telling You)

When I was planning for the launch of Unsettle, I decided to join a course put on

by a fellow blogger.

The course was great, but the best part of the course for me was the private

Facebook group for course members.

Not every course member was a potential Unsettler, but a handful of them were,

and the discussion in the Facebook group was pure gold for me.

They weren't telling me what their issues were directly, but reading the members

comments seemed as if they were.

If you want to get into your audience’s heads, use the Facebook search feature

for gardening groups.

Join a tight-knit, closed group with a sizeable amount of members (over 500 if

very active or 1500 if not as active) for ongoing inspiration and a plethora of

market research specific to your audience.

Once you’re approved in the group, spend some time combing through the

member posts. What are they asking about? What are they struggling with?

Paste those questions and issues into your spreadsheet.

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6. Eavesdrop on Your Audience’s Conversations

There is one tool out there that is very handy in that it gives you the ability to

eavesdrop into your audience’s conversations (ethically):

Twitter.

There are a few ways to use Twitter:

If you have a sizeable following, you an always come out and ask them questions.

Nathan Barry did well with this in December 2014 when he was doing research for

a marketing page for ConvertKit to convert Aweber clients.

In the screenshot below, you'll see how he got quite a few responses to make his

marketing page ultra effective.

Nathan has thousands of followers, but even if you have a handful that will

answer your questions, it can’t hurt.

Another way to use Twitter is to search hash tags or key phrases.

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Since Twitter is conversational, using our gardening example, I typed in "Does

anyone know garden?” with garden being the keyword and "does anyone know"

being a very conversational way to ask a question.

These are the results I got:

You can rephrase to use:

Does anybody know [keyword] ?

Do you know how to [keyword] ?

How to [keyword]? (you'll more likely find links for "how-to" type blog posts with this search)

Why does my [keyword] ?

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7. Peak Into Their Interests with Pinterest

Pinterest is an interesting animal. And it can be hit and miss in some niches. But

it’s worth a look to see whether it will work for yours.

On Pinterest, you’re searching for the trends on the topic.

Visit the "popular" category on Pinterest, to view the pins that have a high

number of re-pins. Anything over 60 is generally a good place to start.

You can use keywords about your topic to weed out the clutter (pun intended).

You'll see in this screenshot, I used gardening as an example.

The "Vegetable Growing Cheat Sheet" infographic has over 5.700 re-pins, which

can give you a good idea of what beginner vegetable gardeners are looking for.

In this example, I've included the "design" keyword in my Pinterest search for

gardening pins, and have found that the pin entitled "18 Beautiful and Inspiring

Garden Design ideas" has over 1,430 re-pins.

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Note that if you use Pinterest, some extra legwork is required. Adding the results

of popular pins to your spreadsheet or document is pointless by itself.

You need to dig deeper into the popular pin.

In the case of the Vegetable Growing Cheat Sheet, it's reasonable to assume that

it's popular because it helps beginner gardeners grow vegetables. The word

"cheat sheet" indicates that the information is there and doesn't require a lot of

time to absorb it.

So you can deduce that the problem beginner vegetable gardeners are facing has

something to do with knowledge or time.

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8. Use The Biggest Search Engine on the Internet to Search for Problems

Did you know that YouTube is now the biggest search engine on the internet?

It’s true.

And just like blog post comments, YouTube Comments can be useful for finding

questions and concerns of audience members of the video maker.

Find a popular video in the niche by using the keyword, and start going through

the comments.

Use the same method as the one laid out in the blog post comment section.

For instance, if you are a marketing expert and want to do something around opt-

in conversions, here are some good questions from one of Pat Flynn's videos

about conversion rates:

As with the others, go through and paste the questions into the spreadsheet.

This should be relatively quick compared to some of the other methods but you

don’t want to miss any key questions people have.

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9. Stop Digging and Start Listening with Quora

If you’ve never heard of Quora, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Quora is a community of people asking questions and getting answers.

So your target audience is literally listing out questions for you – no digging

required.

You can subscribe to different categories in Quora and find dozens of questions

and answers from people around that topic.

Use the search bar at the top to type in keywords related to your niche.

For example, if you have a hair blog and are looking to monetize it by offering a

product or service, you would type in "hair". This screenshot shows my results:

You'll note that the three questions under the sub topics of coloring hair are

about the health of hair.

With Quora, it is easy to see patterns in questions laid out in front of you.

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Like with Reddit, users can "upvote" or "downvote" questions if they have had the

same one or are curious about the answer. If you see a high number of "upvotes",

you've come across questions that many people have.

The best part is?

When you click on a question, a list of related questions shows up to your right.

They literally list out their problems and struggles with the topic and wait for you

to give them answers.

You’d be crazy not to include those related questions in your spreadsheet.

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10. Have Conversations With Your Audience That Are Worth Their Weight in Gold

This is the easiest way to find out exactly what your audience wants.

But it’s the scariest way:

Have conversations with members of your target audience.

First, you need to find a member of your target audience with which to have that

conversation.

Here are a few loose criteria for the people you want to talk to. They should be

members of your audience who:

Is not a member of your family unit or very close friends with you

Doesn’t know what you are trying to do

Is willing to have the conversation with you casually and for free

This criteria is simply so that your results are not skewed by well-meaning loved

ones who answer in a different way because they are talking to a friend or family

member, or has any bias toward what you are doing research for.

Paying subjects makes them less likely to give you the answers you need.

For instance, perhaps you are targeting people who like to play tennis but are still

learning the ropes. Maybe you have a beginner tennis blog.

Your friend might know somebody who fits those criteria. You could meet up with

them.

Or, you could find these members of your target audience organically, when you

are playing tennis next at your local court.

Once you have found the members of your target audience to have these

conversations with, set up a structured conversation, 30-45 minutes in length. Ask

very specific questions around their struggles within your topic, such as:

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What do you struggle with the most with [topic]

What would the ideal solution be to your problem?

Have you ever seen the solution offered? If so, did you take advantage of it?

If not, why not? If they did, was it effective?

How did it fix their problem, and what was it missing?

Ideally, you'd have these conversations with more than one person in your target

audience to get the best idea of what they need.

How to Get the Most of Any Audience You Have (No Matter How

Small)

You might be going into this with a relatively small audience.

Maybe you have a blog that has 80 subscribers or 100 page views each day.

That’s okay!

The good news is you can still get the answers you need, no matter how small

your existing audience.

The answer might sound too simple: ask them.

Derek Halpern suggests providing value to readers by using the "what are you

struggling with" question.

He suggests sending an email to your list and finding out what the person is truly

struggling with by simply asking them.

If you have a small audience, take it one step further and offer them something

for their trouble.

Before the launch of my blog, I sent out an email to my launch list of about 80

people and offered a giveaway for 75 minutes of free coaching. The only entry

option was answering a few questions about their struggles within my topic.

This gave me an idea of what type of topics my audience needed coaching with,

and it also gave me some good ideas for products I could offer in the future and

articles I could write to help them out.

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Now That You’ve Read Your Target Audience’s Minds...

Now that you’ve done the research, read your target audience’s minds, and found

out exactly what they are struggling with, you can create a product or offer a

service to help them.

And it’s almost guaranteed to be successful, since you’re delivering solutions to

issues.

Begin to look through patterns in your spreadsheet. Let’s use our gardening blog

example. If you notice that 8 different people asked about how to care for your

plants in the wintertime, that’s a problem that needs to be solved.

Brainstorm ideas on how to solve it – for example, maybe you could:

Write an eBook about it

Create a guide to show people how to care for their plants in the winter

Offer phone consultations based on their particular garden and climate.

This is by no means a complete list of ideas, but you get the picture.

When you find out exactly what your target audience is struggling with and offer a

solution, you are one step ahead of the game.

And you’re on your way to becoming a professional blogger.

If you enjoyed this report and want your friends to get into their audience’s head

and find the perfect product or service to offer to monetize their blogs, please send

them to the link below to sign up to get their own:

http://unsettle.org/bbt (Please don’t forward the report directly)

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