Last week, I talked about the first step I took in order to charge high-ticket, mindset.

In this issue, I’ll be talking about Step 2: Market Research.

If you missed my post about the 5 steps I took to start charging high-ticket, you can check it out here.

If you missed the issue of the first step, check it out here.

Today, I’ll be talking about how to do market research on your chosen niche.

By following this process, you’ll be able to build the foundations of a content strategy and outreach strategy that can actually convert and nurture your prospects. You might even get a few clients along the way 😊

Unfortunately, most freelancers skip this step. Instead of doing market research, they would just create a fictional ideal client in their head.

Most freelancers don’t validate their ideas

I used to think that I could get away with creating a vague client profile based on my own idea of an ideal client.

This was basically my ideal client avatar 👇🏻

• Small to medium sized business owner who value branding and are open to investing at least $2000 USD.

• Goal: They want to increase their sales, stand out, and charge premium

• Challenges: They have no visual identity. They look cheap and inconsistent

• Easy to work with

Here’s the problem with this avatar.

It’s vague, broad, and completely based on my assumptions — and assumptions can be wrong.

Here’s the good news! Market research can be done in just 1-2 weeks 😊

And if you get this right, you’ll have:

• An optimized profile that can attract ideal clients

• Build a content strategy the nurtures your prospect

• Have your potential clients say “I saw myself in your post!”

Here's how, step by step:

Step 1: Identify your market

For your market research to be effective, you need to have a specific market — and I don’t mean entrepreneurs, E-comm, or SMBs.

Here’s an example of why 👇🏻

Restaurant owners and E-comm beauty business owners can both fall under SMBs, but they have completely different challenges and goals.

The challenges of a restaurant owner might be around retaining their walk-in customers, but the challenges of an e-comm beauty business owner might be on improving the online shopping experience of their customers.

When your market research is broad, you’ll end up getting different answers from every business owner.

This will cause your messaging and content to be vague and inconsistent.

If you don’t have a chosen market yet, I have a lot of content around niching down. I’ve added the links at the last section of this email 😊

Step 2: Google their challenges

This step is the easiest — you can even do this now 👇🏻

1. Type down “Biggest challenges of [your target market] 2022”

2. Visit 3-5 websites or forums and go through the answers

3. Make a list of all the challenges you see. They don’t even have to be related to what you do yet.

4. Identify common challenges you found from that list.

5. Ask yourself: “Can this list be further narrowed down to challenges I can solve?”

There you have it! A list of challenges your target market faces 😊

Step 3: Ask them directly

Googling their challenges is just the beginning. You can find more relevant and up to date answers by asking your ideal clients directly.

This can be through inviting your ideal client on a 10-15 minute market research call, asking them 3-5 questions through chat or email, posting your questions on a FB or LinkedIn (LI) group.

The biggest mistake most make when doing market research is getting answers from those who aren’t their ideal clients.

When I started doing market research, I got answers from female coaches who were just starting out.

The problem? My ideal clients were 6-7 figure female coaches. The challenges of a coach starting out is very different from those making 6-7 figures.

Here’s how you can avoid that:

• Identify what stage they should be in their business

• Identify how long they should be in business

• Qualify them before reaching out. This is easy on LI since they show their credentials and employment history.

What questions should you ask?

If you’ve never done market research before, try starting with a general question:

“When it comes to running your [insert market example: coaching] business, what’s your single biggest challenge?”

Check out my post about the 12 Market Research Questions You Can Ask Your Ideal Clients

Bonus Tips:

✅ Build rapport to get a response.

Before I invite an ideal client to answer my market research questions, I spend 3 days building rapport by:

• Responding to their IG stories

• Asking them a question about their post

• Engaging with their content

✅ Piggy back on posts

Thinking about posting your question on a FB group? Make sure to check if someone already asked any market research questions on the group!

TL;DR

1. Identify your market

2. Google their challenges

3. Ask them directly

Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help you:

1. A customized action plan on how to do your market research along with scripts and questions you can ask. Book a 60 minute consultation call here.

2. Create content that converts with my free guide here.

📺 Content for niching down

Stop overcomplicating the niche — What gurus don’t tell you about niching down + 4 tips to finding your nice.

Find your niche through Ikigai — Having a hard time finding your niche or identifying your offer? Try out this exercise based on the concept of Ikigai.

☀️ What I've been up to...

📖 Book: Building A Second Brain by Tiago Forte — Our brain isn’t meant to store everything. The second brain is a system that helps us organize all our ideas, thoughts, and notes digitally. This has helped me capture countless ideas for my content and freelancing business.