Who Do You Ask For Feedback On Your Projects?

[erifdekciw]

So lately I've been working on a bunch of new niches that I have no idea about. I never really ask for feedback from anyone online in the business for fear of competition or someone will replicate the ideas. I can't really ask anyone offline because most of the feed back I get from people I know is kinda trivial stuff that doesn't really give any valid information ("yea i like it, the blue really looks good").

So a lot of my projects I end up just shooting from the hip and spending a lot of money testing to get it right, But instead of shooting from the hips I want to start getting as much information, research and feedback before I launch a campaign.

And since I am starting to enter niches I am unfamiliar with (the girly stuff). I have no idea how a womans brain works (Don't think anyone does), So I can't relate at all.

So this brings me to my question.

What do you do when you need some honest feed back on things like landing pages and sales copy?

 

[mpbiz]

That's a tough one and trust me I know exactly where you're coming from.

I've worked at a company for the past 2 years or so that is 99% women. I finally woke up one day and actually started listening to what they were talking about.

You'd be surprised what you'll pick up when you start listening to people. Don't just sit there and hear the sounds though, seriously pick apart what they are talking about. Listen to how their voice changes when talking about something emotional etc.

My girlfriend and her sister are both into beauty products + health related products as well. I've listened to them a lot and payed attention to what they like and why they like it, and it's amazing how a tiny difference in the color or name of a product can be a deal breaker. A perfect example is "Physician's formula".

All I can say is that if you are trying to understand what motivates women to buy, I would start listening to them as much as possible. You'll be amazed what you'll pick up, it's actually kind of funny because you're so used to tuning out 99% of what they say while you're trying to watch tv, you don't even realize what you're missing.

Other than listening to the women around you, join forums dominated by females and listen to their conversations and get involved. I joined a forum once for a certain niche and I couldn't believe what kind of deep personal info that niche audience was willing to talk about online.

Also, once you get your hands on any leads I would call them on the phone and personally get to know them. Don't even try to sell them anything just become their friend.

Most people's dogs wont even listen to what they have to say, imagine how excited they'll be when you come into the picture.

*Edit*

PS. Specifically about landing pages, I've heard of services where you can pay to have real people look at your pages or something and they chat about it. I don't know if this is legit or effective but might be worth looking at.

The problem is that most people don't even know why they like something better than something else, and even if they do know why they'll give you a completely different answer just to "fit" into what they think they should like for society to accept them. A perfect example is how no one is willing to admit that they buy the national enquirer.

The only real insights I think you could get would be to go over to clicktale.com and start recording how your visitors interact with you LP.

Good luck

 

[Garrett]

I know exactly what you mean man. For market research, use reddit. Just search it using google and find all the relevant threads. i've gotten so much good insight from that site.

for feedback, maybe try a relevant forum and just ask? I've never done that myself but it seems like a good way to get real feedback. Maybe reddit would be good for that too

 

[cougarclaws]

I know exactly what you mean man. For market research, use reddit. Just search it using google and find all the relevant threads. i've gotten so much good insight from that site.

for feedback, maybe try a relevant forum and just ask? I've never done that myself but it seems like a good way to get real feedback. Maybe reddit would be good for that too

Interesting - can you elaborate on how you're using Reddit?

 

[Garrett]

Interesting - can you elaborate on how you're using Reddit?

yea, if you are promoting a certain site/offer and there is a thread about it on reddit, then booya. read the comments and see what people actually think. if there is no thread on your site/offer, but there is one for the biggest competitor, then booya. check out those comments. if you can't find anything particularly about the site/offer, you'll definitely be able to find a thread on the niche in general.

most of the serious comments on reddit are relatively honest and intelligent. it's good for seeing what savvy internet people think about certain things. they point out all the flaws for you and you just sit back and take notes

edit: twitter and Amazon reviews are good too

 

[Garrett]

oh yea, forgot to mention all the good sites and resources people link to on reddit for your market. for health weight loss, there is an entire subreddit for it. Lose the Fat

 

[mpbiz]

yea, if you are promoting a certain site/offer and there is a thread about it on reddit, then booya. read the comments and see what people actually think. if there is no thread on your site/offer, but there is one for the biggest competitor, then booya. check out those comments. if you can't find anything particularly about the site/offer, you'll definitely be able to find a thread on the niche in general.

most of the serious comments on reddit are relatively honest and intelligent. it's good for seeing what savvy internet people think about certain things. they point out all the flaws for you and you just sit back and take notes

edit: twitter and Amazon reviews are good too

+rep and +1 for amazon. Those reviews are money.

 

[erifdekciw]

That's a tough one and trust me I know exactly where you're coming from.

I've worked at a company for the past 2 years or so that is 99% women. I finally woke up one day and actually started listening to what they were talking about.

You'd be surprised what you'll pick up when you start listening to people. Don't just sit there and hear the sounds though, seriously pick apart what they are talking about. Listen to how their voice changes when talking about something emotional etc.

My girlfriend and her sister are both into beauty products + health related products as well. I've listened to them a lot and payed attention to what they like and why they like it, and it's amazing how a tiny difference in the color or name of a product can be a deal breaker. A perfect example is "Physician's formula".

All I can say is that if you are trying to understand what motivates women to buy, I would start listening to them as much as possible. You'll be amazed what you'll pick up, it's actually kind of funny because you're so used to tuning out 99% of what they say while you're trying to watch tv, you don't even realize what you're missing.

Other than listening to the women around you, join forums dominated by females and listen to their conversations and get involved. I joined a forum once for a certain niche and I couldn't believe what kind of deep personal info that niche audience was willing to talk about online.

Also, once you get your hands on any leads I would call them on the phone and personally get to know them. Don't even try to sell them anything just become their friend.

Most people's dogs wont even listen to what they have to say, imagine how excited they'll be when you come into the picture.

*Edit*

PS. Specifically about landing pages, I've heard of services where you can pay to have real people look at your pages or something and they chat about it. I don't know if this is legit or effective but might be worth looking at.

The problem is that most people don't even know why they like something better than something else, and even if they do know why they'll give you a completely different answer just to "fit" into what they think they should like for society to accept them. A perfect example is how no one is willing to admit that they buy the national enquirer.

The only real insights I think you could get would be to go over to clicktale.com and start recording how your visitors interact with you LP.

Good luck

I was going to post about an idea of paying people on fiverr to give me their opinions, but the information will probably be skewed because there is money involved and the reasons you mentioned.

Also I've used click tale in the past. It's definitely a cool tool to have, but I couldn't get much out of it. The only good info I got was how long people were staying on my site and when I saw videos it would just be of them scrolling through the site. Really cool, but I just didnt get enough value out of for the price.

yea, if you are promoting a certain site/offer and there is a thread about it on reddit, then booya. read the comments and see what people actually think. if there is no thread on your site/offer, but there is one for the biggest competitor, then booya. check out those comments. if you can't find anything particularly about the site/offer, you'll definitely be able to find a thread on the niche in general.

most of the serious comments on reddit are relatively honest and intelligent. it's good for seeing what savvy internet people think about certain things. they point out all the flaws for you and you just sit back and take notes

edit: twitter and Amazon reviews are good too

Awesome suggestions I never thought about checking out reviews on places like amazon. Although I would check out some of the ripoff report reviews lol.

 

[tomaszjot]

I know this is not exactly the answer to your quaestion however I believe you can build good page simply analysing your competition. What I do is I study top websites having the same or similar products. Check how they approached the sales. What are the common elements on all this pages? What copy used, what words used? What colors? What images, buttons whatever. The thing is all this especially big companies did some research, did plenty of testing themselves, probably got feedback from users already and based on this they set up their pages. I'm not saying to copy the competition but to make sure you got all these 'core elements' on your page. Then add some extra. Then tune it. Not sure if it makes any sense, it's very late.