Ideas are everywhere, if you know where to look for them. Check out these ways to generate your next big idea:
Brainstorm. Set aside 20 minutes to brainstorm. Even better is if you can brainstorm with a friend or business partner.
The key to a good brainstorming session is to make it a rule that you cannot censor your ideas or judge them as you generate them. Write down anything and everything that comes to mind without judging whether the idea is a good one, viable, etc.
Putting aside judgments during a brainstorming session helps open up your creativity, which in turn can lead you to some surprisingly good ideas.
Ask your audience what they want. Your audience has been thinking about their problems for a while, and they may have some good ideas about how to solve them. That’s why you’ll want to ask them what they want, what features they want to see in a product, how they’d improve existing products on the market, what types of new products they’d like to see, and so on.
Be sure to ask open-ended questions in order to get the best answers. E.G., “What sorts of fitness apps would you like to use? What features would these apps include?”
Use keyword tools. This gives you a way to take a peek inside your audience’s heads, as it tells you what your audience is already searching for.
In order to get the most insightful results, you can search for very broad keywords. For example, searching for something broad like “marketing” or “gardening” will give you a long list of audience searches with those words along with related searches. This will help you discover solutions you’d never thought of before.
TIP: If you want to generate ideas that aren’t in any specific niche, then you’ll want to search for even broader keywords. For example, input words like “how to” and “secrets of” and “get rid of” into a keyword tool, and you’ll get a list of ideas and niches you never even knew existed.
Next…
Pay attention to what others are talking about. This includes reading blogs, blog comments, forums, newsletters, social media groups, industry news, and similar content.
Take note that some platforms (mostly blogs and forums) have keyword or “tag clouds,” which shows you which words come up repeatedly in discussions. This will give you some idea of what topics are most popular in your niche. You can then read these topics to see if you can uncover any fresh ideas for products or services.
Another thing you’ll want to do is read the product reviews in your niche. That’s because customers will sometimes share what they would have liked to have seen in a particular product. You can read these reviews on sites like Amazon, iTunes, Google Play and similar sites. You can also read them on review blogs.
NOTE: Some reviews are written by shills. These shills are either competitors who are trying to make a product look bad, or they’re shills for the product creator (so they’re trying to make a product look good). Point is, take reviews with a grain of salt. Focus on patterns, such as multiple people suggesting that a product would be better if it possessed a certain feature.
Attend niche meetings, expos and other events. This will give you a fresh perspective and ideas for products and services to meet needs.
For example, if you’re appealing to people who own horses, then attend a horse expo in your area. You’ll want to walk around and view all the vendor booths, which may spark some ideas for products. You’ll also want to spend time talking to the attendees.
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For example, if you’re sitting next to someone waiting for a demo to start and you see them carrying a product or reviewing literature on a product or service, ask them about their opinion on it. This is an informal way to get more information about how people in your niche view the current solutions.
Here’s another idea…
Become a part of the target market. One way to truly understand your market’s problems, wants and needs is to spend a good amount of time doing exactly what they do, using the products that they’re using, and so on. In other words, become a part of your target market.
For example, if you want to know more about what bodybuilders go through every day and how they feel, then spend a couple months training as a bodybuilder. Eat like they do, train like they do. Soon you’ll understand their problems and frustrations, and you’ll get a better idea of how to solve them.
Now the next step…
Keep Reading: How To Validate An Idea
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