Researching the Market - Start with a High Level Overview

Once you have decided on a category to promote, it's time to start researching the market.
What is the demand for the products and services you want to promote? How many
competitors are there? These are just a few of the questions you must ask yourself before
going any further.

Start with a High Level Overview

I strongly recommend evaluating the overall market conditions of the products and
services you are looking to promote. Keep your ears and eyes open to current news and
events related to your category. See how some of the top merchants in your category are
performing. Find out what industry experts are saying.
At this point you are just trying to gauge the overall health of the category you are
interested in. You don't have to be a stock market analyst to perform this type of research.
The only tool that you need is a good search engine.


5 Tips for identifying Hot Products to Promote

1. Subscribe to Magazines and Newsletters for Your Product Niche – Stay a step
ahead of your competition by getting information about upcoming product
releases before everyone else does. I subscribe to dozens of trade publications,
newsletters, and magazines in the product categories I promote. Often times I’ll
be the only person bidding on a new product keyword, which allows me to build a
good click-through history before the product becomes mainstream.

2. Read Industry Blogs – Use a Blog/RSS reader like BlogLines
(http://www.bloglines.com) or Google Reader http://reader.google.com to
subscribe to the top blogs in your niche. For example, if you promoted tech
gadgets you would want to subscribe to Engadget http://www.engadget.com/ or
Gizmodo http://www.gizmodo.com/
Section 2: Finding Products and Services to Promote 24
©Copyright 2005-2007, Quit Your Day Job, LLC. All Rights Reserved

3. Become a Customer – If you want to get the latest coupons, promotions and
product releases become a customer of the merchant’s you’re promoting. I also
recommend that you subscribe to their customer newsletter, and read their press
releases and corporate blog.

4. Use Google News Alerts – Google has a keyword alert service
(http://www.google.com/alerts) that will send you an automated message anytime
there is news or information about your selected keyword(s). I use this service to
keep current on industries I work in and news about competitors.

5. Participate in Investor Calls – If you want to get the inside scoop on a company
listen-in on the quarterly investor calls. During these calls company executives
will often talk about top selling products and the outlook for specific product and
service categories. To get a schedule of investor calls for your publicly-traded
merchants visit Yahoo Finance http://finance.yahoo.com.