The Researching Phase Before Venturing Into IM

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The most important stage of your research process is finding the answers to the questions you have compiled in your notepad or word during researching a specific niche.

There are a few methods to find out the answers, here are the main ones.

Internet Research – This is the most obvious. As I’ve already said, there is a wealth of information online if you can locate the right info, it can become a gold mine. Do a few Google / MSN / AOL searches using different keywords and try and find the answers to your questions. If that fails, visit the forums again and browse through the old topics and see if the question has been answered before. Failing that, move onto the next step.

The Library – Yes, it may sound old fashioned now due to the revolution of eBooks but library’s still exist! Visit your local library and rent a few books all about your niche try and find the answers to your questions and add extra information if you feel it will be beneficial to your target market. Failing that, move onto the next and final step.

Ask the Experts – Your task now is to locate the experts in your field and ASK THEM! Go back to the forums and find the most common posters and the members who provide the most valuable information and seem most knowledgeable. Find their e-mail addresses and assemble all contact details including their name, forum ID and any other relevant information about them into another word document.

You’re going to e-Mail them with your questions in the hope that they will respond with some valuable information. But wait! You can’t just e-mail them out of the blue in the hope that they will respond to your question with no reward for themselves. There are a few things you need to do first in order to get them to answer:

1)Firstly, make contact with them through the forum they post on. Just respond to any of their questions, back up their responses or just indulge in some general chit-chat. If you can get on first name terms with them, it will greatly enhance your chance of a response.

2) Secondly, you have to give them an incentive to answer. It’s unlikely they’ll do something for nothing. These people more than likely have businesses to run and don’t have time to assist others. But what incentives could you give them? You could give them a cut of your profits from your eBook but if you’re contacting many different experts then you can’t offer them a substantial fee and sales of the eBook can become very messy. You will also have to purchase an affiliate script which can be costly if you’re a newcomer to the eBook business. You could offer the experts resale rights but again, if you’re reasonably new then they could easily outmuscle you with their reputation, websites and e-mail list and you will have no profit to show for your efforts. The only effective incentive you can offer them is that you will include a link to their website in your eBook if they respond. This has no effect on you, but could be very advantageous for them if you’re eBook proves to be a best seller.

OK. If you have 15 questions you want answered and have 5 “Gurus” then send three different questions to each guru to cover all 15. Maybe you’ve answered some of them through your internet research or book research. Hopefully, all experts will reply, however if they don’t you could either send some of the unanswered questions to the ones who did respond or alternatively find more experts and ask them.