Putting the right stuff in front of the wrong people or the wrong stuff in front of the right people is one of the first marketing mistakes made by business owners.
One of the easiest methods of finding out what your prospects want is simply by asking them. You can do so through a survey or through more formal market research.
It should also be noted that most people don’t know what they want until they’ve actually been presented with it. Also when people are doing surveys or responding to market research, they do so with logic; however, when it comes to actual purchasing, this is done with emotions and justified with logic after the fact. So you need to supplement asking with observing.
If you asked those in the market for expensive luxury cars as to what they wanted, you’d typically get logical (and untrue or half true) answers like quality, reliability, comfort. In reality what they really want is status.
One of the ways I’ve done and recommend doing market research is by analyzing what your target market are actually buying or looking for.
Look at products and categories that are trending on marketplaces like Amazon and Ebay.
Analyzing search engine queries can be a great using a tool like Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool is another method.
Lastly see what topics are trending on social media and industry news sites. What are people commenting on and reacting to?
Using these tools is almost like tapping into the global consciousness and will give you a good idea of what is currently in demand and being talked or thought about.