Hopefully all of you know who Seth Godin is. For those who don’t, you can get educated here, or you can just take my word that he is one of the most forward thinking/well-known marketing mavens of our time.

One of my favorite Godinisms, and the litmus test I have for any business idea, is if the proposed business helps solve a problem of actual consumers in the marketplace. I remember being on a conference call once with Seth where a few people shared their business ideas, and Seth always asked the question:

Do people really have a [your product/service/idea/concept] problem?

In my eyes this is the most important question you can use to test the original/creative ideas you are coming up with after spending the time to think about your business creatively (the topic of yesterday’s post).

For example, let’s say you have taken the time to brainstorm the next big thing and you’ve decided that what you really want to do is create a site that lets people buy (bear with me here) Ziploc sandwich bags one at a time, online. Your logic is that sometimes you only need one or two bags, not a whole box of 100 Ziplocs, and you can’t get that at the store.

So the question you want to ask yourself is “do people have a single Ziploc bag online purchasing problem?”

Now I know this example is a bit silly, but there are a lot of business models out there that seem a lot sillier when you start thinking about whether or not your business idea is solving an actual issue that actual consumers have.

With that said, you might want to attack this question from multiple angles.

Let’s say you ruled out that the average person has a single Ziploc online purchasing problem, but you have been hearing that hipster kids in New York have started a fad of knitting their own Ziploc Bag koozies, and there is a big demand for Ziploc bags in bright colors (to match the koozies), and the hipsters are actually coloring their own bags with Sharpie pens since no one in the US sells colored Ziplocs. There’s your niche. If you can find a supplier of colored Ziplocs, you could sell multicolored Ziploc packs to Hipsters with a massive mark-up on your cost.

Viola! ColoredZiplocBags.com is born, and you ride the Ziploc koozie craze all the way to the bank.

So I guess my point is this - coming up with creative business ideas is essential to affiliate marketing. But before you get too excited, do some research and try to figure out if your business idea is actually going to solve a real problem that real people are having (don’t just think mass market - look for niche too). Once you do that, you’ll have a better idea of how to market your idea and to whom.

Related posts:

1. Get Some Affiliate Business Cards Whenever I’m at an affiliate conference it is fairly common...
2. Enhancing Creativity to Enhance Profitability Today I read ProBlogger’s 5 Ways to Enhance Your Creativity,...
3. Whos the Real King? Links VS. Content Happy Monday! I was digging through the messenger bag I...
4. Are You Making Your Visitors Nervous? Does your site make your visitors nervous and afraid to...
5. Tips for Taking Your Business on the Road As mentioned in Monday’s post, one of Darrin Rowse’s suggestions...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.