Monday 23 January 2012

Who Knew Amazon Reviews Could be So Useful?!

I got a brilliant tip from Paul Elliott, an Internet Marketing Ninja! He led an expert session at a 4Networking Make It Happen Monday event earlier this month.

He shared with the group how powerful Amazon Reviews can be and not in the way you might think! He explained the power of them in helping you find out where demand is for your products and/or services.

I'm a huge advocate that every business owner should be creating products based around their business. You should write books, create DVDs, host workshops, and hold seminars all based around your area of expertise.

Paul shared a huge nugget of gold with us. If you are wondering what to write about or which particular area of your expertise to focus on, then check out the reviews on Amazon.

Let me explain. Search on Amazon for books which have been written about your industry or chosen subject and scroll down to the reviews. You're looking for the detailed reviews; not the ones which just say "This is a great book, buy it!" What you want are the reviews which give detailed feedback.

For example: Nick Dougan's review of Inbound Marketing goes into some detail. Nick is a Top 1,000 reviewer on Amazon so you can take it his reviews are always pretty good and spot on. Have a read through and you'll see him highlight some areas which he found interesting:
  1. Using social media along with search engine optimisation and customer conversions
  2. Explaining the different social media platforms
  3. Converting customers
  4. Using landing pages on your website
  5. Sing up forms so you can get customer contact details
  6. Autoresponders & email marketing
  7. Focusing on strategy
  8. Negative about quality of paper used in printing book - so think about this with yours
So from just 1 review of a book about Internet Marketing I've found 7 points worth focusing on and a great tip to avoid - make sure your book is published professional using quality paper.
And I love Nick Dougan's final comment: "If there is a better book covering this subject matter in such an integrated way, please use "comment" to tell me about it."

That tells me if I was an Internet Marketing person and I wrote a book based around these points, then it would be worthwhile, because if Nick Dougan is interested in a similar book to Inbound Marketing, then I'm sure there will be plenty of others too.

So if you're considering writing a book; holding a seminar or webinar, or launching a new product or service, before you do get yourself onto Amazon and check out some of the relevant reviews of products in similar markets to yours. You'll find out what others like and dislike and this useful feedback might just be really useful to you.

See also - Have You Productised Your Business Yet?