Businesses generally will need to find ways to reach their customers both for marketing and product development purposes. Imagine you are forming a local bakery. What kind of bakery are you aiming to be? Are you a bakery whose primary traffic is going to come from walk-in customers who happen to walk by your storefront, or do you wish to serve primarily catering or call-in orders? “All of the above”, you might say. Everyone wants to be all of the above, and get every type of customer, however may you want to focus on a type of customer. If you are catering, you will want to market yourself not only to customers directly, but also wedding planners, caterers, and other bakeries who may not be able to handle higher volumes. In addition, real estate agents or PTAs may need your services. Maybe local restaurants. These types of marketing channels may or may not be different than for the channels for retail customers. The marketing messages in these channels may be different.

As far a customer research, these days online is one of the best ways to find out what customers want. The aforementioned Twitter, along with Facebook, and the myriad of blogs and forums allow business owners to find out customer desires. One key point about finding out what customers want is not to ignore what you don’t want to hear. You may realize that the solution you are offering is being criticized, or will not meet the needs of your market. This is invaluable when starting a new business. Doing small advertising runs online will also help you gauge customer reaction to your idea. The sales funnel though, has many detours. You will need an advertisement which attracts clicks, a web page which markets correctly and explains the benefits, and working sites and links all in between. All of these are failure points which have nothing to do with the actual service or product you are marketing. The point is to make sure that you put your best foot forward so the reaction you get is measuring what you want.

Determining what home business product you want to promote can be one of the most difficult tasks to your business. After all, your business should be and will be based off of your product. You will have other sources on your website to help bring in additional income, but a majority of your money should come through your business product. A brief overview of what you should look at includes a product that has public appeal, is within your budget, and is relatively fresh and new on the internet. This is not to say that you should select a product that you invented because odds are you will struggle promoting and making money this way. At the same time, you will have trouble making sells if you select a product that has extremely stiff competition.

Another feature to consider is how heavy the home business product is that you wish to sell. By selecting a product that weighs a lot, you have to be prepared to pay extra for shipping. Every little detail can make or break your business when you select your product. Once you have considered these aspects, think about what type of home business product interests you. Work is a lot more fun when you are working with something that interests you. Not only that, but you will find it easier to force yourself into working those extra hours needed to put yourself ahead of the competition when you enjoy the business.

Next, you want to make a checklist of possible business products that meet all of the criteria listed above. The more products you have on your list, the more options you can look into to help you find the perfect product. By looking on the major search engines online such as Yahoo, Google and MSN, you will be able to see how often people are searching for your product. Remember, you are looking for a balance between high public appeal but less competition. Also when looking on the search engines you want to look at how much people are paying to advertise the specific keyword you are targeting. This will help you identify how much competition you are going against.

The last thing to consider when selecting a home business product is focusing on a specific niche. For example, try and target just basketball as oppose to all sports equipment. Or even better, try selling just basketball jerseys as oppose to all basketball related items. This will give you less traffic but potentially more sells because everyone coming to your website will be looking for the exact product you offer.