Here’s a quick, cheap way to do marketing research (Plus: New ebook coming soon)

Even the most careful marketing plans can lead to disaster without real market feedback. The best marketers – online and off – test different variables of their campaigns to make them much more effective and reduce the risk of failure.

How to get 500+ opinions for under $100

Google AdWords provides great ROI for selling things, but it’s also an exceptional (and underrated) marketing research tool.

A PPC campaign allows you to quickly split-test multiple headlines, ad copy, and even URLs; then let people vote with their clicks. Running a campaign in Adwords lets you perform tests on a low-cost, low-risk basis. It’s often possible to get 100′s of “votes” for just 10-25 cents each.

You can then take your findings and use them in your marketing collateral.

This tactic is extremely versatile

As the PPC guy at Gradigio, I’ve helped people use this to select everything from print advertisement headlines to a published book title. After a string of winners, I’m convinced there is no easier way to get the opinions of so many people so quickly and for so little money.

Why this works so well

The problem with surveys and focus groups is that people may answer a question one way, then act differently in real life.

By using paid search, you can get feedback in a real market environment. There is no incentive for the test participants to behave any differently than what they do normally.

Real-World Example: Name testing a new product

I’m writing an ebook that will explain how to use blogs to attract more guests. It will be completely free for you to download, but I’m not sure what the best name would be

So I split-test different options in AdWords:

Example of Split-testing in AdWords

One of these options was a clear winner, but I’d like to verify this with a mini-survey. So….

What do you think?

I’m interested to see if the results align with the market research I’ve done in AdWords and on Twitter.

The ebook has a working title of:

“How Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism marketers can build fans and revenue with blogs”

Based on this, which title do you think is best?

1. Hospitable Blogging
2. Blog for Guests
3. Blogging for Guests

…or do you have a completely different suggestion? Let me know, because I plan to have this ready for you to download soon.

It’s always smart to test new ideas multiple ways, but PPC testing is a powerful tool you can bring to the research process.