Selling can be as easy as giving away candy to a child - if you knew exactly what your market wants, and is willing to pay for.

And the funny thing is it is easy, and inexpensive, to find this out using the Internet.

Market research done the traditional way offline can be time-consuming, costly and involve a lot of hard work. Online, the same information can be efficiently collected in a fraction of that time, at a fraction of the cost, and entirely using technology!

So, how to research your market’s desires?

Ask Them Directly

If you have access to your audience, you can simply ask the right questions and get a wealth of useful information.

With an email list, you can run a short (or long) survey. Invite readers to hit the REPLY button and send back the answers to your questions.

On a blog or website, you can conduct a quick poll, or even run a more formal survey. You may either code the page for this yourself, or use a paid service like SurveyMonkey.

Even if you don’t have an existing audience, you can tap into the power of search engines by running ad campaigns that target the right market.

For instance, if you are thinking about creating or selling a product that relieves back pain, you’d run an ad on the keywords related to ‘back pain’, and inviting people to respond to your questions in exchange for getting a free copy of the finished report!

Another way to reach this kind of audience is on digital bulletin boards and forums, or even through running ads or joint venturing with ezine publishers who reach that audience.

One thing to keep in mind is that the way you ask or frame your questions might influence the responses you get. So, avoid leading the survey responder along a pre-determined path, but instead ask open-ended questions that let them share their real thoughts about the topic.

Monitor Discussions

An indirect way to gather this data is to follow topics on electronic forums. Do a quick search on Google or Yahoo for forums on your subject. Using the phrase “Keyword” + “forum” will often pull up dozens of results.

On each forum, look for the most popular or ‘hot’ debates. Study the trends. See what pain the participants are feeling. Notice which problems keep cropping up, and if there are effective solutions being provided or pointed out.

In my short report, “Forum Fortunes”, I reveal more ways to use forums to grow your business.

Observe Buying Behavior

People buy solutions to their problems, salves to their pain, or fulfillment of their dreams and desires.

By observing - and intelligently analyzing - what people buy, you can get incredible insight into what your audience wants.

Where to look for this data?

On eBay.com, there is a section called eBay Pulse which lists the hottest selling items this week, organized by category.

On Magazines.com, look at the list of best-selling magazines to get an idea of what topics are hot.

On Amazon.com, the list of top selling books indicates what the market is looking for at the moment.

There are many more resources you an look at to find this information. And they will help you identify your market’s desires - so you can provide the solution that fits that demand.

Isn’t building an online business interesting - and fun?!