It makes little sense to develop a service that has no potential clients, here are some quick ways to try to estimate demand.

Use Surveys, Polls, and Contests to Determine What People Want

Surveys and polls are great ways to find out what kinds of services people need and are willing to pay for. You are seeking to obtain as many positive responses as possible. You should then cut the number of positives by about half. Not everyone who indicates they would buy will actually do so.

Contests are a fun way to engage potential clients as people love to win prizes. The prize offered needs to be worth the effort. Avoid offering your service as a prize because you may choose not to move forward with it after the evaluation of the survey. You should never offer something that you cannot deliver. That can get you into legal trouble. If you cant think of something to offer, consider a gift card. Facebook is a great platform for contests.

Seek Out Forums and Blogs Related to Your Niche

People talk about their problems on forums. They ask questions with the hope of finding possible solutions to their problems. Find forums that are related to your service or industry, which you can do by appending the word forum or blog to your search for your service.

Avoid joining forums with the sole intent of selling your service or promoting your firm, as doing so could get you banned. People use forums to connect with others in a friendly manner. It’s a community and members get to know each other over time.

Our forum is the largest forum dedicated to professional service companies in the world. Try it out, best of all it is FREE!

Contract Sites

Go to contract or gig sites like Freelancer.com or Guru.com to see how many jobs are related to the service you want to offer. Also, look at how much they are offering those jobs to begin to get an idea of how much you may want to consider charging.

For more information on how to successfully gauge the success of your new big idea, check out the report titled Testing Your Big Idea.