Unscripted: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship pdfdrive com

5. Market Simulation
The final variation of soft proof is market simulation. Here, you present your
product or service to the market as if it already exists. Market tests and their
simulations can be costly and time-consuming, but the data gathered are second
to none. The two types of market simulations are landing pages and mock
prototypes.
Simulating the Market: Landing Page
The most effective soft proof is an email address evolving from a one-page
sell sheet, commonly referred to as a landing page. Create a web page solely for
the purpose of collecting email addresses or pre-orders. Your landing page sells
—the email address (or the pre-order) is confirmation of user interest.
Another deviant method is creating a sales page that can’t close. The
objective here is to track clicks to the order page. If that happens, the buyer is
presented with a “Sold Out” notice or some other explanation. While this is
effective at proving soft demand, it pushes ethical boundaries and isn’t
something I’d try unless approached authentically.
Unfortunately, capturing order-button clicks or email addresses is NOT
preeminent proof: It simply validates that the marketmind is interested in your
offer. 
Interest and commitment are not the same:
“Here’s my email addy” and
“Here’s my money” are two different things. For example, before I released my
first book, I captured email addresses from a pre-ordering landing page. By
release, I had roughly 3,000 email addresses from folks who indicated buying
interest. However, when it was time to open wallets and fork over cash, nearly
two-thirds bailed. Captured email addresses are circumstantial soft proof; 
cash is
a verdict
and hard proof.
Testing the Market: Mock Prototyping
Similar to the landing page, mockup prototyping involves creating a
nonfunctional, dummy version of your idea and exposing it to the marketmind.
The goal of the mock version is to gauge a market response, using any “ask the
market” methods above.
This approach has been used on Instagram with great success. If you had a
product in the bodybuilding space, you could build a targeted following and then
present a product to your audience. Or, you could buy an existing account and

---

do the same. The objective is to gauge your follower’s response to your product.
Do they like and share? Comment with “OMG, where do I get one of these?” or
“How can I order this?” If so, you’re onto something.
Another variation of this technique is influencer marketing: Hire an
influencer in your market to post your product and gauge the response.
Manually find relevant influencers or get assistance from such websites as
Intellifluence, Whalar and Klear. Most Instagram users with 500K+ followers
pimp products for a small fee—you could reach thousands for, literally, pennies
and instantly find out what the marketmind thinks about your idea. Once your
idea is soft proven, you’re ready to draft your process path.

---