Greg Digneo of Cloud Marketing Lab wrote a beautifully simple explanation over at Triiibes of how to test an idea before you spend any money building.  Even “small” ideas like hosting a webinar or writing a short/free ebook to give away on your blog can be tested even before putting time into creating it.

4 Steps to Test an idea

Here’s what Greg does:

1. Use Unbounce to create a simple landing page. You are trying to get the idea tested as quickly as possible, not creating a landing page work of art.  Basic templates work fine.  (no affiliation with unbounce, just like their product).  You get 30 days for free which is more than enough time to test your idea.
2. Marketing to consumers? Buy Facebook ads.  They generally cost less than $1.00 per click. Marketing to a specific business function?   Use Linkedin ads.  They generally cost around $3.00 per click.
3. Test and tweak the ads and the landing page for about a week. Include weekends. You’d be surprised at how much activity happens on a Saturday and Sunday.
4. If there is enough interest in that week, then implement the idea.  If not, then you’ve wasted a few bucks (learnt a lesson) and not ploughed a lot of time into something that no one wants.

Test an idea.  Surely you have one?  Try it.  Nothing to lose.  Maybe a big gain.
Have a great weekend – and do some cheap tests of your ideas before you spend any time writing business plan, developing code, doing UI design.  Please.  Only Kevin Costner can do “Build it and They will Come”.

Thanks to Greg for sharing these simple steps.