Known by succesful copywriters and marketers:

A poorly written ad sent to the right market... will do better than a brilliantly-written ad sent to the wrong market.
Seems simple, right? Don’t try to sell ice to Eskimos, but do offer ice water in a desert.
And yet, I see countless entrepreneurs make this very same mistake repeatedly.

Don’t be this guy. He had violated the most basic fundamental in business: Do the simple stuff first.
Market Research.

Do not create the actual product until AFTER you get a pulse from your intended market.
How do you do this?  Here are just a few of the simple ways I can share with you:

(1) Go to Google AdWords. You can "test" most online markets without even signing up for the service.
It’s easy, too. The system will automatically reveal to you how many hits certain words and phrases within your target market were registered. It will also suggest other words and phrases, based on what is actually getting the big numbers.

This is free market research. Just figure out what a prospect might put into a search engine in order to be in your target audience... and see if the action justifies your foray into this market.

If the words and phrases you come up with are not among the most used, Google will tell you, and help you find the better ones.  And... if your AdWords best efforts come up with pitiful results... then you are fishing in an empty pond.
Time to move on.

(2) Get your hands on a copy of the SRDS. (That’s "Standard Rates and Data Service".) These are the phonebook-sized catalogs of all the mailing lists available to rent, and all the magazines that take ads.
Even if your business is strictly web-based, this is the book that -- once you take a few minutes to understand it -- will heap massive wealth and rewards on your head.

Because this is the book that instantly tells you which markets are hot, and which are not.
What’s more, if you’re too cheap to buy the service (sign up at www.srds.com and they will send you a brand new updated version quarterly), you can check the SRDS out for FREE at your local library. It’s in the resource department.
They’re not hiding it.

You don’t even need a recent one, in most cases. If your prospective market has existed for a while, you can get your answer from even a years-old SRDS.

All you need, at this basic stage, is a thumbs up or thumbs down on how "hot" the market you're targeting is.
There’s either a mob of cash-rich people who actively buy stuff in the market you’re considering... or there aren’t.
That’s all you’re looking for right now.

Research job is complete. Even if you had to take a bus across town to the library, your total time expenditure has been
minimal.  And you’re not out any serious money, except for bus fare and lunch.

Of course...
... if your research had revealed that your target market was a profit-rich riot of unmet needs (with scant competition and lots of low-hanging fruit)...
... then you've just identified a niche you can go after with the throttle wide open.
This is how fortunes are made... and kept from being lost.