Recurring-Need Demand Test
Turn repeated audience requests into a validated offer
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 97%
The Recurring-Need Demand Test begins with observed behavior rather than a product idea. Collect the questions, requests, and buying signals arriving through content, referrals, or direct messages. Group them by desired outcome and watch for the same need appearing across different people. When someone shows real interest, stop conducting a long text exchange and schedule a call for today or tomorrow. Use the conversation to understand the context, current workaround, constraints, and outcome the prospect wants. Record those findings across calls, then design the smallest offer that serves the recurring pattern. Finally, test commitment through payment, a contract, or another meaningful action. The mechanism converts audience language into product evidence while preventing one enthusiastic message from being mistaken for a market.
Origin
Shanae Murray noticed recurring healthcare marketing needs during prospect calls and later received 50 to 100 weekly messages asking for a program teaching her LinkedIn growth methods. Those patterns shaped MedSnake Media and Growth Academy.
Core principles
- 01Listen for repeated requests rather than isolated enthusiasm
- 02Move interested people from messages to calls quickly
- 03Diagnose the underlying need in live conversation
- 04Design around recurring patterns, not one loud customer
How to run it
- 1
Capture inbound signals
Record unsolicited questions, requests, referrals, and expressions of interest instead of relying on memory.
Pro tip Preserve the customer's own wording.
Watch out Likes alone are weak evidence of a buying problem.
- 2
Cluster the outcomes
Group signals by the job people want done and identify requests that recur across different prospects.
Watch out Do not let one unusually vocal person define the market.
- 3
Move to a call
When interest is credible, schedule a conversation for today or tomorrow rather than extending the direct-message thread.
Pro tip Speed preserves momentum and reveals seriousness.
Watch out Do not attempt to diagnose or close a complex service entirely in messages.
- 4
Diagnose the pattern
Ask how the problem is handled now, what has failed, what outcome matters, and what constraints shape the decision. Compare answers across calls.
Pro tip Look for common needs beneath different surface requests.
- 5
Build the smallest response
Package the minimum service or product that addresses the strongest repeated need.
Pro tip Keep custom elements only when they recur.
Watch out Do not build a large course or agency before testing commitment.
- 6
Test commitment
Ask qualified prospects to pay, sign, join, or otherwise commit. Use actual behavior to confirm or reject the demand hypothesis.
Watch out Praise is not the same as demand.
In the wild
Shanae first treated messages asking for a course as possible coincidence. When the volume rose to roughly 50 to 100 messages a week during the pandemic, she concluded that people needed structured help and created Growth Academy with lessons, live training, accountability, and community.
→ Repeated audience requests became evidence for an offer designed around both knowledge and implementation support.
Inbound prospects moved from LinkedIn messages to calls, where Shanae repeatedly heard that healthcare businesses wanted lean organic marketing and needed marketers who understood different patient demographics. The repeated need shaped MedSnake Media's service.
→ Call-level patterns turned a broad marketing capability into a differentiated healthcare offer.
Common mistakes
Treating one request as a market
A single message may be coincidence; demand becomes stronger when the same outcome recurs across independent people.
Staying in the DMs
Long message threads lose momentum and hide the context that a live conversation reveals.
Counting attention as commitment
High engagement can identify interest, but payment or another meaningful action is needed to validate an offer.
Is it for you?
Best for
Creators and service businesses receiving inbound questions, requests, or leads from an audience.
Not ideal for
Markets with no direct customer access or ideas supported only by passive engagement metrics.
From the transcript
“don't hang out in the dms”
“the faster you move the faster they move”
“we noticed that pattern very early on”
From the episode
Shanee Moret: Build a Community
Shanee Moret