- Finding Your “Targeted” Niche or Market
These days, it’s all about starting your own business. Unfortunately, too many new business owners believe that all they have to do to be successful is put up a website and watch the money roll in. While having a dedicated website is essential for any business, you aren’t really in business if that’s all you do.
Finding a niche that pays and then creating content, products, and services for that niche, is the only way you will be able to build a solid foundation for a successful online business.
Finding a profitable niche is also the best way to achieve the level of success and the kind of profits that most online business owners need to make their daily efforts worthwhile.
It can be incredibly easy not to pick a lucrative niche when you are excited about all the great ideas that you have floating around in your head for making money online. It is also easy to settle into a niche that you’ve heard are popular and where people are making a ton of money selling online.
Enthusiasm and passion play crucial roles when it comes to running your own business, but it is just as essential to do your research before you dive in head first. All the large companies throughout the world spend their time researching the market before they ever release new products to the public. The research they conduct allows them to see if there is any interest in the public for the potential product. Unfortunately, a majority of new business owners get this step wrong.
Instead of doing the proper research first, they start by spending their time and resources on creating a new product, then spend money on launching the product, and later they try to find a market for it, only to be met with failure and a product that nobody is interested in buying.
In this article I will walk you through on the steps you need to find a profitable niche for your online business.
What is Niche Marketing?
Focused Message – Niche or target marketing delivers a “focused” or “targeted” message to a group identified on the basis of their shared belief-systems, social or personal history or lifestyles.
Authority and Credibility – One of your main goals you need to accomplish is to establish yourself as an authority in your niche.
By picking a targeted Niche and keeping your focus on that Niche, you will establish credibility and trust in your market. This is a must to dominate your niche. If you fail at this your competition is going to have no problem whatsoever drawing your customers over to their side.
Think about this one question.
Do you buy from those you do not trust or see as a credible expert in their field? Of course you’re not. Most people coming online have a very hard time buying from anyone at all as they are always in the fear of a big scam and ending up with no return for the investment they are looking to make.
One thing you need to know is that it is Not Always Easy – Finding the right niche for your authority website isn’t always going to be easy, but DON’T let this process stop you cold in your tracks.
There are so many profitable Niches out there right now with a lot of products available that you should not just give up because you’re unsure about finding a good profitable Niche.Finding you’re Niche seems to be the ending point for so many trying to get started.
Tips to Help You Discover and Prosper in Your Niche Market
Here are a few things you can start to think about that may help you discover the ultimate Niche.
Choose a Topic That Will Keep Your Interest
- What is your PASSION?
- What are you KNOWLEDGABLE about?
- What kind of talents and skills do you have?
- What are your hobbies?
Out of these suggestions let me focus just a second on choosing a topic that will keep your interest.
This is very important. Like I have said already this is not going to be easy. Getting an online business started up is going to require a lot of hard work and effort on your part if you wish to succeed.
Many people including myself have found that when you’re not doing something that excites and interests you, that when faced with the daily challenges of starting up a business, you will find yourself to the point of just wanting to give up and quit.
You have to do something that excites you in order to have that drive to want to continue to push forward.
Researching Your Target Market
Now the fun begins as we take a look into the Niche to see if it is going to be profitable, and if you can come up with an idea for your product or if you can find a good plr product to repackage.
Choose a topic where the following three criteria can (and must) be met:
- People are looking for information to solve a common problem
- They are willing to spend money on that information.
- You, personally, are at least moderately interested about this topic.
Although the third point is optional, like I have already said, I recommend it if you are going to stay interested and motivated to promote your products for months and years to come. You have the option of choosing something you love or something that is popular. Make work fun by choosing a market that you enjoy.
So why is it so critical to identify a group of people with a common problem rather than looking for a hot product on the market now!
Well, the simple truth is that people very rarely go online to actively look for products to buy.
Much more often, they go online to search for solutions to their problems.
Once you identify a group of people with a common problem, you can you can go find plr products that solve the problem and offer it as a solution to that problem.
Then, all you have to do is put yourself in the way of your perfect potential customers, and set yourself up for an incredibly successful business!
We are looking for something that can be evergreen and stay around for some time instead of always looking for the next hot thing to come around. We want something that we can grow our business around.
LISTEN ALWAYS AND PAY ATTENTION
Now if you are still just unsure of what it is that you are passionate about, and you’re unsure of what kind of problems are going on that might need you to find a solution to that people who are willing to pay for. Here are a couple things you can try.
- Pay attention when folks you meet start talking about their hobbies, their passions. Maybe this is something you can get started in as well. One thing you will have going for you is that you will know an expert in the Niche. The person that you were paying attention to just could be a great person to help you get going and maybe even become a partner.
- Take a look on your bookshelves, magazine racks in the stores, or in libraries. What kind of topics do you read already? What are others reading? Look at best seller’s lists. Maybe helping people write resumes is your thing.
Become Involved In your Market
When considering a good authority site, make sure that you can easily identify the problems, questions, and needs experienced by the people targeted by this niche. (You supply the answer or the solution.) Make sure that you choose a niche where people are ready, able, and willing to spend money.
Your Unique Selling Proposition
Stand out above the crowd as something different than everyone else is offering.
One of the biggest and most harmful mistakes most people getting started online make is not showing their target market what makes them unique and not positioning themselves as the best choice in the market over all the rest of the competition.
You will find that there are many markets that are very competitive and it is very important that you come through shining with what makes you different than everyone else.
If you are going to be like the majority of people trying to get started online, and failing miserably by using the “same as everyone else” type of marketing you will find that you will quickly be joining the majority that try and fail.
Your online and even offline business absolutely positively has to have a USP that you can show your potential customers by helping them cut through all of the clutter going on right now. This separates you from the competition, and positions you as the best choice…
the ONLY choice and this is what you must be seen as if you are to succeed and have a long lasting online business.
Questions to ask yourself when trying to figure out your USP are as follows:
1. Will my perspective customers perceive my USP as an advantage to going and buying from the competition?
2. Is my USP I am using to significantly different from what my competitors are offering?
3. Do I feel my prospective customers will actually believe in this USP? Put yourself in their place!
4. How will my customers benefit from this USP? You must find an important benefit unique to your product or service. You must identify the main advantage your product offers over the competition.
5. Will this USP motivate customers sufficiently to actually make a purchase? Will they see that you have done your job in adapting to their needs, is your offer, innovative, does it add more value to their life, does it deliver beyond the customer’s expectations and will the customer see a significant return on their investment?
Develop a Focused Sub Niche
Look into developing an even more focused sub-niche as a means of expanding your customer base.
Break Down Main Niches into Sub-Niches
Example
“Guitar” gives about 500,000,000 results.
Guitar may have a very large amount of competition and possibly have a very saturated market.
Also those searching for the keyword guitar are probably really not sure what it is that they are really looking for at this point. They are just beginning their search.
Their child may have approached them and said something like, “can I get a guitar?” So now Mom and Dad begin to search for something they may know nothing about.
“Electric Guitar” gives about 15,000,000 results.
“Acoustic Guitar” gives about 14,100,000 results.
“Beginner Acoustic Guitar” gives about 37,500 results.
“Beginner Acoustic Guitar Lessons” gives about 6,690 results.
“Learn how to play acoustic guitar by ear” gives about 1,100 results.
As you can see, by breaking the broad term keyword “Guitar” down into sub-niches, you can find a more targeted niche to work with.
After searching for the word guitar with no real results that solved the problem of buying the child a guitar, the same Mom and Dad ask their child questions like, “which kind of guitar are you wanting to play? We are finding Electric and acoustic guitars which one sounds like more fun to you?”
Also knowing their son or daughter will need lessons they begin the search for lessons to go along with the new guitar.
As they search their keywords they are using will turn into keyword phrases that will be more focused upon what they are searching for.
Soon they are typing in exactly what it is that they are searching for and you want to be right there to meet them at the search bar.
Researching the Competition
Let’s do a little evaluating our competition.
Your competitor is the one in your business that has the loyal following.
There are two types of competition, DIRECT and INDIRECT.
Direct competition is a company that is basically offering the same products and services to the same market that you do.
Indirect competition is a company that offers the same products and services that you do, but offers them to a different market.
A few things to look into as you begin your research are the following:
- Know what types of products and services are available on the market. (eBooks, software, audios, video, memberships coaching, seminars, workshops, forums, blogs, live chats, affiliate programs, etc.)
- Are their products ranging from low to high in prices?
- Does the market have a good back end? If not, can you create back-end products that people will buy? What comes first and what comes next?
- Is there major large well established competition? If so, you may need to rethink your niche. Don’t get me wrong competition is great. If you don’t find any at all there may not be a profitable market for your Niche. What we want to be careful with is getting into a large saturated Niche that will be almost impossible trying to come up with a USP to compete.
- What extra benefits do they provide? Membership sites, forums, blogs?
- What kind of customer support is available?
- Do they have affiliate programs?
- Are their websites easy to navigate with good design formats that are pleasing to the eye?
All of these areas you are looking for holes that can be filled by you. A couple examples that come to mind would be finding a Niche that has very poor quality websites that are hard to navigate.
You fly in with your professional easy to navigate websites and dominate.
Maybe support is an issue and you can offer good support for your services and products.
Research Your Niche
Research each topic on your list. Which ones are people buying digital products in large numbers online that has products available in your niche?
Here are some suggested places to look for possible Niches that you may be interested in pursuing.
Use Amazon
eBay
Dummies
Jvzoo Products
WarriorPlus Products
Research through Keyword Use
ClickBank Products
Search Magazines (Both Offline and Online)
Possible Niche Topics
If you just can’t come up with a Niche that you feel is profitable and have a lot of products in the market or you are having doubts and second guessing yourself about the profitability of your chosen Niche, here are some Niches that are well established and profitable that you can choose from to get you started.
- Weight loss and dieting
- Health (or fixing health problems)
- Fitness and exercise (lifting things that are drooping and tightening things that are sagging)
- Looking good (reversing aging, removing hair, keeping hair, etc.)
- Relationships (finding them, keeping them, getting over them)
- Making money (online or offline, small business, finding jobs, etc)
- Saving money
- Parenting problems/concerns
- Personal development/self -awareness
To be successful, you have to do the research. If you choose not to research your potential niche markets thoroughly, you will do nothing more than waste your time, energy and money. Finding the right niche for your business isn’t a complicated process, but it will take you some time, but it will be well worth it when you start seeing your business grow and your profits increase.