SolveYourProblem
Article Series:
Niche Marketing Opportunities
Niche
Marketing: An Introduction
by Jeff Cohen
What's all this hubbub about niche marketing?
Why is every successful marketer preaching niche marketing
as being vital to your profitability as a marketer online or
offline?
In answer to that, let's paint a little picture... Imagine
you have an idea for a great product, an idea so great you
decide to turn it into a product and sell it. You're going
to make millions so you labor away hour after hour creating
a masterpiece, well... It’s a masterpiece in your eyes.
Hours of feverish activity, a month goes past, then another,
and finally the great day arrives when you launch your product.
You have a superb product and the best sales website on the
internet. Another month goes buy, then two and... Not one sale!
In desperation you hire an experienced marketer for their
advice, but what they tell you, crushes you...
"You
don't stand a snowballs chance in hell of making any sales!"
You see you have picked a massive market to sell to; you are
competing against big established suppliers who are seen as
experts. The market trusts them because they are well known
and have great reputations. It's David against Goliath only
David forgot his sling.
If this has happened to you, you're not alone. This little
scenario plays itself out day after day. Each month thousands
of people find themselves in this situation.
Doesn't it infuriate you to see others seemingly doing exactly
what you did, but they make money? From their product launch
they bank the profits. Want to know what they did differently?
They found a niche
market, created a product specifically
for it and they sell that product to that niche only. Don't
make the mistake of thinking niche marketing is something new,
savvy marketers have always sold to niches. It's only recently
that niche marketing has been so heavily publicized.
Niche
marketing is the process of finding small profitable segments
of a much larger market and involves a lot more effort.
Established suppliers to larger markets are usually not prepared
to spend this time and effort required to seek out smaller
segments, leaving them ripe for the picking.
One
way of explaining the niche marketing concept is to picture
a tree - it has a big trunk which leads to branches leading
to even smaller branches and finally tiny twigs. Take the topic
of fishing which can be likened to the trunk of the tree having
branches leading away from it including:
- Deep
Sea Fishing
- Salt
Water Fishing
- Game
Fishing
- Fresh
Water Fishing
The smaller branches leading from Fresh Water Fishing include:
- Fishing
Baits
- ]Bass
fishing
- Fly
Fishing
The tiny twigs leading from Fly Fishing include:
- Trout
Fishing
- Steelhead
Fishing
- Fly
Tying
This
is a good example of niche marketing because people who fish
tend to be nuts about the subject. Drill
all the way down
to the tiny segment of Steelhead fishing and there are still
avid enthusiasts who will go to any expense to catch the "big
one", including buying books or e-books. One point worth noting is that any book or e-book on Steelhead
Fishing had better be full of useful advice (i.e. the advice
works), so you had better be an expert and know what
you're talking about if you intend to write one...
Finding niche markets is not as easy or obvious as you might
think. Sitting down with a piece of paper and drawing a tree
listing all your ideas is NOT the way to go. You are listing
your ideas... your ideas won't sell!
You need to find what your potential customers want, and to
do this you need to conduct some research, here are a few ideas
to get you started:
- Visit
a few online forums related to your interests. Take note
of the questions people are asking and how many times
similar questions are asked.
- Visit
a few book stores and go to the magazine section. Take note
of the types of magazines on sale. Ask the sales
assistant which magazines sell the most.
- Take
a look on eBay and spend some time going through the categories
related to your interest. Take note of popular items
and how often they sell.
By finding a small segment of a much larger market in which
people are actively buying, and where there are not
too many competitors, is the best chance you have of making money from
selling your own product. # # # # # SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
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