What is Niche Marketing?

The word 'niche' is defined as: "A special area of demand for a product or
service". 'Marketing' is defined as: "The opportunity to buy or sell". If you
put the two works together, niche marketing means buying or selling a product
or service in a special area of demand. All that really means is that a product
or service is being sold to the people who are most interested in that
particular product or service and not to the world in general.

Oftentimes big businesses use niche marketing. For example, a company that
makes computers and computer accessories might advertise all-in-one
copy/printer/scanners to the home computer user while at the same time
advertising single function machines to large businesses.

One of the things that make niche marketing so attractive to sellers is that
their advertising budgets go further. It costs less to advertise to a
specialized market than it does to advertise to a broader market.

Niche marketing must be designed to meet the unique needs of the targeted
audience. Niche marketers must tailor their product to meet those unique needs.
If, for example, you have designed a product to make poodle grooming easy enough
for the untrained professional to do it, those who own poodles will be most
interested in your product. Those who own Blood Hounds or cats couldn't care
less. If you have written an e-book that will explain how to start and succeed
at an online business, those who are looking for that information are your
niche market. Those who are happy doing what they are doing are not interested
at all.

Niche marketing is a very effective and cost efficient way to advertise and
sell specific products or services to a specific audience or, hopefully, buyers
of that product or service.

Niche Marketing vs. Internet Marketing Niche

Comparing niche marketing and an Internet marketing niche is equivalent to
comparing apples with oranges. Apples and oranges are both fruit. Niche
marketing and an Internet Marketing niche are both forms of Internet marketing
but as different as apples are from oranges.

The term 'niche marketing' means selling a specific product to a specific type
of buyer. There are far less competitive niches than an Internet marketing
niche. Most niche markets are more open to the latest marketing strategies, as
well. Small niche markets are not over stocked with gurus and wise men and are
much easier for the beginning marketer to break into. A niche market allows you
to promote your own niche product or that of a niche affiliate product. There is
a niche market for anything and everything you can imagine. All it takes to
break into a niche market is a good idea, a good product created by you or
someone else that will appeal to certain people, some advertising and the
desire to succeed.

The Internet marketing niche, on the other hand, means that you will be
promoting your own Internet marketing product. This is a very crowded field of
endeavor and really difficult to break into. It's a world filled with gurus and
wise men who have been playing and winning the game for a long time. This
doesn't mean that it is impossible to cash in on the Internet marketing niche
because, of course, you can. It is a world still built on demand and that means
that if you have a product that can compete and if you have the willingness to
play hard ball with the big boys then you can succeed at the Internet marketing
niche game. Just be aware that there are easier niche market nuts to crack.

What Niche Marketing Really Is

It is just one of those hard, cruel facts of life that the big boys have all
the money they need to advertise and sell their products and us little guys are
on advertising budgets that are so small they probably don't add up to what the
big boys spend on paper clips in a month. Competing with the big boys isn't
feasible: or possible, for that matter. So what are us little guys supposed to
do?

Niche marketing is our answer. We can't advertise our products and services to
the world at large but we don't have to be able to do that to be able to make a
pretty decent living: thanks to the Internet.

Niche marketing is selling specific products or services to a limited audience.
One person with a computer, an internet connection and a good idea can go into
business for himself on the Internet and target the people who would be most
interested in what he has to sell and do all of the above on a very limited
advertising budget.

Finding the right niche for what you have to sell isn't really all that
difficult. Just think about who the people are who would be most interested in
what you have to sell. For example, if you have concocted a shampoo formula
that will take chlorine out of a person's hair, you can't compete with giant
companies that sell shampoo but you can narrow your market down to a niche and
target sales to those who have swimming pools. You buy a domain, get a server,
and build a website to advertise your product JUST to people who have swimming
pools.

In essence, niche marketing is selling a product or service to those who want
or need the product the most.

What Niche Marketing is Not

Niche marketing is not about trying to sell your product or service to the
world at large. As a small businessperson, you couldn't afford that kind of
multi-million dollar advertising budget. It isn't possible. You can, however,
with only a computer, an Internet connection and a good idea sell to a smaller
audience using niche marketing.

Niche marketing is not about trying to compete. Competition is taken out of the
equation when you do niche marketing. You aren't out there in the world lined up
beside or behind a million other people who are selling the same thing you are
selling. You are selling to a specific audience that you have created for
yourself with your opt-in email list.

Niche marketing is not about selling to different people every day of the week.
Once you have your list built, you can sell to the same people time and time
again. By taking as much time as you need and putting forth enough effort to
get to know the people who make up your list of buyers you can continue to sell
to them.

Niche marketing is not about focusing on the big picture. It is about focusing
on the small picture and the smaller the better. Narrowing your niche down to a
very specific part of a larger market assures you of gaining a fair market share
of that small part. The world is a big place and there are billions of people.
You only need an infinitesimal portion of the population to have a huge list of
potential buyers of your products or services.

Niche marketing is not about seeing only the impossibilities. Niche marketing
is only about looking closely at the possibilities. Small possibilities
converted to sales can equal big profits.

How to Research and Find Your Niche Online

Deciding on what product or service you will promote in a niche market should
be based on a simple principle. There should be a demand for your product or
service. You want to offer something that people actually need, something that
will make their lives better, make them feel better physically, make them look
better, or help them solve a problem.

Once you have chosen a product or service to market, researching to find the
right niche for your product or service is the next most important part of
beginning a niche marketing program. The things that you need to know are where
they spend their time online, and what makes them tick from a personal and
business point of view. There is niche marketing software out there that can
help you learn these things about your potential niche market.

The next thing you need to learn as you research your online niche market is
what you can reasonable charge for your product or service. The best and most
effective was to do this is to visit sites that advertise products or services
similar to what you have chosen to sell. It should be easy to see if they are
giving away a service or selling the product at a price far lower than you
would have to charge.

If you can determine that there are people out there who are willing to spend
money to buy what you are selling and you can identify those people then you
have a niche marketing product or service that can make money on the Internet.
Sometimes it takes reframing your product or service to make it more
attractive, better or just different than what others are selling it for.
Research is the key to successful niche marketing.

Does Your Passion & Hobby Really Matter?

Does your passion or your hobby matter? Well, it most certainly matters to you
and unless you have a passion or hobby that nobody else in the world has ever
heard of, there are probably plenty of other people who share your passion or
hobby and may even more into it than you are.

Being deeply involved in a hobby or passion is the stuff that successful niche
marketing is made of. Most really successful niche marketers have turned what
the care about the most into successful businesses. The reason for their
success is their passion about the theme of their websites.

Creating a successful niche marketing site takes a lot of time and a lot more
dedication. Unless you are passionate about the subject, it is hard to stay
focused on it long enough to make it a success. So passion and dedication are
your two biggest assets. You must be willing to put in long hours and be
willing to accept the fact that it will be quite some time before you start
realizing a profit: even a modest one. Keeping on keeping on is the only way
you will ever be successful at niche marketing.

You can establish a money-making niche marketing website with the theme about
the very things that you love the most. If you can correctly define your niche,
make certain that people are willing to pay for the product or service that you
are selling, and locate that specific audience; there is no reason why you
can't build a niche marketing site that is all about your greatest passion or
the hobby that you most enjoy. Imagine that! Being able to make money and do
what you love doing at the same time. It doesn't get any better than that!

How to Improve an Existing Product

You may have a niche marketing website that just isn't producing sales for you
at the rate at which you had hoped it would: ..or maybe it isn't producing any
income for you at all or it could be that you haven't actually figured out that
what you are selling is, in fact, a niche market product. You might need to do a
little 'tweaking' and modify your strategies somewhat to get the site performing
better. There really are some things that you can do to improve your existing
product.

Step #1: Bill Cosby, the famous entertainer, once said, "I don't know what the
secret of success is, but I know the secret of failure and that was trying to
please everybody." He was right. You can't please everybody and you can't sell
to everybody either. It's possible that you may simply need to narrow you
market, identify you product as a niche marketing product and advertise it
accordingly.

Step #2: To improve your existing product you have likely overlooked the most
obvious solution of all. You could simply ask your customers what they think.
They are, after all, the end users of the product or service that you are
selling. There is nobody that knows how a product can be improved better than
the people who are using the product.

Step #3: Analyze the competition. Take the time and put forth the effort to
look at the product or service that your competitors are offering. Identify
their strengths and weaknesses. Find out what your competition can't, won't or
doesn't really like to do and set about doing those very things yourself.

Step #4: Are you selling your product at the right price? Pricing a product too
low makes people think it won't be any good, pricing too high will discourage
them from buying it.

Going to Bookshops to Identify a Hot Market

The day may come when people do all of their researching and reading online but
it isn't here yet. Fiction, of course, will always be in print: it would be hard
to curl up with a good novel in front of the fireplace on a cold winter day with
a computer. Research, however, may eventually all be done online. People buy
'how-to' books and books that are devoted to solving their problems and/or
making their lives better every day. By identifying the hot market books that
are being sold in bookshops (online and off line) you can identify a hot niche
marketing topic.

Go to the bookshops in your area and take note of the kinds of non-fiction
books that are stocked. You should particularly note the ones that are
self-help or how-to books. If you can create the opportunity, ask the stock boy
which ones are selling the best. He's the one who knows what is being restocked
most often. That failing, ask a floor salesperson the same question. Asking the
bookstore owner or manager is the last option. They are more likely to be
pushing the books that aren't selling well in order to make a sale. Learn by
whatever means you can which self-help or how-to books are the hottest sellers.

Another option is the online bookstores. You can't, of course, ask for
information from a person but you can research the site and determine which of
the non-fiction self-help or how-to books are highest in sales.

Finding out what books people are most often buying can give you some insight
into what the hot market subjects are. Armed with this information, you can go
about creating a niche marketing website that will have a better chance of
becoming successful.

Why Niche Marketing is the Way to Go in Succeeding Online

Niche Marketing is the last great frontier for the small business entrepreneur.
Out there in the 'real' world, small businesses don't have a half fair chance of
competing against the giant international corporations of the world. The
Internet has evened the odds for small business. The Internet has created a
real equal opportunity for those who are willing to use it. There are several
different ways to make use of niche marketing and succeed. All of the ways
require getting a domain and a webhost, building web pages and adding content.
Those are just the basic basics of Internet Marketing in any form. Then there
are the choices of how to go about building a successful niche marketing site
that will provide you with a profit: .hopefully a very large profit.

1.  You can create an informational product. An informational product can be
articles, reports, columns, audio or video, or other things. These can be sold
as stand alone products or used for advertisement or promotional causes.

2.  You can build a content rich web site that will be so interesting it will
draw potential customers again and again.

3.  You can publish newsletters and ezines that are so full of pertinent
information that people will happily pay for subscriptions to them.

All of the above listed ways can be used to create a niche marketing website
that has the capacity to make money. There are two things that all of these
methods have in common.

1.  The topic must be one that helps people solve a problem, makes them
healthier or happier, or provides them with information that they want or need
in some way. 2.  The content of the website, no matter the topic, must be
relevant, timely and interesting to the people who are reading it and the
website must be easily navigated.

Making Money From Publishing Newsletters

The object, of course, of any niche marketing business adventure is to make a
profit. When people subscribe to your online newsletter or ezine, their object
is to get the information that you are able to provide to them. When people
subscribe to your online newsletter or ezine, your object is to make money by
supplying that information. This is a simple concept that is easier said than
done. Making a website profitable: any website: .isn't easy or quick. Try to
remember that anything worth doing is worth doing well even if it takes more
time than you thought it would.

If you have chosen a topic that addresses the needs or wants of a specific
segment of the population and if you have set up your opt-in software
correctly, you have a list of potential customers. If they have subscribed to
your newsletter, then they obviously believe that your have information about a
subject that is near and dear to their hearts. They must consider you to be an
expert maybe a guru. If you have worked hard at building your customer's belief
in your own credibility, then you should be able to make a nice profit from your
newsletter.

You can advertise products and services related to your topic on your website.
This can be done with logos and banners that contain links to the products and
services. When visitors to your site click on an advertisement, you get credit
for a lead and if they buy the product or service you get a commission on the
sale.

You can use your newsletter to recommend products and services to the members
of your list. Some companies will happily pay you for simply recommending their
product or service to your list and give you a commission on any sales that your
recommendation generates for them.

Making Money From Content Rich Sites

Making money from a content rich niche marketing website can be very easy, very
difficult or impossible. First let's define and describe what a content rich
niche market website is and how it works. You won't find a list for "Niche
Markets" anywhere. There isn't one.

A person will find niche marketers when he types words into his favorite search
engine and hits search. Let's say he types in "Improving my golf score". He will
get many hits that will provide links that take him to niche marketing sites. On
these sites, he will be asked to enter his email address and opt-in to receiving
a newsletter. Since he is in need of learning how to improve his golf score, he
willingly does that. On the content rich site he will find articles and other
information about improving his golf score and advertisements for products and
services designed to help him improve his golf score. In the future he will
receive a newsletter, about every two weeks usually, and he will have become a
niche market customer.

If you are the niche marketer, the opt-in email address supplied is pure gold
because you will have a customer or a potential customer. When he buys the
products and/or services that you are advertising on your site, you will make
money. Having a content rich site enhances the possibility of sales.

The trick to making money from a content rich niche marketing website is to
have a topic that helps people solve their problems, makes them feel better or
look better, or supplies them with information that they need. You will need to
have related products and services advertised on your site since that is where
the income actually comes from. The website content is what makes people visit
your site again and again. The more content rich it is will determine how often
they visit and how long they stay. The longer they stay the more opportunities
you have to sell to them.

What You Need To Sell Info Products To Hot Niches

There are a lot of people who would love to be able to create a cool
informational product and be able to make a great living (even get rich) while
sitting in a comfy chair in front of their computers knowing that never again
would they have to drive in rush hour traffic with all those crazies or put up
with an unrelenting, over zealous boss who never had and never would or could
be pleased. What a beautiful vision! The truth is that that lovely vision can
become a reality but you will have to pay your dues first. Successful niche
markets for an informational product don't grow on trees or fall out of the sky.

The first thing you need and must have to create an informational product is an
idea: a subject: a topic: that will fill the needs, solve a problems, or just
make life better for some particular and very specific segment of the general
population. You are surrounded by ideas if you just look. Look at yourself
first. What is your biggest problem? Do your friends share the problem? Are you
passionate about a hobby or a sport? These kinds of things are the stuff of
which informational products are made of. So the very first thing you need is
to identify a topic and, thereby, a market.

Another thing that you need to have in order to create an informational product
which will become successful is research. Every topic and every subject are not
going to make money. Many of them will: but just as many will not. The best
research is accomplished by reading and talking to people who have succeeded in
niche marketing informational products. Savvy niche marketers can spot a great
topic from forty paces with one eye shut. Ask. Read. Research.

When you have an idea and have done the research that has proven that there is
a market for your informational product, the rest is just a matter of creating
the product building a great website and advertising it.

What You Can Do to Make Money from Niches

One reason that so many people want to work from their homes is that there in
no need for a large financial investment to begin an online business. One
doesn't need to invest heavily in product development. Those who have expertise
in almost anything can begin by simply writing an e-book and promoting it or
obtaining a website and promoting products that are produced by others. Think
of the people who promote products that are produced by others as the modern
version of the old door-to-door salesman except instead of knocking on one door
at a time they knock on the doors of millions of people at the same time by way
of the Internet.

Another attractive reason that draws people to a work-at-home job or small
business is the fact that they don't need to incorporate: .a
sole-proprietorship does nicely. One person working from one computer these
days can accomplish the same things that once required many people working many
hours to accomplish. A sole-proprietorship business isn't required to file
separate tax returns or pay any special taxes on income that is earned in the
way that a corporation, an llc or even a partnership business is required to
do. The taxes levied on a sole-proprietorship business are just for personal
income.

The Internet isn't called "The Information Super Highway" for nothing. A person
can make a very good living selling nothing but information on it. The
populations of every industrialized nation in the world have learned that if
you want to know anything about anything, you get on a computer and ask the
question. They have also learned that you must pay for special information and
they are more than willing to do just that. A person who has special knowledge
of a subject and could be considered a 'guru' has a market for selling that
information on the Internet. All that needs to be done is to set up a website,
publish the information, advertise and sell the information. It's a wonderful
concept and information is a wonderful commodity. There is no inventory to
maintain and no shipping or handling costs involved to deliver the product.
Everybody gets what they want. The seller gets paid for delivering information
to a person who wants that information: .everybody is happy.

There are so many advantages of working from home for the individual as well as
for owners of large businesses that it is truly the way that 'work' will be done
more and more in the future.

How to Use Overture to Identify a Hot Demand

The Overture Search Tool is a wonder to behold. There are so many tools and so
much help available at the site that when you visit you will be asking why
nobody has told you about this before now. The costs are small and the services
are large and extremely helpful to Internet entrepreneurs. It is free to join
the site and there are so many ways for you to help yourself. You can locate
the best keywords for your business you can find out what the top bid is on the
best key words and you have to opportunity to place a higher bid. For only the
very small price of $1.99 you can get even more help: .and from professionals.

There are a couple of differences to take note of, however. The free service
gives you access to the STST. The way that overture will make a profit here,
since the service is free, is by selling you the best key words. There's
nothing wrong with that: everybody has to make a profit to stay in
business. The Keyword tool on Google gives a complete different set of
Keywords. They don't sell the keywords so it makes you wonder which list of
Keywords are the best.

If you have not yet made use of Overture, this is certainly a tool you should
take the time to explore. Bidding very high on the best Keywords can move your
advertisements into the top ten search results in the major search engines very
quickly.

We all know that search engine optimization (SEO) is the key to making sales
and making use of Overture is one of the best ways to accomplish that task.

Overture was originally named GoTo.com. It changed its name to Overture in
October, 2001 and was purchased by Yahoo in 2003.

Looking for Problems to Solve via Forums

Niche marketing as its best helps to solve real problems that real people live
with everyday. If you can come up with a product or service to promote in a
niche market that will help people solve their problems then you will have a
money making niche market website and can quickly build a long list of
potential customers.

The things that people view as 'problems' run the gauntlet of possibilities:
everything from a hang nail to a golf swing to a chronic disease are people
problems that they are looking for help to solve.

A good way to find out what people consider a problem is to visit the online
forums. People talk about anything and everything online. They discuss subjects
that they wouldn't talk about with their best friends for the simple reason that
they can remain anonymous. They look for solutions online for the very same
reason. By visiting forums and taking note of what people are most concerned
about you can search the Internet for products and services that will help them
solve those problems. Gather the information about the topic. Write or have
written for you articles about the topic. In this way you can find a topic and
build a content-rich website for niche marketing that helps with the problem
you have identified and that will serve the needs of people.

An additional way to use forums to help you build a niche market website is to
join a forum, identify the problem being most often discussed, post a question
that will produce many responses and use those responses to write an e-book on
the topic. The fact is that many people will buy an e-book that is filled with
information they could actually gather for themselves. They will also purchase
e-books that will tell them what other people with the same problem they have
think about or are doing about their common problem.

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