Just wasted a ton of money on a so called Niche ?
Posted on November 14, 2008
Filed Under Marketing |
The term Niche marketing is bandied about by online marketers like it’s the cure for all ills. You can’t turn around in one of those heavily trafficked internet seminars where thousands meet to “find the cure” without running into half a dozen splinter groups discussing the merits/demerits ( but mostly merits ) of tightly focused Niche marketing.
So, to the heart of it - what is Niche Marketing ? Is it another of those overhyped terms or does this fad have some legs?
So let’s see what its isn’t. - It isn’t something you can buy - It isn’t something you can make ( well not directly ) - It’s not a new job opening so don’t ask your boss for a transfer - And as usual, the hordes of people taking a stab at it are nearly all probably going to fail.
So Let’s Look at An Example
Some would say that the definition of Niche marketing is narrowing down a broader need in the market places until one derives at a much more focused segment that has little or a smaller but reasonable number of competitors.
Marketing to those that buy - Basketball shoes. Niche or not? Not - Michael Jordan running shoes. Niche or not. Not (What did that surprise you?) - Michael Jordan High-Top running shoes. Niche or not? Feeling the sun yet ? - Michael Jordan HighTops signed by the great one himself . Niche or no Niche? Jackpot !
Congratulations on accurately identifying a niche market area. And it really was a niche, not that broad definition or a marketplace need that we may have had in mind earlier. So, like most others, we could use some extra cash, whats the next move? Do we buy inventory now before the rush?
Not even! You have heard this street english term before right? No, I am not keeping this niche area for myself, so don’t think I am holding back. Truth is, our premise of a niche marketplace sounds good but is unproven.
Don’t mistake an example of what the end product might look like with the actual process used to find that niche market. That was NOT the process, in fact, its not even close to the process. While the process can be done manually, you really need a tool since you want to examine and reject tens and tens of potential niches before settling on one to promote. And by the way, even if one of the niche tools highlighted this particular example and a week later 4 friends asked me for the same product I would still have some hesitations…
So, did I just give you a really bad Niche Market example?
It might be and maybe it wasn’t but we don’t know that yet. When doing this kind of research one has to remind oneself that people use specific key words when searching for a product or service. Only the search engines, search engine tools ( like KeyWordwatcher ) really know what is being searched for. And unfortunately only niche marketing software tools can give one the market intelligence needed in order to make a business decision.
Competitive websites and the number of potential clients would have been enough data to help in quantifying this as a niche product — in the past. But not now. The competition has gone considerably further than that in their analysis and so must you - even as a newbie.
Save yourself some time. Don’t try to manually analyze whether or not you think you may have found a niche market product. If you have been in internet marketing or online marketing for some time, its likely that you have used Google’s excellent search engine tools hidden in the adwords product. Perhaps even you have used freekeywords from KeyWordwatcher. Thats how I and many others use to start our search for Niche Market Products - but not any more. These battle tested tools are not nearly enough for this area of internet marketing.
Competitive Niche tool products go significantly further than just how many potential clients are searching and whether the competition has the keyword on their site. They use algorithms that use several additional variables for ranking competition. They can immediately open affiliate sites like clickbank and others with a related product already found and ready for you to use. They can find articles from Private Label Sources for reprint. And this is less than a 1/10th of their abilities.
Why anyone would want to search for niche products the old manual way is really beyond me. Save yourself some time have a look at a few potential products that you can use. Watch the videos and see what I mean.
Something new in keyword research. Recently there has been a lot amount of research into something called commercial intent. Microsoft has an online program that enables one to determine to some degree whether a searched for phrase has stronger commercial intent than research behind it.
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By N2H
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