Deciding on a
product before finding a market is probably
the most common mistake made by many online
marketers. If you are asking "What is a good
product to sell online?" you are making this
mistake right now!
You need to
decide on a market first.
"The Secret to Success is
to find out where the people are and to get there first".
- Mark Twain
You have to make sure you
have a captive audience, then find out what they are
having a common problem with. If you can come up with a
product or service to solve that problem, you have a
guaranteed successful business.
It's really that easy. You
may want to read that again. Go ahead we’ll wait.
Building a business on the
Internet is just as real as in the bricks and mortar
world. In many ways it's easier once you have a good
system in place. But that doesn't mean you should skip
the most basic decision of what your business has to
offer and if this is a viable business to have. This is
called niche marketing and taking the time to decide
what your niche market is the smartest way to get
started.
In case you're not clear on
what a niche is, let me explain.
A niche is a very specific
portion of a much larger market. For instance, internet
marketing is a market. But, ebook marketing, list
building, and traffic conversion are niche markets.
What this means is that you
need to take the time to decide what information or
product you're going to offer. From there, you can find
out if there is a market for this product, how large it
is, if people spend money on it and if so, how much. In
other words, is there a target market for this product?
The great thing about
running a niche business is that you are NOT struggling
to compete against 1,000s of established marketers. And
you're not semi-invisible.
Your niche business is
unique and differentiated. If the fundamentals of your
business are sound, you're in a strong and secure
position indeed. Congratulations!
The secret here is to find
a good market niche, and to create a great product for
it. These two actions are strongly inter-connected,
because each market niche corresponds to a product, or a
set of products, and vice versa.
So, what is a "good market
niche", and how can you find one?
Market niche is your place
in the market, your target audience. It should be big
enough to generate good income, but not too large.
You could ask, "Why? Surely
the larger my target audience, the larger my potential
income, right?" Right, to some extent.
But you can't be everything
for everyone. You simply don't have the resources for
that. So, if you try to take up too large a niche,
you'll have to compete with large corporations, which
may be impossible for a small business.
For example, if you try to
open an online universal book store, you'll never have a
reasonable market share, because Amazon.com works in the
same market and has more resources.
But if you specialize and
pick a smaller niche (say, old comic books reprint),
your chances of success are much higher. In this case,
your target market may be too small to attract
Amazon.com, and you'll be able to write stylish targeted
ads, promote your business in the online comic books
community, and do other things that your larger
competition will probably never even think of doing.
And, in addition to having
a proper size, a good target niche market for e-business
should be easily reachable online. This means that you
must be able to locate the specific web sites, online
forums, mailing lists, newsgroups and other forms of
Internet communities where your target audience hangs
out. You'll want to advertise in those places, because
you need pre-qualified, or pre-sold visitors on your web
site.
Targeting a small niche
also has another advantage. It is easier to become a
recognized expert in a small field. For example, it is
hard or impossible to know everything about every car
manufactured, but it is easier to learn everything your
customers need to know about a particular model from one
manufacturer of your choice.
You can eventually become
one of the world's leading experts in your field, and
that will give you the respect and trust of your
customers.
Whatever the size of your
target niche market, you must learn the wishes and needs
of your market-place, find a great product that would
solve some of their problems, or otherwise give them
what they want.
If the product you sell to
your customers is really great, they will trust you
better the next time, and will be more likely to buy
from you again. This way, you can constantly grow your
business not only by attracting new customers, but also
by offering new products to the existing ones.
So you can guarantee
yourself success by, FIRSTLY, finding a good market
niche and, THEN and only then, a proper product.
Then there is the single
most important component that has the most significant
influence on the success or failure of any business.
It is the initial business
idea. It consists of your product, your target market
niche, and your unique selling proposition (USP). If you
have a good business idea, and apply the proper
techniques to develop your business, then your success
is almost guaranteed.
What
Makes A Good Business Idea?
Let's look closer at the three parts of
what we call a business idea. The term "product" is
self-explanatory, "target market niche" is also widely
used, "USP" is somewhat less known, but we want to make
some comments on each of those terms, regardless of
their popularity.
Your product is,
pretty obviously, what you are trying to sell. It can be
a tangible item, like a book or a brick of soap. It can
be an electronic item, like an e-book, or downloadable
software. Also it can be an online community membership,
your professional service, or anything else you are
going to charge your customers for. We call all these
things "a product". The most important attribute of a
product is its value. Your product must be valuable for
your customers, solve their problems, fulfil their
wishes, and generally make them happy.
Your target market niche
is your audience, your potential customers. Your target
niche should have a reasonable size - large enough to
make a good profit, small enough to fit the resources of
a small business and avoid competing with the large
corporations. And your target audience should be easy to
reach online through the specialized web sites, online
forums, mailing lists, etc.
Your Unique Selling
Proposition (USP) is what connects your product with
the target audience. It is the heart of your business
idea. It can be defined as your marketing strategy, or
your business mission. It is the concept that makes your
product something more than one of the items on the
shelf for sale. It must make your product stand out of
the crowd and persuade your prospects that your product
is the only perfect solution to their problems.
If all three parts of your
business idea meet the above criteria, your chances of
success are quite good.
Find A
Niche That Matches Your Knowledge and Skills
The best policy when determining your
target market and product is to do what you enjoy doing.
You'll achieve the best results if you love your work.
So, first of all, think about the things you like to do
most of all. It may be your current job, one of your
previous ones, your hobby, your favorite kind of sports,
or anything else you like.
Write down all those
possible areas of interest, and then think about each
one of them separately. Try to answer the following
questions:
·
Would you be glad to choose
it as a daily job?
·
Do you have some unique
skills or knowledge in that field?
·
Who would be interested in
your proposition?
·
Would you like to work with
those people?
After that, you should have
a list of areas of interest that have the best chances
of success. Write down your ideas and try to imagine and
describe a business built on every of those ideas. Some
of them might look weird, but some may be quite viable.
Do some research in the
Internet. Find the web sites related to your areas of
interest and your specific ideas. Learn what other
people say about those things. Find some related online
forums, or newsgroups.
Listen to what people say,
especially to what they need. If you notice any problems
that many people tend to experience, think how you can
help them. See if there is some serious competition in
your field. As always, write down and think over your
new ideas.
Take the time to measure
your potential niche market and if any of the above
items aren't true for the niche market you want to go
after, then find another niche and be glad you didn't
invest too much in this one.
Why
Target A Niche Rather Than A Large Broad Market?
Well, for one thing it will give your
site a purpose and focus. Anyone coming to your site
will be able to instantly identify what it's about.
You'll also have a much
easier time getting a decent ranking in the search
engines because your keywords will be more specific
which means less competition. And, if you do a pay per
click campaign, specific keyword phrases are always
cheaper than the broader general keywords. Using highly
targeted keyword phases will also bring much more
qualified traffic to your site.
Which would you rather
have, a site that gets a lot of traffic but has no sales
or a site with half as much traffic but consistently
makes sales?
Here's how to find a niche
market:
1.
Ask yourself some
questions. What do you already know a lot about or have
a passion for? This can be anything at all.
2.
Do some research to find
out if people are looking for this type of information
or topic.
Overture has a keyword
suggestion tool which lets you type in a keyword and see
how many times it was used in a search. There's also a
free program that does the same thing called Good
Keywords. Both also give you related keywords and
phrases so you can get a better sense of where to narrow
your scope.
Wordtracker provides the
same type of service but offers tools to organize all
your keywords so you can later upload them into a pay
per click campaign or use them on your website.
Visit some message boards
or newsgroups where your target market hangs out and
listen to what they're talking about. Look for issues or
problems they're having -- these are all potential
products just waiting to be created. Take it a step
further and start answering questions and you'll have a
following for when your product is ready to launch.
Basically, once you know
that a niche market exists for what you want to offer
your next goal should be to dominate it. If your site is
tightly focused on your target market's needs, you're
consistently writing good articles, and offering
products that solve their problems -- then dominating
this space will happen automatically.
Focusing on a niche may be
a little more work in the beginning. But, once you
decide what niche you're going to target, everything
will fall into place. You'll have products that you know
are in demand, a site that increases in value every time
you add related content, and a business that continues
to build over time.
Whatever the size of your
target market, you must learn the wishes and needs of
your audience, and find a great product that would solve
some of their problems, or otherwise give them what they
want.
If the product you sell to
your customers is really great, they will trust you
better the next time, and will be more likely to buy
from you again. This way, you can constantly grow your
business not only by attracting new customers, but also
by offering new products to the existing ones. Guarantee
yourself success by finding a good market niche and a
proper product with a fantastic USP.
Your
Unique Selling Proposition(USP)
What simple statement about your business
or brand -- just a quick, clear sentence or two at most
-- tells your prospects that you are the only
alternative for them?
By USP, or unique selling proposition, I
don't mean a slogan or a phrase that will appear in your
advertising, although that's one potential use for it.
Rather I mean the concise and memorable phrase that
answers your prospect's always-implicit question, "Why
should I do business with you and not somebody else?"
Helping You Identify Your USP
Write down every possible reason you can find why
someone should want to do business with your firm. If
you want real results, involve your entire company in a
high-energy brainstorming session. If you don't find at
least a few dozen reasons, either you aren't trying very
hard or you have a very boring company.
Don't be afraid to get professional help.
Your survival can depend on it.
Afterwards, review the list
and eliminate everything that is also true of your
competitors.
Nothing should be allowed
to remain on the list that can also be claimed by a
competitor.
Now create a memorable
message out of these unique, meaningful qualities about
your business or brand. And make sure it's a message
that speaks to the need your prospective customer feels,
not some self-centered stuff about you.
Good service, good
selection, fair prices, and honest dealing are not
relevant factors for creating your USP. Simply stated,
these are factors your potential customers already
expect and demand.
So telling them to your
prospects gives them the same feeling you get when a
used car salesman says, "Let me be honest with you..."
You expect honesty. Was he lying to you the rest of the
time?
Product Differentiation
A key concept for successful products in a niche market
is product differentiation. This implies finding some
means to make your product stand out from the
competition - differentiate in terms of value to the
customer.
In other words, your
product must be perceived to provide the most
"performance" per unit of cost. For example, computer
storage capacity is usually measured by looking at its
"Hard Disk Storage Capacity (gigabytes)". In this
particular case, a new personal computer is generally
perceived to be better if it provides more storage space
per unit of cost.
Free 7 Day Niche eCourse
- Please click on the link if you would like to receive
a copy of our 7 Day Niche Markets eCourse.
Here's what will be covered
in the 7 Part eCourse:
