Research Your Market

 

 

 

Research your market


As the internet grows, so do the vast number of opportunities that become available to everyone worldwide.  This also means increased competition.  Since setting up an online business is relatively simple and only requires a domain, host provider and a website, many people globally are jumping at the opportunity to make money online.  (Of course, building a website, choosing a domain and hosting your site are just the frame work of your online business.  There is obviously other requirements needed and I will go through that as you follow here).

With the existing websites and the new ones popping up daily, you need to have an aggressive marketing strategy that will help push your online business ahead.  One successful way is to concentrate on a specific niche market that yields a good source of revenue from eager customers and is low in competition.

A niche market is simply a smaller detailed market within a larger existing market.  A niche could also be a specific group of people that might be looking for a common solution to their problem.  After you find a specific niche you would than focus on the needs of that niche market which is usually ignored by much of the competition. 

This is when you would develop and use a niche marketing strategy to help define and further locate the market that interests you.  Having a niche marketing strategy sometimes requires specific tools that dig deep into the larger markets searching for the right products and keywords that match and relate to it.  Yes, in order to be successful with a niche marketing strategy you have to perform research.

Many people are of the belief that niche marketing is something that is only reserved for the guru’s.  They also make it out to be harder than it really needs to be.  While there are several defining factors as to what makes a profitable niche market, the concept of finding a general niche to market in is relatively easy. 

One way of finding a niche market is by breaking down the keywords or description words that you would use in relation to your website.  As an example, let’s say that you are going to promote baby products on your website as we discussed earlier.  It would be a mistake to try and compete against the larger, branded companies directly that offer baby products and accessories.  For one thing, they already have a brand name and their advertising budgets are huge, not only that, the competition will be harder as well. 
 

 

You will need to dig deep to find out who your intended market is and what they want or need.  Find out “Who is your target market”?  Many people rush off to build a website without knowing exactly who it is that they are going to market to.  You need to do some research to actually find out who your potential customers will be.  The next question to ask yourself, “What do these customers want or what are they looking for”? 

Find out what they need or what problems they might have as this will help you to serve them better.  Your role as an affiliate or internet marketer is to provide solutions to their problems by offering products or services that will help to solve them. 

It’s all about positioning yourself.  Basically, you want to be in areas that relate to your own site.  Communicating with people in forums, blogs and social networking sites is a great place to start.  Research the blogs, forums and groups within social sites that directly relate to your own niche or one that interests you. 

Get involved with online communities where other marketers and people hang out.  Some of these include;  Google Groups, Facebook Groups, Yahoo Groups and Myspace Groups.  From there you will get a better understanding of each market and be able to answer the questions above and at the same time locate areas that are special to your target market.

So, how exactly do you break down a broad market to find a more profitable niche market that you can compete in and make a profit?

Let’s still use baby products as our example as a broad market and begin researching areas that relate to it and see if we can discover a smaller niche market to promote in.  Start searching the following areas first:

  • Forums
  • Message Boards
  • Blogs
  • Social Networking Groups
  • Chat Rooms
  • Magazines
  • Newspapers
  • TV Infomercials

Begin searching forums, chat rooms and blogs that have to do with baby products.  Follow what they are talking about, what questions they have, what advice they are giving and what other leads they mention.  You will be amazed on the type of information that comes out of these discussions and posts.

Social networking is another area that is big, especially with the social groups.  Find the ones that relate to your area of interest and read what they are discussing or what they need help with.

For this example, I did some searching for forums, blogs and chat rooms that had to do with baby products and spent about two hours reading and cross referencing some material from each of those areas.  I was able to find several different niche topics that I could use and decided to go with “Baby Swings” for starters.  I am not saying that it is the best choice available; however, it was one that I did find discussed in several different forums and blogs.

There are so many ways to research the market that you are interested in, especially with physical products where you can pick the products that fit your intended niche and build your marketing campaigns around them.  First, start by browsing the bigger marketplaces such as Amazon and EBay and notice what is constantly being sold.

Another thing you should do is follow the Amazon best sellers list where you will be able to gather information on the top markets available and those that are popular and in demand with consumers.

Another popular research tool with many of the top EBay sellers is available at www.terapeak.com.  The search engine compiles data from the previous 12 months and gives you a snapshot of the best selling auctions.  This is a great resource for anyone that wants to sell physical products from their website.

Now, another area for researching your market and an area to find popular digital products that you can promote is through Clickbank.  Follow the next page to read more.


 

 

 

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