Before you start your online ventures, it’s rather important that you select a niche that has the potental to pay you the dividends and rewards that you are afer. Without the right selecton strategy, your great plans for Internet marketng success may well be doomed from the start.
In this chapter we will go through the steps and criteria that I think is important that you consider in your selecton of your niche and target market.
I have heard so much about choosing a hungry, starving crowd that the real importance of this point is almost taken for granted. Your market really has to have a starving crowd, that is not a fad, is evergreen and one that has multple associated marketng doors so that you could market to them over and over.
They would have to be hungry and passionate about the niche, and they would be proven spenders that don’t mind investng more and more into that niche, as they are so hungry for more resources to help fulfll their needs on the topic.
In every niche there are varying degrees of interest and levels of commitment, and what I’m going to show you today is how you can exactly evaluate your niche or market, and coming in with a soluton as to whether you should wholeheartedly pursue this niche or to head of to fnd more proftable niches that will make you successful much faster.
CRITERIA #1: CONSCIOUS AWARENESS
Now what I mean by conscious awareness is this: How much tme is your crowd spending on thoughts regarding your niche/market? How ofen do they think about the topic in queston everyday? Does this subject DOMINATE their thoughts? Do they do it when they are working, during their spare tme, when they’re driving? Does the thought sometmes consume them that they have no choice but to dwell on it?
Let me give you an example here: Let’s pick a niche that has a starving crowd, which is How to Get Your Ex Back. If someone has just broken up with their girlfriend or boyfriend that they really love, and when they feel like getng back with their ex, how much tme do you think they would spend thinking about this issue? Lots and lots of tme I would say… So this niche would meet criteria #1 of conscious awareness.
CRITERIA #2: EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT This second criteria is a very important one. In fact, it might be even more important that Criteria #1.So what do I exactly mean by “Emotonal Atachment”? What this means is how much emotonal weight does this topic carry with it for that person. Whether the person FEELS strongly about the topic or not. Are they Positvely or Negatvely passionate about the topic. Does it bring them JOY or GRIEF , and does it motvate them to take certain actons, whether good or bad?
If someone feels strongly about the subject at hand, it is likely that they are emotonally atached and it is more likely that it can be a great niche market to sink your teeth into.
Now using the previous example of “getng ex back”, this would be the perfect market to check of this criteria, as usually relatonships and break ups have lots of emotonal atachment involved and the emotonal baggage could easily stay for a while.
So what’s an example of a non -emotonal atachment topic? Well even if something fulflled the Conscious Awareness criteria(#1), such as brushing your teeth- doing it 2 or 3 tmes per day, its unlikely that you will atach any emotonal atachments to it (unless you have had lots of dental troubles and been to the dentst far too many tmes!). So just use you gut feeling and common sense to judge whether your subject has met this criteria.
CRITERIA #3: INVESTMENT MADEThis is another factor (although possibly lesser of the 3) that will help you determine your starving crowd. What I mean by Investment made is the amount of resources, tme, money and energy spent on the niche, by the person. This would equate to the more investment that had been made on the subject, then logically the more invested the person is to the subject and hence would more likely be part of the “starving or passionate crowd”.
So for example take a niche such as the popular game, WORLD OF WARCRAFT. In this game there are many levels to progress and many level ups requiring a lot of input and resources from the players. Now imagine that if you’re a player in that game, who had spent over 100 hours getng to a respectable level of conquest but is stuck at a certain level risking having your character diminished, what would you do?
I think you would research on the best methods, strategies and tactcs to keep progressing in the game, and in the process becoming part of the starving crowd that is desperate for a soluton. And you might even buy a World of Warcraf Strategy Guide that promises everything you hoped for, in desperaton.
So in efect, the amount that you have invested and stand to lose if not corrected plays a big part in your selecton of your starving crowd.Ofen tmes, by knowing your starving crowds general niche does not mean that you know the details and the inside scoop of their Real Pain and Frustratons, Needs and Wants.
Let me give you an example, if we were in the Golfng Niche, and we know that there are some desperately hungry buyers there for golf, would we know what exactly that they are hungry for? Would it be for a certain model of golf clubs? Will it be more knowledge to put, or to drive? Will it be to fortfy their mental game? Would it be to learn how to more accurately read the conditons of the game?
Now if we weren’t in the trenches of golfng so to speak, but we would like to market in that niche, and to bond with the starving crowd in the golf niche, to speak their lingo and to know what they’re really afer, THEN we have to really take a step deeper in our research.
FORUMSThis is my favorite method of research when I’m startng a new niche project, and normally I will stll hang in the crowd, just to get the pulse of their conversatons and to know my target market beter.
So go to Google and type “Your Niche + Forums”. For example, Golf + Forums. Then you will fnd on the search results many diferent forums for your niche. Now if there isn’t a forum for your niche then it could a warning sign for you, because when people are interested in the topics, they usually have many conversatons about it and this usually takes place in forums.
Anyway, when you’re in the forums, just have a look at the general way that these popular forums are setup. Notce their general categories and topics. See what generates lots of views and atenton. Jot it down.
Next, delve into threads and have a read of these threads.
Now what I would like you to keep a keen eye on is this:1. What PAIN do they want to get RID of?
2. What Frustratons are they experiencing that need solving?
3. What end results do they want to achieve in their interest?
4. What Problems do they face that are very Painful for them?
5. What are the current solutons to those problems and why they aren’t delivering?
6. What EXTRA VALUE can you give to that Crowd?
I suggest that you partcipate in those Forums to get further insight. To go a step further, you might want to solve their problems by providing a viable soluton and to build their trust, or maybe even recommending a resource for them that could help them.
It’s important to notce the emotons and sensatons that your market would want to feel. I can’t stress this enough as this would generate enough emotonal power to motvate your prospects into acton, whether it is to purchase your product or sign up as your subscriber.
So if you can demonstrate that your oferings could potentally end the very pain that is torturing them, or remove the anxiety and fear that they so desperately want to overcome, then you’re on your way to a great marketng future, no mater your niche or market.
SWIPE FILESo afer doing those research and Truly getng a bird’s eyeview of your marketplace, make sure you note them down in a specifc fle so that you could refer to it over and over. And make sure to add more valuable insights as you discover more distnctons that could help you further along to grow your business.
Another good way that you could tap into your prospects mind is this: Ask them to leave their FEEDBACK and comments on your website, detailing how the website can be improved, how valuable the content and your solutons are, what further topics that they are interested in and any other improvement feedbacks will be welcome.
To accelerate this and to also build a community as a by-product, ofer them an Incentve to leave a useful comment or feedback. I normally use Comment Relish Plugin in my WordPress blogs to deliver a FREEBIE just to say thanks to my readers who had lef valuable comments on my website.
Now to take this further, what you could also do is sending out EMAILS asking your subscribers for feedback, plus incentvising them to do so.Then I would read the feedback received and act upon it to improve on my communicaton to my readers and customers.
RECOMMENDED RESEARCH TOOL Now for those who are keen on getng more mileage on their niche and market research, the tool that I recommend is Market Samurai.
Why Market Samurai? It's simple, because its the most comprehensive tool that you can fnd in the market to uncover hidden or untapped proftable niches via keywords analysis.
With this tool, you would be able to uncover uncompettve keywords that have few competng pages and that have weak compettors just by clicking a few butons.There is a free trial that they are ofering now on their site, and with that you will also be able to access the many comprehensive tutorial videos that they have prepared for your beneft. Give it a try, I think its a valuable tool to add to your arsenal. (The link that I have on here has my afliate link, so I could potentally generate commissions from your subscripton.)
Below is a screenshot, depictng the competton for the keyword golf grip tps:
This is another screenshot, discovering proftable and high searched keywords with litle competton for the broad keyword “golf tps”:
As you can see, Market Samurai can be a very valuable tool that you can count on for your market, niche or keyword research exercises and furthermore it could act as a spying tool on your competton. You can get your copy by signing up HERE. Even if you don't purchase the full version of Market Samurai, but stck to the free sofware, it is stll a very powerful tool.