Self defense niche

It's actually a huge market with hundreds of niches. Much like other markets like diet or weight loss, you need to drill down and narrow your target. Offering freebies is still a very powerful sales technique, but first you have to identify just who are you trying to sell to.

It is. But what you want is combat sorts - police, military, hardcore martial artists - in the early stages of training. Two years in, you'll know how to handle adrenal stress response, one way or the other.

And you have to approach the niche from the side, because partnering with the leaders directly steps on their toes. They've all got their own preferred ASR training already, so they don't much care for yours.

I'd lean very much toward a teenage market that's struggling with bullies. These are people who don't have access to serious combat training, because that access is controlled by parents who may simply not understand the situation. But you'll have to take that offline somewhat, because this market doesn't have credit cards...

i would recommend rather than going for a huge market with a generic content, focus on a smaller market. Eg a specific type of fighting or maybe how to perfect a certain move (whatever specifics of self defense apply)
then focus on marketing that product using different techniques. This will give you a more responsive market. So the key is to market more about less
All the best

It is a big market, but I think it would help you a great deal to understand why it's a big market, and how to tell what markets are/aren't worth pursuing. It's also goingto be much easier for you to start with something extremely targeted and then grow.

Well I would like to focus on Kenpo only, but I don't know much people on the Internet. I don't contact big website. I'm mainly contacting bloggers.

Isn't it possible to get the same adrenal response even in conflicts that do not involve physical confrontation? Such as getting into an argument with someone like a spouse, a customer, or even another forum poster at forums such as this, for example.

If so, then maybe you can tailor your product to people in general who might want to learn such physical/psychological techniques so that they can control themselves if/when they get into such a situation. Maybe you don't have to limit yourself to just self-defense situations.

So your target market then becomes virtually anybody who wants to be in better control of themselves in such everyday confrontative situations, eveybody in general really, if my reasoning about adrenaline response occurring even in ordinary situations is valid.

I kind of agree with Caliban that it could be hard to push the product to anybody who's seriously into the martial arts who's at least two years into it. That's one of the basic things you simply learn in a serious practical study of self-defense. So if you refocus your market such that you're not limited to just martial arts types, you might even be able to sell more because of a bigger potential market.

I don't really know how to market it outisde the typical self defense niche. It doesn't appeal to expert but beginner. However, affiliates are going to be kinda hard to find no matter what target I chose. That's my struggling point.

On the other side I forgot to mention I want to be inside the self defense niche for multiple reasons. I am already an expert in that niche and I want to develop my brand that way.

CD beat me too it.

Don't target the professional crowd. Using myself as an example (infantry and military police) I had all the training I needed. I'm not going to search online for tactical information. I worked with plenty of professionals who could whoop my butt just fine and an ebook wasn't going make a difference. Military and law enforcement also have their own way of doing things. If I were to show up to combatives showing off my awesome tae kwon do skills... it's a NO GO.

Same with the martial arts crowd. They are already training so I doubt they are looking for something that isn't related to their art. They should have the whole adrenaline issue solved after their first year.

You could target the wannabe crowd. The meat head UFC, WWE and mallcops. These guys do tend to buy up every bit of crap they can get their hands on. Cross promote your product with a wall sized Undertaker poster.

I like what CD suggested, the teenage market struggling with bullies. I do disagree and think these kids do have jobs and debit cards. Have you seen the kid delivering your pizza... he needs this product. Only problem with these kids, they are ahead of all of us when it comes to getting everything for free. Your product, some 16 year old already has a copy and is sharing it with his WOW buddies right now.

I would take your product and re-purpose it for different markets. Create a website for each audience.

Do Muay Thai! You really show narrow down your target market through some research and tests. Good luck!

I think what he was referring to was when you're in a heated discussion or argument with someone who you aren't going to throw down with. You still get the increased heart rate n' junk but you're not gonna knock grandma into tomorrow because she doesn't like your new screaming devil skull tattoo.

You could be right, it's been a few years since I was that age... think big hair and guns n' roses.

In that case, I'd cross off those kids completely and go after meat heads... Keep You're Cool And Kick Some... and cross promote it with some lovesystems PUA stuff.

My two cents is that a product specifically designed to deal with the adrenal stress response is going to fail because most people don't know what that is.

Even experienced martial artists don't usually acknowledge that it's a problem until they get into a real street fight and wonder why they can't remember any techniques, have tunnel vision, and their legs are shaking.

You need a front-end product with more universal appeal. I would take the EXACT SAME product and instead market it as how to deal with FEAR. Just about everyone recognizes that being afraid is a problem in a self-defense situation...almost no one knows about adrenal response.

Headline should be something like: "Free Video Reveals the #1 Secret to Instant Courage...Even in a Life-Threatening Situation! Sub: Just One Simple Technique Can Ensure That You NEVER Freeze Up in a Self-Defense Situation, Even If You're Held Up at Gun-point."

Something like that would appeal to EVERYONE, whether they know about adrenal response as such, or not.

Then you should include stories about how cops/soldiers/people who are highly trained, etc. tend to FREEZE up in real self-defense situations.

Welcome to Senshido is FILLED with info about this kind of thing. Also Mark MacYoung's products, Sammy Franco, Geoff Thompson...all of them do very well selling reality-based self-defense systems. You should model and improve on their marketing approaches.

Just my advice.

R

Edit: Oh, and if you're smart, you'll buy banner ads and e-mail ads on the mailing lists for CONSERVATIVE news outlets (i.e. drudgereport, news max, world net daily, etc.). They buy this kind of thing more than anyone.