Developing Your 6th Sense - The Niche Radar!

[Tim Dixon]

There has been quite a few threads recently on doing niche research but most of them concentrate solely on crunching numbers and looking for KEI's, Adwords competitors etc. etc.

Nothing wrong with that, lots of people like to work that way, but I think there's an important step missing, one that takes place before you even start looking at any numbers.

It's what I think of as developing your niche radar, honing that subconcious ability to find niches to explore or delve into whilst just going about your daily business.

Niches are everywhere, all around us, you just need to develop that way of looking at things from a niche marketers perspective.

You may come across a niche idea whilst driving down the road or waiting to get a haircut. These ideas pop up anywhere (at least they do for me!).

How do you nurture this hidden talent? I it's just a matter of doing it so often that eventually it becomes second nature. So it's well worth the effort to keep at it, even if you feel a bit foolish to start off with (just ask my wife what it's like to go shopping with someone who keeps talking into a digital recorder every few minutes!)

Why is that? well I also find it really helps to carry a small personal digital recorder around with me so that I can quickly record any ideas that I come across for later evaluation. A mobile phone with a record facility is just as handy.

Another favourite of mine is to go browsing at the nearest large bookstore as they usually have a massive selection of magazines. An hour or so spent browsing there looking at different magazines and some of the classifieds and ads in them can yield numerous niche ideas. And that trusty recorder comes in handy too (although I do get a few funny looks!).

Andy Henry posted in another thread (that was talking about keywords) an interesting viewpoint and a great way of looking at the niche marketing thing:

It can be as simple as selecting a market that as a lot of customers and then defining a few small sub-niches that you can compete in, which just involves a little checking into what's hot right now along with what people are searching for.

Or you could create a new niche by renaming or repurposing an existing in-demand niche. For example, if you saw people buying keyrings and searching for animal pictures - you could sell keyrings with animal pictures in - create a niche for it and be the main player.

Most people say go where the money is, but I think using your brain a little more can make a big difference.

Don't just do what others are doing, model what's working and do something different that evolves that.

Andy

It would be really interesting to hear from a few other Warriors on how they do their niche brainstorming and could help a few others out who are struggling at the point of even just coming up with a few ideas.

Tim