Niche Selection Roadblock

Hey Susan,

after 14 years in the biz... I've found a way to select a niche that has worked well for me.

i actually give away a free chapter on niche/market selection to my clients...

http://fitness-copy.com/warrior-ebook-sample.pdf

it's 14 pages, but it shows you how i select niches to target these days.

i hope it helps!

shawn

The best way to start finding a niche is to ask yourself what interests you? It is much much easier when the topic you're working with actually interests you.

Hi susan, great question. The IM niche is not over saturated and frankly it will never be because each day thousands of people are getting online for the first time to see if they can make money so this niche is still very young. Now what can become saturated is the traffic method that you are using to promote to this niche but not the niche itself. hope that helps you out!

Thanks this gives me some food for thought!

One suggestion I see alot is looking at popular magazines for ideas. I like that idea as you are taking advantage of their market research and readership statistics.

I feel a long post coming on.

Well, "no interest" certainly isn't a great sign. I like niches that have enough interest for some people to read articles/magazines/books/information about the subject, to know that there's some "market" there for me. (I sometimes judge that a little according to whether people are spending money on AdWords, too. It's maybe not a great sign, if they're not?)

I don't think I believe in "saturation", really. (How many households in the US have one or more TV sets already, and how many will be sold during 2013?).

"Not so simple" is right, I think.

It's hugely important, of course.

I think part of the reason the overall success-rates in IM are so low (if you'll accept that as "factual" without any evidence or discussion?) is that so many people choose bad niches.

I think there are common reasons for that, too. To use a metaphor/analogy which has come up here in a couple of other threads, most people want to sell jeans rather than skating videos. And most people are wrong. Explained here (and in the links inside this post): http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post8156938

I do. I research all the time. I try to spend 20-25 minutes per day researching niches and products. Over nearly 5 years, that adds up to a huge amount of time, but I can neither avoid it nor outsource it. (And believe me, I'd really like to outsource it!).

I don't even know whether I'd be making a living at all, without having done that. (And continuing to do it, too).

I don't know, or care, to be honest. I wouldn't touch it, myself, regardless of that aspect of it. (That's partly because I like selling ClickBank products, and it would be as questionable a decision as you could ever find to try to sell them in those niches! So many of their potential customers are already ClickBank affiliates that they wouldn't buy through my affiliate link anyway: they'd buy through their own, since ClickBank allows that. So finding the customers is one thing, but earning the money and getting paid is obviously a totally different proposition! :p ).

Of course one doesn't have to sell those products from ClickBank, and I'm referring to a ClickBank-specific problem, there.

But I stay well away from IM-related products, myself, for a whole bunch of other reasons, too. Just my perspective.

I'm sure there's "room for one more", though. But the one more is not going to be me.

Skating videos.

Seriously.

Not necessarily literally "skating videos", obviously (I have no idea whether there is even such a niche?). But metaphorically. Cauliflower soup recipes. Desalination technology. Children's bedroom ceiling decoration. These are the niches in which the odds (of "earning good money") are tenfold or even a hundredfold more in your favor than they are in "IM niches". In my favor, anyway. And I mean it more seriously than you might guess from my semi-facetious tone.

As Alexa, Steve, and I mentioned earlier I think the "Internet Marketing Niche" is too big for beginners or experienced marketers -- due to the simple fact it is too broad!

You need to get drilling down into your niche to find one speicic area people are having trouble with and become an expert at it.

For example it can go something like this :
Market = Wealth
Niche = Internet Marketing
Sub Niche = Generating Traffic
Super Niche = Generating Traffic through Facebook

The niche Generating Traffic through Facebook is the type of niche you are looking for due to the fact it is profitable and very highly targeted.

Sue,

Anytime I'm looking at new markets to enter, I go through a
"checklist" that I've developed for myself over the years.

First, I try to focus on markets where people have problems
they want solved.

Problems ARE markets. No problem usually means no sale.

So... my first criteria is there must be a large problem or
big desire there.

Then, I want to make sure i have some interest/passion in the topic.

Let's face it, it can be tough times to get a new product/biz up and
running... and passion can often times carry you through those lean
times.

Without passion... you won't want to put in the long days/hours that
it can take to be successful when first starting.

And then... I want to make sure there are products that are selling
well in that market. I don't want to be a pioneer who spends my
life savings just testing out an idea to find out it didn't work.

You're better off going with a market that people are actively LOOKING
to buy products in... where a lot of money is already being made.

Then, you just have to make your product different/better/unique.

Make it faster/cheaper/less expensive/better quality/etc....

In other words... piggy back on what's already selling and just
try to make it better.

Match.com was working just fine and then Eharmony.com came
along and made a better product because they had their 19-point
checklist/criteria they had for finding the perfect match for you.

So, look for markets where there are large problems that people
are actively looking to solve, they are spending money to solve them,
and find a way to make something better/different/unique.

And make sure you're interested enough to keep at it.

Either way, think of markets as problems. What can you help
others with? How you can solve a markets problems or help them
fulfill their desires?

But by all means, don't just follow your passion, you MUST make
sure you're also choosing a niche where people are buying stuff.

Here's an inexpensive WSO, not from me, that looks pretty good for niche selection and profitability assessment.

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...ng-weapon.html

Thanks for all the great advice.

I was not looking for specific niche ideas ir wanting to use IM.

"Dig Deeper" is the answer.

Thanks all!!!!

Don't complicate things..

Choose something in health, relationship or money..

Find something that you are interested in..

Cheers,

Gary

seriously just draw from a hat, I can't understand why niche selection is such an issue.

I've got one you and you can make a fortune with it. And it's not over saturated. You'll need some skill as a writer or the ability to outsource to good writers.

Rewrite technical manuals as most of them seem to be written for the people with engineering degrees. Right now there's an electronic gadget explosion like never before. New products are coming out every day and are replacing products that have only been available for a few months.

Some people just have a knack for getting the most from these things while others struggle. Pick your demographic. If I were to do this I'd target baby boomers. Many of them want to have the latest electronic stuff but are clueless as to how to get the most from it.

Help them. Figure out the most popular and desired features of a device and then explain it so your old gray haired granny can use it. Create a PDF as well as a short video and sell them. You might even make a membership site for this.

I swear, this could be huge if done properly. You could make it an offline business as well by holding little hour-long classes for people needing hands-on training. I'd easily pay $50 to get the fast track to learning something I wanted or needed to know. Let them repeat the class for free if they feel the need. You'd have word of mouth wildfire going with people signing up left and right if you were good.

Obviously, you need to have the knack to figure out popular electronic devices and know how to explain their functionality so regular, non-technical people can understand. It's not for everyone but for the right person(s) this could easily become a million dollar business.

"That I am interested in"

Susan, you're better to find a niche that other people (potential buyers) are interested in