I am often asked how people should choose their online and offline marketing niche. It is really pretty easy. First of all, you need to understand that “everyone” is NOT your target market. You do need to refine your services and products down. Stop trying to be all things to all people: find your market and focus yourself to meet its needs.
To be successful with a new business today, the most important thing is to identify your specific target market.
- Exactly who are they and what defines them as a unique and discrete group of customers?
- What is their specific unmet need, also called their “pain,” that makes them an attractive group of potential customers?
- How are you planning to take care of that “pain”?
Once you have decided who your target market is it time to:
Identify what YOU want to do
- What are your interests?
- What are your passions? What fuels your creativity?
- What are your areas of expertise? Be sure to list your soft skills as well as your hard skills! They are just as critical to your success.
Identify what you DON’T want to do
- What are the repetitive, non-income producing tasks that just eat up your working hours and frustrate you by the end of the day?
- What are things and situations that you avoid?
Identify what you are going to sell
You are going into business to make a profit, so please don’t skip this step!
- Physical products.
- Information (digital) products such as e-books, downloadable teleseminars or audios, PLR – Private Label Rights, etc.
- Virtual Services (Virtual Assistance, Web Development, coaching, consulting, graphics, copy-writing, etc.)
- Physical Services (Lawn care, housekeeping services, etc.)
- Affiliate products. For instance I HIGHLY recommend the world’s first ALL-ACCESS network for lifestyle entrepreneurs from Ryan Lee, called Founder Fly. I just joined as I am a total Ryan Lee devotee…. he is a HUGE marketing genius. I am already a member of his “Inner Circle” and trust me, I paid a whole lot more than this membership is costing. I am also an affiliate.
- Drop ship products.
- Resell rights. Many ebooks and pieces of software, especially in the field of online or Internet marketing, are sold with resell rights included.
Once you have a focused business venture, research what people are looking for in that industry, who those people are, the prices they want to pay, and what the overall current availability is for them. If there is no availability, or merely low-quality availability, you have now found yourself a great target market!
