Great Niche or money hole ?
The other day, my mom shocked me. She asked me what a niche market was, and since she is not an online marketer ( doesn’t turn the computer on regularly enough to use email ), this question appeared quite out of the blue. Perhaps I should not have been surprised because in the area of marketing but particularly online marketing, this term is showing up more and more frequently. In truth, one of those late night, “Be the next internet Millionaire” scams that airs at 4 am for those with insomnia, also trumpets this term.
And for the rest of us - What is Niche Marketing ? And why is it so popular?
Perhaps its best explained by first discussing what it’s not. Niche marketing is not marketing to a mysterious marketing segment called niche, nor is there a product called niche that a huge underground swell of people are clamoring over insurmountable walls to get. Nor, is there usually a department within any major corporation that has a position open in their niche marketing department. So don’t call Human Resources at your local City Council and ask for a position in their niche marketing department. Sorry, just had to get that one out of the way, lol.
Niche marketing example
Here is my own quick definition : Niche Marketing is an examination or sales analysis of a very narrow marketing segment that is being under-served by the competition. Let’s see what this looks like.
Marketing to those that buy - Basketball shoes. Niche or not? Not - Michael Jordan running shoes. Niche or not. Not (What did that surprise you?) - Michael Jordan HighTop running shoes. Niche or not? Feeling the sun yet ? - Michael Jordan HighTops signed by the great one himself . Niche or no Niche? Jackpot !
This last example sounds like a niche for sure. It has a narrow focus and we have eliminated several wider approaches to our target audience. So, should we run out and stock up on these specialty running shoes in anticipation of the demand?
If you want to lose your shirt go ahead! That was a joke, don’t do it. Please don’t think I slipped and just told you about my huge money maker and have now decided to take it back. Further from the truth we could not be. We have an unproven premise here.
The little questionnaire is not the process used to find a niche market product or service. You really need a tool for that. It can be done manually but searching hundreds of ideas manually isn’t anyone’s idea of fun. That was merely an example of what a niche market might look like, but for any number of reasons, I would never enter that marketplace - and I don’t much care if 4 of my marathon running friends ask me for those specific shoes next week.
So, did I just give you a really bad Niche Market example?
It might be and maybe it wasn’t but we don’t know that yet. When doing this kind of research one has to remind oneself that people use specific key words when searching for a product or service. Only the search engines, search engine tools ( like wordwatcher ) really know what is being searched for. And unfortunately only niche marketing software tools can give one the market intelligence needed in order to make a business decision.
If we know how many people are searching for the product and how many competing websites there are, isn’t this enough information to quantify this as a niche product? Wasn’t this what groups traditionally used to make their decision in the past? Well, it was, but its not enough anymore. There are tools out there now that can make a newbie 10 times more efficient and powerful than the traditional analysis used just 6 months ago.
Perhaps you are experienced and know that this was not the process used to find niches. Perhaps you are still using the tools inside google adwords, or google trends or wordwatcher. They are time tested and have worked wonderfully for the past few years but a newbie using a niche market tool and having little or no knowledge of the existing search tools from Google could blow you and I out of the competitive water in less than 5 minutes.
Competitive Niche tool products go significantly further than just how many potential clients are searching and whether the competition has the keyword on their site. They use algorithms that use several additional variables for ranking competition. They can immediately open affiliate sites like clickbank and others with a related product already found and ready for you to use. They can find articles from Private Label Sources for reprint. And this is less than a 1/10th of their abilities.
Finding Niche Products is now so easy, even a newbie can do it. It does not require the in-depth type of intelligence that former adwords professionals used to use. Follow the links back to my site for lists of possible tools that you can use.