Niche Marketing

Niche marketing, to put it simply, is focusing your marketing efforts on a small subsection of the larger market. For example, if you were looking to sell to gardeners, that is a broad market. If you had a product that was more appealing to a smaller section of that market, like indoor gardeners, or perhaps flower gardeners, or vegetable gardeners, then this is a niche market. You might not want to tackle the huge gardening market with your efforts if you had something which appealed more to one of those smaller groups. Your efforts would be rewarded with more sales if you FOCUSED your efforts on the niche market which really wanted YOUR product!

Someone who I respect and admire, named Jennifer, has a mission to show you how to target your efforts on these small niche markets using small modular lens like tools, much the way a magnifying glass focuses the Sun's rays into a laser like point of searing light. She has many interesting ideas on how to accomplish this with frightening efficiency. She uses a popular social networking and information site to create all sorts of niche marketing programs which bring her money on a DAILY basis.

Check out her plan at One Week Marketing.

Looking at all of the squeeze pages and sales pages out there can be intimidating. It was for me. The thought of having to go out and get your own web hosting and then set up your own site is scary if you are not already technical or in a creative profession.

I have been on the Internet for a long time. Years ago we didn't have any of the popular social sites that we take for granted today. In those days it was just information sites, vanity sites, and some of the first online shopping sites. Also, many times you had to have your own merchant account from the bank in order to process payments, and this software had to be installed in your website and integrated with a shopping cart in order to accept payments directly from customers. We really are lucky today that there is an entire infrastructure around not only selling your own goods, but selling other peoples' products for a commission. Yes, I am referring to Affiliate Marketing. Now there are as many ways to market and sell affiliate products as you can imagine. You might be tempted to think that they have all been invented, but just when you do, someone comes up with something totally new and mind blowing.

You can leverage the HUGE user base on certain social networking sites in order to sell niche products. How? You can write articles on topics that pull in people who are interested in that topic, and use that "foot in the door" to sell them what they need. Include the affiliate link for your product and they will be all too happy to buy. Jennifer has a foolproof method for doing this.

This is the question which haunts many a budding Internet entrepreneur. It can be overwhelming to consider all of the competing "methods", "techniques", "plans", and "discoveries". What new people need is a proven way to start this career path with little to no startup costs. It also needs to be able to be up and running in as little as a week's time.

1.Have a Goal.

Can you get a good picture of what your desired outcome is? What do you want your life to look like? How much money do you want to make? How many sales do you want to make? Make it believable for you. For example, how much money would it take to replace your JOB income? That is a good place to start. Shoot for that and then work up from there.

2.Read and Learn.

The bottom line here is that you have to actually DO SOMETHING. You can buy all of the Internet Marketing materials that are out there, but if they sit on your hard drive collecting dust then the only people who made money were the ones who sold them to you. Now, you have to buy many of these things and read them. This is how you learn the lingo, and become familiar with all of the tools of the trade. I have not made money with every plan that I have ever purchased, but I can honestly say that I have learned so much from every one. Why is this valuable? You become a more well rounded marketer. You become a more well rounded technical person too. Let me reveal something about myself. My first real career was an IT guy. I thought that I knew EVERYTHING about computers, the Internet, and everything geeky and nerdy. Man, was I amazed at ALL THAT I DID NOT KNOW. So, to sum that up, yo have to be willing to read and learn, and sometimes you have to also be willing to spend a little to learn. It's not all out there for free. What, did I say that it wouldn't cost anything? Do you know what it costs to start a real world brick and mortar storefront type of business? Thousands. Sometimes tens of thousands or more. The little bit of money that you need to spend to learn about how to earn money on the Internet is minuscule in comparison.

3.Write down your steps, or make a flow chart of your needed actions.

It is always good to have the steps of your plan written down and charted so that you can refer to it every now and then. This will serve as motivation for where you want to go, as well as a valuable tool to keep you moving forward with your plan.

4.Do it.

You actually have to work at it. Sorry. It's true. Real money requires real work. It's not hard work, but it is real work and it takes time. It is honest work too. It is smart work. Would you rather work hard or work smart? Smart work earns exponentially more money than hard work.

One Week Marketing is very clear on all of this.

Your product or service needs to be in demand. You want to offer something that people actually need and are actually looking for. It should be something that will make their lives better, make them feel better, improve their looks, or be a problem solver.

Once you have chosen a product or service to market, researching to find the right niche for your product or service is the next most important part of beginning a niche marketing program. The things that you need to know are where they spend their time online, and what makes them tick from a personal and business point of view. There is niche marketing software out there that can help you learn these things about your potential niche market.

The next thing you need to learn as you research your online niche market is what you can reasonably charge for your product or service. The best and most effective way to comparison shop on various sites that sell similar products. It should be easy to see if they are giving away a service or "lowball selling" the product.

If you can figure out that there are individuals out there who are willing to spend money to buy what you are selling and if you can identify who those people are, then you have a niche marketing product or service that can make money on the Internet. Sometimes it takes changing or updating your product or service to make it more attractive, improved, or priced differently than what it is being sold for elsewhere. Research is the "killer app" for successful niche marketing.

I learned all of this from Jennifer at her site.

The list of things that people view as "problems" is endless. People look for answers to everything from physical ailments, to how to improve their performance at certain sports or leisure activities. Everything from better test scores for their kids to alternate versions of popular recipes.

A good way to find out what people consider a problem is to visit the online forums. People talk about anything and everything online. They discuss subjects that they wouldn't talk about with their best friends for the simple reason that they can remain anonymous. They look for solutions online for the very same reason. By getting in tune with the pulse of active discussion topics, you can search the Internet for products and services that will help them solve those problems. Gather information on the chosen topic. Write or have a professional write an article about the product. By doing this you can build a content rich niche website which assists people in addressing the problem at hand.

Another way to get information is to join a forum and post a question about the topic. Many knowledgeable people will answer and provide great answers and content for free. Many people would rather purchase a book that already contains all of the gathered research rather than do the research themselves. It saves them time and they get the information which they crave.

One Week Marketing is an amazing system designed to get someone from total Internet Marketing newbie to getting reliable affiliate commissions, without a website of their own and not spending money on advertising.

This system uses a well known social information hub as the place where the marketer creates useful information along with their affiliate links. I was FLOORED when I read about how she accomplishes this. It is very logical and plainly doable.

This is no get rich quick scheme. It takes real actual work, but the potential return on investment is HUGE. It has very few of the traditional Internet Marketing startup costs, but the same potential return.

The system not only offers the method itself, but the author provides several ways to enhance your chances of success by discussing creating a business plan with clear goals for success. She also delves into other important areas, such as SEO, resources that you can use, article research and writing, Google issues, blogging, keywords, RSS feeds, and site indexing. This is a VERY thorough guide!

One Week Marketing really is a collection of 5 guides. There are 4 guides that go along with the main one. This system contains an actual one week plan, a check list, a flowchart to help you understand the big picture, AND a real life conversation between her and a rank newbie, demonstrating that ANYONE with the determination to do the work WILL succeed.

One Week Marketing - This guide is the showcase of this site because it pulls together a very low budget "doable" plan to get started in the lucrative field of work from home Internet Marketing.

Simply PLR by Matt Callen - I recommend Simply PLR to guarantee niche traffic with high quality Private Label Rights articles that you can use, rewrite, and combine in order to guarantee fresh traffic through search engine results.

Private Niche Empire - This is a system that actually provides you with niche websites tailor engineered around certain keywords in hot niche markets.

Olympian Niche Marketing - SEO expert Peter Drew reveals his strategies to dominate niches. He helps you to discover keywords and niches before they become hot.

Adspypro PPC - This program teaches you to automate the entire keyword research process for Pay Per Click advertising. It also lays out profitable affiliate programs for you to take advantage of.

Twitter Traffic Machine - This will teach you about amazing tools to totally automate a twitter account for marketing purposes. With enough people following you on Twitter you can have a ready audience for your wares.

Now, even though with this method you don't need a website of your own, you might eventually want to expand into that area. When you do, or even if you already plan to do it simultaneously, you may want to check out the web host that I use for all of my sites. I recommend the reseller package. Now, reseller packages cost more than the el cheapo mini ones, but they come with the ability for YOU to create many sites under them, as the web host itself would do with a mini account. You will need the ability, and let's face it, it makes better sense for you to have total control and all of your domains under one hosting account. You also get a myriad of analysis and other tools, like the ability to create multiple databases, create your domains and set them up immediately rather than waiting for the web host support to do it for you, etc. It's just more flexible. If you want to play this game, then play it right. Being frugal and being cheap are not one in the same. By the way, all of these resources are listed at one of my sites.

Good luck!