The Niche Marketing Blog

Tools for understanding and reaching your market

Is Social Media a Fad?

There is much discussion these days about social media and whether or not it will be around in a few years.

Watch this short video and decide for yourself.

If you believe that social media is the wave of the future, then the next questions are:

* how can you leverage social media to better reach your market?
* how can you use social media to help you find your audience?
* how can social media help you discover niches and micro-niches?

We’ll explore these questions in future posts. In the mean time, what are your thoughts about the future of social media?

Click on the following link to learn more about the book, Socialnomics.

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How to Get Started With Niche Marketing

By Dustin Heath

Niche marketing is targeting out a specific crowd and then producing products specially for this crowd. It can also mean selling products that large companies don’t usually sell. This is done for a few reasons; first, the manufacturing probably won’t be as expensive, not as many of these products have to be made, and the profit from sales of these products goes more to one company rather than the other ten that also make the product. Niche marketing has many perks, but one problem is not knowing where to get started on your business venture. The article below gives a few basic things to think about when first starting out. These are the usual first steps of every successful business.

Choosing A Target
The first thing to do is target out your specific group that you want to gear your company toward. You want to pick a fairly broad group, but then again one small enough so that only your company (very few competitors) will manufacture products for this group. For example, maybe you want to pick out a group that wears a specific type of clothing, and you know that large companies don’t make lots of clothing for this group. Your company may want to think about making the clothing for this group. So pick your target first.

Pick A ProductAfter you’ve got your group picked out, you want to start thinking about the product(s) you will manufacture and sell for this group. Clothing? Accessories? Home decor? Pet supplies? This part can be tricky as well because you want a product that is rarely made, but you also want one that people are going to want to buy. You also don’t want your product to be really expensive to manufacture and sell, because this will end up costing you more money than you’re making in the end.

Pick A Price
Choosing a price to sell your product at is very important. You want profit, but you want to sell at a price low enough so that your consumers will be happy and keep coming back. If you choose a product that is fairly inexpensive to make and sell, you won’t have to jack your prices up so much. You might want to think about making your product cost as much as the manufacturing plus half. So lets say you are selling a large toy that costs one hundred dollars to make. If you sell at one hundred and fifty dollars, you will earn back your manufacturing cost plus half extra, so you profited fifty dollars in one sale.

Evaluating Your Decisions
You will now want to decide how successful your choices have been. Is the product selling? Is it popular and are people interested? Do people enjoy your prices? Are they telling their friends? Is the money you’re making worth this effort? If not, you should consider changing some things. If you’re satisfied, sit on your decisions a while more and see if they continue to work out well.

Dustin Heath recommends that you visit http://www.HomeBusiness.us to learn how you can start your own home-based business earning multiple streams of income with http://www.HomeBusiness.us Plug-In Profit Site – Complete Money Making Site Setup FREE!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dustin_Heath
http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Get-Started-With-Niche-Marketing&id=2002279

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We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

Kansas Reflection

Image by kansasexplorer 3128 via Flickr

By Scott Spooner

Do you remember the days when “niche marketing” meant researching a market to find the sub-markets, or “niches” of people that had common likes, wants, needs, or traits? Those were the days. You could identify a group of people and market directly to them through time-tested channels.

It’s not so easy anymore. Today, successful niche marketers not only have to identify the niche market, but also they have to decide where that niche hangs out, and how best to reach them.

Web sites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and a host of other competing social media sites all clamor for the attention of our prospects. Add to that the endless possibilities of “mobile marketing” through the ever expanding variety of smart phones and mobile devices.

Foursquare, Gowalla, and Facebook have taken notice. So has Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

You may feel overwhelmed by all of these choices, but one thing will always hold true: research is the key to understanding and reaching your market. Do your homework. Study your market. Stay away from chasing the big hit, and rely instead on building a solid relationship with your customer base.

Like Dorothy, we may not be in Kansas anymore, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find our way back home.

Tell me what you think about the changes in niche marketing.

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Niche Marketing News and Views

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Niche Marketing: The way to benefit from Social Search

by Scott Spooner

Google has recently added “social search” to its ever expanding catalog of “Google labs” experiments, and this is great news for on- line organisations which are involved in niche marketing.

For people who are comfortable with, and rely upon, seo strategies, “social search” will come as a welcome supplement to your SEO toolkit.

Search engine optimization was once defined by paid and organic search parameters. However, as the Internet has evolved, newer search platforms have become crucial Internet marketing tools. These tools include well known properties like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and alternative social networking websites.

Here are but two examples of the way newer search platforms are making their presence felt.

Surprising to some, YouTube is presently ranked as the number two search engine online. The sheer volume of videos served up each month by YouTube accounts for this high ranking.

Additionally, both Google and Bing just announced that they are indexing – and thus displaying in search results- Twitter posts(tweets) , leading many internet business owners to rush towards having a comprehensive “Twitter plan” in place as soon as possible.

It is due to the emergence, and prominence, of these newer search platforms, that “social search” is being developed. Indeed, these recent developments have many ‘Net watchers speculating about whether social networking will be the next big thing in internet niche marketing.

That brings us back to Google and their newest experiment.

At the Web 2. Summit(2009) Marissa Mayer announced latest experimental feature offered by Google, noting that it is aimed at improving the user’s search results by including web pages created by that user’s social connections.

This is how Marissa Mayer describes this new experimental lab:

“Due to the ever- increasing popularity of social networks, we’ve been thinking about how your social network could influence and improve your search results. Social Search does just that by surfacing content in your search results that is written by your friends or people you follow. That way, you get the best resources from the web overall, plus the best results(blogs, reviews, travelogues) that are relevant to you, since they were written by people you know. Social Search will be launching soon on Google Experimental and Google Labs. ”

In brief, social search is all about developing greater relevancy to the individual user who is conducting a search through Google.

That’s wonderful for the individual user. But, what about the internet marketer who is attempting to gain a better foothold in their niche? Well, this new function could prove to be a boom for the savvy niche marketer that is already mining the internet social networks.

Businesses owners who have established followings on Facebook, Friend Feed, Twitter, YouTube, and similar sites will now be able to search targeted key phrases on Google and monitor the buzz(or lack thereof) around their company and/or products. Trend spotters will be able to identify emerging trends to capitalize upon, or potential problems that need quick remedies.

Just think what this means to the internet niche marketer: real- time, direct access to the thoughts, posts, and musings of those in your social(and for the smart marketer, that can be read as “business”) networks.

So how does the feature presently work? Let me state right off the top that, because of issues relating to privacy, social search is set- up as an opt- in feature, and is directly connected through Google Profiles and Gmail. So, to participate, you’ll first want a Google account.

Once you’ve created your account, you add links from your Twitter, Friend Feed, and similar pages, to your Google profile. Google will then explore those links to identify your followers and the content they produce; content derived from their blogs, photo albums, videos, and reviews.

Then, the following time you’re searching at Google, if your search query returns helpful results from your social connections, Google will display the results at the bottom of the search results pages.

To view how this function works, log into your Google account, and then type your query at Google. com. If you don’t see a OneBox at the bottom of the search results pages, click on “Search Options” and select “Social” to include the results to your social circle.

Now, you may be wondering just who is included in this new social network. A Google help center page tells us that the network includes:

• people you’re connected to through social services(such as Twitter or Friend Feed)
• people that you’ve listed in your Google profile
• people in your Gmail(or Google Talk) chat list
• People in your Friends, Family, and Coworkers contact groups for Google

Additionally, Google Reader subscriptions can be added, so it’s now simpler to search Google Reader.

Keep in mind, these connections are on an opt- in basis, and you’ll be able to include, or exclude, any group or social service that you wish. If you fail to opt- in, your social networks won’t be included, and you will not see their content in your search results.

So, have a consider this new experimental function. Get good at using it, because it’s likely that your competitors will likewise.


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How to Set Yourself Apart From Other Affiliates

By Chris Dawson

Considered today as one of the best and easiest way to earn some money, affiliate marketing is now attracting many people to represent themselves in this type of business. But as competition is getting a bit bigger, you may need some ways to distinguish yourself from the rest of the affiliate marketers. For the major reason that many of your competitors including you are promoting the exact same program, in the exact same zone or on the exact same websites perhaps. Now here are some tips that you may consider in order for you to stay in this business and have the chance to outwit and outplay other competitors of yours.

The first thing is for you to have your own website. It is very essential for you to have your own website in considering affiliate marketing as your professional career. Secondly, potential customers primarily go to websites in order for them to search and sometimes purchase items they were looking for. For the same reason that it is much easier to remember than a certain URL that you may be using and you can just point to your visitors the affiliate page in your website.

Another thing to remember is to have your own ad. A lot of times affiliates marketers have published the same ad two or three times done by advertisers. In this case, you may email the owner of your affiliate program asking that you make your own ads. This way, people may not become immune to ads, because sometimes seeing the same ads over and over again, may just make your potential customers to just skip it all together. Besides, your primarily purpose is to attract or encourage people to click and read your ads and be curios enough to click through your website.

Step three, have some products of your won which are only available through your website. Once you have your website going, it is important to have some products or services that your customers can’t find with other affiliate’s site. You want your customers to keep coming to your site and the best way to do that is to have something on your site that they can’t find on others. Being an affiliate marketer we must then choose a certain market segment where you can have a potential leadership or at least a strong challenger role.

The fourth step is to build a strong relationship with people who already buy your product. Now, in order for you as the marketer to fully answer the query of your potential customers, it is best to try and buy the product by yourself. With this particular notion, you can better sell the product that you are trying to market. You can share to your potential customers what a great experience you had with the product, and this can make them interested enough to buy the product. You may also be able to provide a support if necessary or you may provide a confident tutorial or steps on how to use the product that you are trying to market based on your personal experience. Entailing this idea is to be totally honest about the product that you are trying to market. If you find out that the program you were promoting is a scam, stop promoting it and inform your readers about it. This will help you build credibility with your lists.

We all make mistakes and admitting your mistake will boost your reader’s confidence in you. Lastly, don’t try to market everything you see. With services such as click bank, it is easy to become overwhelmed and try to market everything in the click bank marketplace. That is not a good idea. It’s better to focus on one market and market products that they would want. This is called niche marketing.

Try also to promote a certain product, which conforms to the specifications measured through indications of customer-satisfaction, rather than indicators of self-gratification. It is the customer who decides what to buy and not the company or the affiliate marketer. The company simply produces products catering to the needs and wants of their chosen market segment.

Today, different types of business are emerging from all over the world in a multinational level to reign supreme on their specific market segment that they are trying to dominate, and affiliate marketing is one of them. Affiliate marketing is definitely here to stay and it can become a great way to earn extra or even part time income. However, it won’t happen overnight. Like everything else in life, you’re going to have to put a lot of hard work into it. Good luck to you in your new venture.

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Niche Marketing: The Balance Between Traffic And Competition

by Scott Spooner

If you are interested in finding a niche market, you can turn to any of dozens of articles, blog posts, and forum threads that discuss the topic in length. Unfortunately, most of these writings are theoretical in nature; defining what a niche market is, or advising you to find that delicate balance between enough traffic and limited competition to make it profitable.

As a full-time niche marketer, the bulk of the writing that exists today leaves me somewhat frustrated as so little of it points to any metrics, or “rules of thumb”, for defining what is “enough traffic”, or “limited competition”.

To address this issue head on, this article will specify the numbers that I use when I am considering a niche to explore. I will also describe the tools I use to determine these numbers. The best part is, these tools are free.

Let’s start with “traffic”. Traffic is usually described in terms of the number of searches performed through any of several search engines. Because of its current dominance on the Internet, Google is usually the “go to” search engine that is used for search traffic counts, so that is where we’ll start.

Google has a free keyword too, which you can locate by going to Google and typing in “Google keyword tool”. Although this tool was designed for use with Google’s AdWords program, anybody can use it free of charge.

Simply enter in one or more keywords from niches that you are interested in, fill out the “captcha”, and click on the “Get keyword ideas” button. Google will then compile the data and report back to you both related keywords and monthly search volume counts (among other data available).

Here is where I look for the first of my two metrics. I am searching for niche-related keywords that show at least 2500 searches per month (or, approximately 80 searches per day, if you are using a keyword tool that displays daily search counts).

Ok, now we have a specific search traffic number that we can use for selecting our keywords. But, what about the other side of the equation, the “limited competition”? What kind of metric can we use to determine how much competition is too much?

Like with traffic, there are many ways to size up your competition. Some authors use “strength of competition” (SOC), while others prefer measures of “authority”. Still others use Google’s own measure of Page Rank (PR). For purposes of this article, I’ll focus on Page Rank for two reasons: 1) it is a simple measure that is widely used, and; 2) I’ve got a free tool you can use to measure it.

The tool is named “SEO for Firefox” and, like the name implies, it works with the Firefox browser. You can download a free copy of it by going to Google and typing in “Firefox download”.

SEO for Firefox is a plug-in that lets you measure Page Rank of web sites while you are analyzing keywords in Google. You can download your free copy of SEO for Firefox at: http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html

After installing both the Firefox browser, and the SEO for Firefox plug-in, simply toggle the SEO button so that SEO is running, and then surf on over to Google. Type in your keyword and let Google report back to you the search engine results. With the SEO plug-in turned on, you’ll notice that below each entry on Google’s organic search, an array of information is displayed for that web site. The first piece of data is the page position for each web site displayed. Right behind that number is what we are looking for: PR (Page Rank). The PR is followed by a question mark (?). By clicking on that question mark, the SEO plug-in reports back the web site’s Page Rank.

So, what is the actual metric that I use for determining how competitive my keyword is? I look for at least two (2) web sites on Google’s front page, with a Page Rank of “3” or below. Simple.

There you have it: I look for keywords that have both a minimum of 2500 searches per month AND at least two web sites on Google’s Page 1, with a Page Rank of “3” or below. When both of those metrics are satisfied, I get serious about diving into the niche.

Yes, there are many other metrics that you can use to help you decide which keywords to select, but the two I’ve described above are both simple to arrive at, and use tools which cost you nothing; both important considerations, especially if you are just starting out.

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Using Google’s SKtool To Find Niche Ideas

How to use Google’s search based keyword tool to find niche ideas. This short video is brought to us fro mthe folkjs at Noble Samurai, the creators of Market Samurai.

Duration : 0:1:56

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Internet Market Research: Various Types Of Research Modes

by: Maneet Puri

Internet market research is the process of searching the internet to find information about your target markets so that you can further analyze it to better your business processes. By accumulating valuable information about your niche market segments, you can seek to explore new opportunities in the market, identify potential problems and monitor the performance of your company in the market.

The results and findings of internet market research helps facilitate effective decision making. Here are some potential benefits of internet market research activities.

   * You can explore new opportunities in the market and evaluate them.
   * You can analyze the various segments of your target marketplace.
   * You can select the best and most appropriate target market.
   * It helps in better positioning of the product in the market.
   * You can use the information for enhancement of the product development process.
   * It helps to plan and implement strong marketing strategies that further seeks to achieve business   objectives.

The benefits of internet market research are many. However, you also need to figure out what kind of research methodology would be the best for you and will help you deliver more value. Here are three types of market research

   * Exploratory research
   * Descriptive research
   * Causal research

Exploratory Research
This kind of research is used to search the market for new ideas and explore potential market opportunities. It is a highly unstructured form of research that can be used to explore the possibilities of a situation or search for a problem. In fact, the findings are based majorly on secondary data such as data available in different departments of the company, case studies, pilot projects etc. exploratory research gets you general information about the markets and various segments of the same.

Descriptive Research
This is more detailed than the former version of research. Descriptive research accumulates detailed information about the markets. It includes answers to all the who-what-why-where-when-how types of questions. Because it is more structured, it offers a detailed analysis of the markets that can be understood well and applied further. In fact, descriptive research provides specific answers to multiple points questions. For example, what age group of users buy what type of the products and from which location. . It requires huge volumes of data collection and high analytics.

Casual Research
This is again a generic form of research that helps you understand the causes and effects of the relationship between the business and its target audiences. You can not only identify potential problems but also locate specific causes of the problems. This in turn can guide your to formulate effective solutions and eliminate the root cause of the problem altogether.

All the modes of research have different courses and different methodologies. However, one thing that they have in common is Internet. All the three type of research uses internet as their prime medium to locate information apart from other offline sources. The internet provides unbiased information from across the world with absolutely no constraint of geographical limitations. This means you can have access to global information and cater to a worldwide audience.

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About The Author

Maneet Puri heads LeXolution IT Services, a professional KPO outsourcing company that deals with a variety of KPO services. The company provides seamless and cost effective business support functions like internet market research, mailing list development and virtual assistant services to its worldwide clients.

http://www.lexolutionkpo.com

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Here are some related articles that you might find of interest:

  • Why We Have to Keep Doing Market Research – Following up on my previous post about the problems with most market research, here’s a plea why we should keep trying to get it right. At the recent London SMX show, I presented on the Ad Testing and Research panel. …

  • How To Do Market Research – The marketplace is your line of business, and doing market research means knowing your business inside out so that you can function effectively in it. For this reason, failure to do adequate market research can often lead to poor business decisions and results. So in this article, we are going to look at how you can research your marketplace with the aim of improving your overall knowledge and understanding of the areas that are critical to your business success.

  • What’s Wrong with Market Research – When we first started doing research at Enquiro into how people used search, we found very quickly that what people say and what people do are very different things. It just happened that we were doing a survey and a focus group at …

  • Keyword Research – What Are You Basing It On? | John Cow dot Com – We have a question for you and we want you to really think about this. What are the most important metrics that you use when doing keyword research? 1.

  • SEO & Keyword Research For Beginners With Aaron Wall | Hobo – Amazing keyword research tips for seo from Aaron Wall of Seo Book – One of the most experienced professional seo in the world.

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Know What To Spy For When Doing Market Research

by: Charen Smith

Know thy enemies.

Keep your friends close; your enemies closer.

Get to know your competition.

Ever heard of these principles? One writer/philosopher once said that in order for you to be competitive and even rise above the pack, you need to know your competition and what they’re doing to be different. When you do, you’ll surely be able to create tactics that will make you stand out and hence, make a difference in your market share.

I suppose you think that the business community is very hard to be a part of because you’re always competing and trying to outdo each other.

Believe it or not, business is not about that. On the contrary, it’s not a blood bath all the time. In fact, business owners and marketers do it in a more classy and comfortable arena where they often work together to make their community work.

But no doubt about it, competition is present. And the best way to differentiate yourself from the rest is an analysis of what your competition is doing to become successful. Here’s what you should know when spying for your marketing research:

Step 1: Be a detective.

Competitive analysis is all about gathering the tools and materials your competitors have to market their products and services. Examine their features, the design, and even the commercial color printing method used to come up with an effective marketing campaign. One marketer even suggested shopping and purchasing from your competitors to learn and experience what it feels like to buy from them.

Step 2: Identify and analyze even those you feel are competitors.

Chances are you’re right. Even in the most unlikely places, you might just be surprised that a competition is present. So be on the lookout for marketing tools and materials of any businesses that you perceive to be providing the same services as you do.

Step 3: Analyze the message.

After you’ve collected the materials, focus on the message of your competitors. What are their promises? Do they have anything different to offer? Do we have anything in common? What formats did they use? Is the design effective? What seems to be the best marketing tool in all that you’ve collected?

Step 4: How can you be unique?

Finally, after gathering all the information from your competitor’s marketing materials and tools, it’s now time for you to create your own marketing campaign that would reflect something unique and compelling in your offer. When you do find your answers, be sure to include every factor that can contribute to your success – your products and services, your operating method, your unique company qualities and customer service attitude, your values, etc. Whatever you learned from your competitive analysis can definitely help you create a remarkable tool that would be able to sell to your target clients.

For more information, you can visit this page on http://www.justprint.com

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About The Author

Charen Smith writes articles about Internet Marketing. She has an extensive knowledge and experience when it comes to business strategies, techniques and business solutions.

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