Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Four Ways To Use Niche Marketing

Niche marketing is being used a lot by businesses to help them succeed in the over crowded Internet marketplace. The Internet has allowed for business start up being easy and makes running an online business almost automatic. This means there is even more competition than ever for customers.

Niche marketing solves that problem. It is a way to focus your attention on a single group of customers that is most likely to buy your product or service. This group is going to be the most loyal and they will make up your biggest profit base.

Once you have done your research and defined your target niche market you have to learn how to use it to your advantage to make your business successful. Here are four ways you can use niche marketing to boost your earning potential.

1. Advertise where your niche market is most likely to look. A niche market is going to be people with similar backgrounds, ideas and interests. It shouldn't be too hard to define some places where your niche market is most likely to frequent.

2. Say the right thing. You have to talk to your niche market the way that they talk. For example, if your niche market is a teenager, then use some teenage lingo and speak to them in a way that they will understand. Do not talk down to your niche market, but rather go to them on the same level and communicate with them. If you need help find someone in your target niche and ask him or her for his or her opinion.

3. Make sure you are addressing a unique need. You want to stand out from your competition and address a need that nobody else is addressing. You may have to do a little market research to find out what people want that they are not getting from the current products or services that are already available to them. But it will be well worth your time.

4. Make sure the price is right. The whole point of finding your niche market is so that you can cater to their needs. One of the most important things you can do is to make sure that the price you set for your product is one that your niche can afford. If you are selling something to a niche market that is in a medium income bracket then you don't want to price your product for those that are in a higher income bracket or you will lose sales.

Making the most of your niche marketing efforts is essential. There is no point in using niche marketing if you are not going to take all the necessary steps to ensure you are using it right. Niche marketing can be very successful if you do everything you can to ensure you are taking full advantage of it. Once you find a hungry niche market you will discover that it was well worth all of your time and efforts.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

How to Find the Right Networking Marketing Opportunity

You finally decided to join the thousands of others who work from home. The home business you decide to pursue is network marketing.

Now, before you just up and join any network marketing company that looks good on the surface, seems to have a good product, etc. and so forth, STOP! Why stop? Because there are crucial steps you need to take to avoid being in the 93% failure rate of most people who join a network marketing company. Follow these tips and you will way ahead of many other home-based business opportunity seekers.

Tip #1: Commit to doing your research FIRST. I can't say enough how important this is. Starting a home-based business is a big decision and should never be done hastily and without careful thought. Commit to doing 5 or 6 hours of research on a number of companies. This one simple tip can greatly increase your level of success and save you years of frustration, being scammed, and most importantly, quitting.

Tip #2: When looking at a network marketing opportunity, make sure the product the company promotes meets the needs of a hot and hungry market. In other words, whatever company you are looking to join, make sure there are people out there clamoring for the product and would buy it even if there were no business opportunity associated with it.

You see, many people get so emotionally attached to a product or outcome that they totally miss the importance of seeing if there is even a market for it. If there is no market, you will have no success at all.

Tip #3: Use Overture. When researching if there is a hot and hungry market for a product, Overture.com is a great way to see how many people are searching for any particular product or service in a given month. If your research shows only 1,000 people are searching for a product, it would be a waste of time for you to join a network marketing company that sells it. However, if you see searches for 30,000, 50,000, 100,000 or even more, you are on the right track!

Tip #4: Check out the competitors of a product. Go the search engines Yahoo, Google, and MSN and look at the first 10 companies that are listed. If the first 10 are the same company, it's not good. However, if there are a variety of companies selling the product, this is good because it means that there is more of a demand for it.

These are simple strategies and tools you can use to research if the network marketing opportunity is worth your time and money. If you follow these tips, and your research shows the home-based business opportunity is worth pursuing, go for it!

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

What is the Foundation of Your Marketing Business?

If someone were to ask you what the foundation of your Internet Marketing business endeavors consisted of, would you have an answer? If you find yourself hesitating for even a moment, then it may be time to review this age old concept and analyze how it impacts your online ventures. From a very early age, we were all taught that a building is only as strong as its foundation. This analogy was usually used when teaching a life lesson - whether to enforce the importance of a strong foundation in matters of family, emotions, friendships, education, or business endeavors. And for brick and mortar businesses, the concept of a solid foundation is usually not lost on most people either. When it comes to online marketing however, this principle often eludes Internet Marketing Professionals. The apparent reason is the vast amount of options and diversity of revenue streams that are available and the ease of their implementation. Because it is much easier to institute an online business than a traditional brick and mortar, the importance of creating a solid foundation is often overlooked in the swiftness of the inception of new niche products or marketing efforts. In Internet Marketing circles, you frequently hear a lot of talk about the importance of focus, and this certainly touches upon the concept of creating a solid foundation; but just being admonished to maintain focus is not going to suddenly manifest a solid foundation for your online pursuits. The idea behind a foundation is to uphold the entire structure. When Internet Marketers are told to focus, what should really be stated is the importance of focusing on the foundation. Not just focusing on a given product, or a specific project or a dedicated niche. To the contrary, the foundation of your online business is the glue that holds your products, projects and niches together. You don't have to look far to see the effects of a lack of foundation. In fact, all you have to do is listen to the panic that ensues every time Google has one of their infamous algorithm changes. This is akin to putting all of one's eggs in one basket and has caught many a marketing guru in the proverbial cross. With Internet Marketing, the prospect of laying a proper foundation is a double edge sword. On the one hand, it is not advisable to jump from one project to anther; but on the other hand, it is critical to stay current with trends and technology. While trying to maintain a balance between these two, you walk a fine line in establishing a solid foundation that will be both dynamic as well properly grounded. Whether you have been marketing online for a while or are just beginning to assess your place in the Internet Marketing world, take stock of the direction you are going and where it may leave you in the months and year to come. For example, when choosing a niche, by its very definition it is based upon consumer demand. And that demand is largely dependent upon current fads, available technology, market need or some combination of all three. Regardless of whether you choose to serve that niche through email marketing, affiliate programs, blogging, or authority sites, in each instance you will be rising to meet the current trends. So using the above example, a typical scenario would be to capitalize on a niche topic like MP3, podcasting, or something similar. However, the moment that technology makes these things obsolete and replaces it with the latest and greatest electronic wonder, the profitability of this niche would swiftly decline. If however, you choose a niche such as consumer electronics or audio video equipment, then your foundation would remain much more solid and have the ability to stand the test of time. Establishing yourself as an authority in the consumer electronics niche -- albeit through promotion of iPods, MP3s and podcasting today -- gives you the reach for incorporating anything else that may turn to favor tomorrow. These are the types of things that need to be considered when addressing a proper foundation for your Internet Marketing endeavors. Utilizing this method of reasoning will insure longevity and to do otherwise will insure only short term success at best.