Straight off the back of our last Social Media training webinar, I was asked to supply a little more detail of niches to market to.
As I said on the call, before you start any marketing campaign, you have to discover (rather than decide) a niche to target in your marketing.
I have always said that our best niche in this industry is the MLM or Network Marketing niche for a number of reasons. Firstly, Mike Dillard says so (he probably knows a little more than the average person on this subject , people in the industry already have an understanding and acceptance of the business model, and for the most part, they also have little or no understanding of professional online marketing methods.
But you do not have to exclusively market to this niche, and it is a very important skill to understand how to uncover a potentially profitable niche.
If we have built a sales funnel for you, you already have the Coffee House Letter landing page customized ready to go. But as you develop your marketing skills, you will want to learn how to develop your own pages and speak to other niches if you choose to.
So the exercise I gave you to determine whether there is a niche where you think there is follows…

1. Is my prospect experiencing emotional pain/ frustration and an urgency to address it? Or do they have an intense or irrational passion?
You can see that we are looking for heightened emotional states here. A lukewarm attitude will not trigger a person to make a buying decision.

2. Is my prospect actively looking for a solution to this problem or challenge?
Again, action will be triggered by the intensity of emotion and desire. If the prospect is not actively looking for solutions, they are not that concerned about the problem.

3. Does my prospect perceive there to be very few or no options to solve their problems?
In other words, how competitive is this potential market?

4. Are there at least one in one thousand people actively looking for a solution right now?
This relates to the demand for your particular product or service. It is true that there is very good money to be made in very small niches, but that being the case, your marketing has to be absolutely spot on to achieve sales. If the niche is a bigger one, you are more likely to make a sale even if your marketing is not polished to perfection.

If you went through those questions and scored mostly “yes” answers, then it is likely that you have identified a potential market which may be profitable.
Your next step is to identify the specific (that is a key word here) emotional needs and desires of your prospect and identify the strong unmet need they have.
Your offer must be positioned to address the unmet need and then find out where your prospects are looking for solutions and answers. This is important so that you can meet them where they are looking in the market.
This is where Attraction and Information marketing comes into play. When you have identified the above, you can supply your prospects information and advice that solves their unmet needs.
So ask yourself the following…

1. Where does my prospect have an emotional/ irrational need driven by a strong fear or desire?
Remember, people are more motivated to act in response to pain or fear, than pleasure.

2. What is the unmet need that I can solve with my knowledge?

3. How can I offer my knowledge and skills in a way that solves their unmet needs?

4. Where is my prospect searching for solutions to their challenges?

It has been identified by Eban Pagan that there are basically three “mega niches” online which most searchers fall into.
They are Relationships, Money and Health. Obviously, our area of interest is Money, but this is far too broad a niche to consider as is.
So Eban has gone a step further and identified what he believes to be growth areas within the Money mega niche. I have listed them below. The brilliant thing is, they are extremely complimentary to the WMI product range. So get your thinking caps on about how you can work these into your marketing.
1. Real Estate
2. Foreign Currency (“FOREX” trading)
3. Investing (perfect for M3 consultants – the VRA newsletter is part of this level of membership)
4. Retirement (again – perfect – people are worried – as they should be – about their retirement savings and want to learn how to safeguard themselves financially)
5. Debt – huge – perfect for M1 consultants – the M1 is all about managing debt, getting out of debt and managing money
6. Starting a Business (MLM and Network Marketing market)
7. Making Money
8. Marketing (especially online) – great way to leverage the BiB sales part of your system
9. Time Management
10. Getting a Job

So get away from your screen, grab a piece of paper and a pen, and start writing down what products you sell (including your affiliate products). Separate them into specific potential niches where appropriate (be as specific as possible). Then start to create a profile of your ideal prospect in each niche.
From this point you can choose one (again – I recommend you start with MLM – it is competitive, but it works), and do your research as described above.
Cheers,
Tan

It is typical when people start out in a new business venture that they are ramped up with excitement about their enterprise, their product or their service. Completely understandable, and we’d have to say that if you are contemplating a business for which you have no particular passion, you are going to have a very hard time of it.

But what far too many new entrepreneurs fail to do, is determine if there is a market for what they have to sell, that is likely to be profitable. This is a critical error, which will kill a fledgling business straight out of the gate.

This is where it is important to understand the concept of the niche, how to discover one and how to “speak” to your niche having determined that it does indeed exist, and is actively searching and hungry for what you are bringing to the market.

So firstly, what is a niche?

A niche market is a focused, targetable portion of a market.

Another common trap for new marketers and business people is to try and market their message to anyone and everyone. And this comes back to the fact that they are so enamored with their product/ service themselves.

But there is a very common saying in marketing that “if you try to appeal to everyone in general, you’ll attract no-one in particular”.

Think about it for a minute.

If you were the owner of a golf shop, would you try and spread your message about your latest driving club, which increases your range by 23% to absolutely everyone?
Of course not, that would be an incredible waste of your marketing resources. Most people would a) not have a clue what that even meant or b) could care less.

You would want to speak to your specific niche, which is golfers. And you would want to drill even further into that niche by putting your message in front of golfers with a specific pain or problem (i.e. they want to improve their drive).

Can you see how specific that is?

Because at the end of the day, you don’t want your business to be crowded out with people who are “just looking” or “scratching an itch”. You want to draw in a crowd (and it doesn’t even have to be a huge one, especially if you are selling a high value product) of prospects who have a burning passion or desire for your product or service, and are ready to purchase.

Another vital tip…identify what pain these prospects are experiencing, which has them searching for a solution. As business owners, that is what we do. We solve our prospect’s particular problems with our products or services.

Humans are wired to avoid pain, rather than seek pleasure, so identifying and appealing to your prospects’ pain points (using negatives in your marketing message) is incredibly powerful and far more effective than using positives.

So. Think about your niche.

Who are these people?

What are their passions?

What are their pains or problems?

Are they actively looking for a solution?

Where are they looking for a solution?

If you can isolate these elements, hook into their pain and the emotional triggers which will prompt them to buy, and match them with the product or service you have to offer, you just may be in business.

Cheers,
Tanya Outridge