Yesterday we thought about your business from a consumer’s point of view. You did some research to determine whether there was an unmet need in the marketplace that your business could fulfill. I hope you came up with a nice list of potentail ideas that we can further refine today.
The next step of the process is to find your ideal customers. You want to find a large enough potential market to be profitable, but not so large that you won’t be able to compete with the big guys.
You may have heard of the concept of “niche marketing.” In these days of almost unlimited consumer choices, the only way to be profitable is to aim your business at a clearly defined sub-group of consumers who are willing…indeed hungry…for your products and services. There are four keys to finding a great niche:
- It must be in demand (a reasonable number of people must be looking for what you have to offer)
- It must not be too broad (or the competition to supply the need will be too great)
- It must excite you (tap into your passions, so that you will stay in it for the long haul)
- It must offer exellent potential for ROI (return on investment).
As we discovered yesterday, no matter what kind of business you are thinking of starting, the internet is an invaluable tool for connecting with your potential market. Today, we are going to start playing with some of the key words you researched yesterday to come up with a market that large enough to be profitable, but not so large that you will be swallowed up by the competition.
But before we get started, let me put a bug in your ear about the power of the internet. As we have learned, no matter what kind of business you own, the key to success is finding a unique way to fill a need. In today’s marketplace, I would argue that the best marketplace for marketing that USP is on the internet.
You see, in today’s world with so many consumer choices, the future is about relationships…not products or services. Consumers block out a lot of the advertising pitches they hear. Instead, they head to the world wide web to do their own research about what works.
What are people searching for when they go to the internet? Information, information, information. The world wide web is an information highway, and people who provide high quality information will attract an endless stream of prospective customers for their product or service.
So, no matter what kind of business you are thinking of starting, I encourage you to think about the internet as one of your primary marketing channels. We will talk a lot more about marketing in Week 3. I just want to make sure you include the internet as you plan and envision your perfect business.
So let’s get back to identifying our niche or target market.
Step 1: finding a niche that is “in demand.”
When you did your internet searches yesterday, you probably noticed that some key words turned up thousands of hits, while others had less to offer. How do you know when there is enough demand for your key word concept?
Generally, your broad concept should attract at least a million internet visitors every month. We will have to narrow down from there, but a million provides you with a good solid foundation for building a business.
Here is one easy way to find out how many visitors your keyword concept gets every month:
Go to http://needkeywordtool.com
Type in your keyword concepts (one per line)
Fill in the form designed to filter out autobots 🙂 and click “GO”
You will get a list of suggested keywords, starting with the words you entered. You can use this list to broaden or narrow your keyword concept and explore other possibilities.
Let’s go back to our fly fishing example. I typed “fly fishing” into the keyword tool, and it showed a global monthly search volume of 1,500,000. That is a pretty good number for the broad concept. It also showed that advertising competition on Google adwords for fly fishing is very high. That will be important later when we talk about getting visitors to your website.
Another word that showed up in the list was “fishing,” with more than 15 million hits a month. There is an example of a market that is much too broad for a small business to crack.
Step 2: Narrowing the keyword concept so it is not too broad
As we said, 1 millions hits is nice for your broad concept, but you need to narrow your market considerably by finding keywords that attract a more targeted audience. Most experts suggest that somewhere between 200,000 and 750,000 monthly visitors is a good target.
Going back to our fly fishing example, the key words “fly rod” and “fly tying” fit comfortably in that range, with close to 250,000 hits each. “Fishing lures” also gets more than 300,000 visitors a month. Or if you want to go more general, you could try fishing gear at 450,000 hits per month.
Have fun playing around here. You may come up with ideas that would have never entered your mind without Google!
Step 3: Make sure your keyword concept excites you
This is just a check-in to make sure your research didn’t take you too far astray from your real passions. For example, if our fly fisherman was really interested in chartering fishing trips, the key words I suggested above might not be appropriate for him. He might be better off with a keyword like “river fishing,” with more than 300,000 visitors…combined in some way with a keyword for fly fishing.
Step 4: Return on Investment
Once you have a list of potential keywords, think about the various ways you could make money with them. For example, our fly fisherman could make money by directly selling fly rods and fishing lures, or he could become an information marketer and make money teaching people how to tie flies.
The Bottom Line
To make money from your passions, you have to figure out what you have to offer that others are interested in buying. After all, it is unlikely that someone is going to pay you just for going fishing…although you may figure out a way to make this pay! Tour guide, anyone?
Finding the right angle on your passions may take some brainstorming and imagination, but it is better than starting a business that doesn’t have any prospective customers.
So, go to http://needkeywordtool.com and figure out the niche that fits perfectly with your passions and your customers’ needs. Do it now, so that we can move on to planning your business model tomorrow.
Recommended Resources and Readings
If you are still looking for niche ideas, here are some sites that can get you started.
One of the best-know tools for keyword research is Wordtracker. You can download their free Keyword Research Guide here. You will also find tons of informative articles on their site, http://www.wordtracker.com. There is a lot of information here, so don’t get overwhelmed. Focus on your ideal business vision, and simply try to find the keywords that will help you reach the right target market.
Cindy Battye’s Daily Niche Idea will deliver an email to your inbox every day with a niche suggestion and some products that you can use to generate income from the niche. I don’t generally recommend that you simply cut and paste a pre-generated niche idea, but they are good for brainstorming. If her suggestion happens to fall in line with your passion, you can be sure there is a good market for your niche. Not only that, you can get some good ideas about how to get started. Click the link below for your FREE instant access.
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