Niche Marketing - How to start a successful
business on the Internet
http://www.newbiehangout.com/articles/niche-marketing.htm
So, you've decided to start your own business on the Internet.
Congratulations! It will probably be the best decision in your life.
Only working for yourself can give you independence, stability and
satisfaction that you always dreamt about. With your own business, you
can define your lifestyle and work schedule yourself. And with internet
business, you can do it with less efforts and more fun. But of course,
as with every other serious undertaking, you first have to educate
yourself, and do it well.
How to make money on the Internet
Everyone knows that the Internet has become something more than the
information source. Today, many people make money on the Internet, and
even more people want to join them. Not all of them succeed,
unfortunately. You must have heard about lots of "dot-bombs", failed e-commerce
startups. They are big in number, mainly because most people don't
devote enough time to self-education.
Another common reason for loosing money on the Internet is the large
number of "Get rich quick" schemes, which all promise large income with
little or no effort, with only a few dollars to spend for some kind of
manual or "program membership". You will never get into this kind of
trouble, if you understand one simple thing:
The only guaranteed way to earn money on the Internet or elsewhere
is through honestly selling a valuable product or service to a proper
audience. Period.
Read the previous passage once again. Think about it. It's pretty
obvious, isn't it? But many people could save their money and time if
they ever thought about that.
So, let's make an important conclusion. To make money on the Internet,
you need to decide what to sell, and then, start your own business.
Someone would say, "But that's all so complicated! I have never been
taught to run a business! I even don't know how to start!" Well, how do
you think, who are those people that run all businesses on the Internet?
Are they all geniuses? No! Geniuses don't happen to be born that often.
Are they some super-creatures, mutants, or aliens from the stars? Not
likely. Most of them are common people like you and us. The only
difference between them and those "dot-bomb" runners is that they
learned more, and they carefully plan their actions. So should do you.
If you don't know what to start from, read the articles on our web site
to learn the big picture, then use search engines to learn the details.
You don't have to be a professional web designer, software developer, or
marketing expert to run a successful e-business. There are lots of hired
professionals who will gladly help you, and there is inexpensive
software that will do all the necessary automation for you. Your
starting investment can range from a few hundred dollars to zero. The
balance here is between your time and money. If you can invest some
money, you can hire some experts or buy some software. If you don't want
to spend too much money, but have a lot of time to learn, then you can
do most of the work yourself, and do with only minimal automation at the
beginning.
In general, if you can read and write (or have someone near you who
can), then you can run a successful e-business. The only important thing
that is up to you in most cases is a good product idea.
There is one more important choice for you to make: should you sell a
product, or your service? There is no single answer, both choices are
viable, and you can choose what you like better, or what you think you
can do better. But there is a large difference between these two types
of business.
When you sell a product, your income is only limited by the target
audience size, and by the efficiency of your selling process. With
e-business, you can automate the selling process almost fully, and free
up most of your working time for more important things, such as business
growth, research, or new product development. Well, when you come to
think you are satisfied with your income and don't need any more growth,
you can simply relax and watch your business work while you are enjoying
your life
When you sell your service, your income is strictly limited by the
amount of time you can devote to it (probably not more than 8-12 hours a
day). And working 8 to 12 hours a day continuously is not much fun, as
it leaves you little time for your rest, hobbies, and family. That's why
we recommend you to try and create a product, even if you always sold
your working time and never thought about creating a product.
If you have difficulties inventing your own product, the least thing you
can always do is "materialize" your work experience. You can structure
and write down the tips and tricks of your everyday work, or your hobby,
and give your readers the advice how to succeed in that field. You can
teach them how to save their time, or how to earn extra money with
little efforts, or something else you think they would be willing to pay
for. Then, you can sell your book on the Internet in either electronic
or paper form. Everyone knows something valuable for other people, and
you are not an exception. We'll describe the process of creating your
own information product in another article.
How can a small home business prosper on the Internet
There are natural differences between large and small businesses. When
you run a small business, you don't have a multi-million dollar
advertising budget, and you don't have a lot of personnel to handle the
sales and other paperwork. The good news is that with electronic
business, you need very little resources to succeed!
The secret here is to find a good market niche, and to create a great
product for it. These two actions are strongly interconnected, because
each market niche corresponds to a product, or a set of products, and
vice versa.
So, what is a "good market niche", and how can you find one? Market
niche is your place in the market, your target audience. It should be
big enough to generate good income, but not too large. You could ask,
"Why? The larger my target audience, the larger my potential income,
right?" Right, to some extent. But you can't be everything for everyone.
You simply don't have the resources for that. So, if you try to take up
too large niche, you'll have to compete large corporations, which is
impossible for a small business. Here is a small example. If you try and
open an online universal book store, you'll never have a reasonable
market share, because Amazon.com works in the same market and has much
more resources. But if you specialize and pick a smaller niche (say, old
comic books reprint), your chances to succeed are much higher. In this
case, your target market will be too small to attract Amazon.com, and
you'll be able to write stylish targeted ads, promote your business in
online comic books community, and do other things that your larger
competition will never even think to do.
And, in addition to having a proper size, a good target market for
e-business should be easily reachable online. This means that you must
be able to locate the specific web sites, online forums, mailing lists,
newsgroups and other forms of Internet communities where your target
audience hangs out. You'll want to advertise in those places, because
you need pre-qualified visitors on your web site. From this point of
view, for example, "Beatles fans" are a better audience than "30 to 40
years old men with a belly", because Beatles fans are easier to locate
on the Internet.
Targeting a small niche also has another advantage: it is easier to
become a recognized expert in a small field. For example, it is hard or
impossible to know everything about all cars, but it is easier to learn
everything your customers need to know about recent models of one
manufacturer of your choice. You can eventually become one of the
world's leading experts in your field, and that will give you the
respect and trust of your customers.
Whatever the size of your target market, you must learn the wishes and
needs of your audience, and find a great product that would solve some
of their problems, or otherwise give them what they want. If the product
you sell to your customers is really great, they will trust you better
the next time, and will be more likely to buy from you again. This way,
you can constantly grow your business not only by attracting new
customers, but also by offering new products to the existing ones.
What should I sell on the Internet?
You can sell virtually anything on the Internet, but there are several
things that tend to sell the best. The first such thing is information.
That's easy to explain. People usually search for information when they
browse the Internet. The information is what they need at that time, so
it is the product they are most likely to buy. Another advantage of
information products is that they are fairly easy to create.
The next best product to sell on the Internet is computer software. This
is also self-explanatory: many Internet users are computer owners, and
they often need some software to solve their problems. It is logical for
them to look for this software in the Internet, and buy it there if
available. Software may not be an appropriate product for most
e-business startups, as it requires special technical skills and
significant resources to produce and support.
Information products and software have one more huge advantage for
startups. They can be distributed electronically. This means faster
delivery time for your customer, easier sales process and smaller
expenses for you.
Of course, you can sell many other things. A good idea would be to sell
your services on the Internet (translation services, or business
consulting, for example). Or, you can use the Internet as a new media
for your previous offline (brick-and-mortar) business. In this case you
can either only promote your products on the Internet, or automate the
sales process and accept online payments.
You'll find more in-depth information on finding a suitable market
niche, and about other aspects of running a successful e-business in
other free articles on our web site.
Helen Salamakha and Val Danilchuk,
Niche Marketing Research Center
www.nichemarketresearch.com
center@nichemarketresearch.com