How to Finding Niche ?

Finding a niche is a big part of any successful campaign, but can also be an unnecessary setback for new Internet marketers.

There are many different avenues you can go down to find a niche, and today we are going to uncover one that is not only very powerful, but it can be done with minimal work (and is fun!).

This is something we like to call the “how” technique.

Have you ever had a problem or an issue that you were looking to fix? Chances are you have. We run into problems on a day to day basis, whether it is job-related, health related, technology or something related to your personal life.

As an Internet marketer, you can leverage this. Any problem usually has a solution. People are willing to pay for these solutions and as an online marketer you can take advantage of this.

Think about some common problems that people face:

Losing Weight
Getting Rid of Stress
Quitting Smoking
Fixing a slow computer
Learning How to Use Their New mp3 Player
Getting Dog to Stop Barking
Getting Rid of Athletes Foot
Learning How to Make Money Online
Getting rid of wrinkles
Clearing up acne
Rebuilding a dirt bike’s engine
Making vehicle more fuel efficient

These are just a few. The list could go on and on.

People run into issues every day. Whether it is their slow computer dragging them down, they have “debt” piling up, or they need a solution to a health issue they are having, where there is a problem, there is money to be made.

So how do you go about leveraging this as a marketer?

One of the best ways to research problems is to use a question and answer site. There are now several of them out there, but the best ones are:

http://answers.yahoo.com
http://wikihow.com
http://ehow.com

Here is the process for researching:

(1) Type in a keyword related to the industry you are searching
(2) Create a list of all the questions people are asking within that topic
(3) Probe to find the hot button (people search for a how, but behind all of this there is a “why” …why does this person want to lose weight
(4) Formulate a campaign from your findings

Now, how do you actually apply this? We are going to give you an example of how you would research something. For this, we are going to look into something that many people are struggling with right now, “unemployment”.

Step 1: We typed the search term “unemployment” into wikiHow, eHow, and Yahoo Answers.

Step 2: We recorded a list of all the questions related. Here they are (in no particular order).

How to cope with unemployment?
How to relocate a business?
How to get more job security?
How to cope with being fired?
How to survive job layoffs?
How to get out of debt legally?
How to file an unemployment claim?
How to apply for unemployment benefits?
How to calculate unemployment?
How to prepare for unemployment?
How to overcome unemployment?
How to collect unemployment in [state/city/country]?
What happens to unemployment if you become pregnant?
Can I collect unemployment if I work for a non-profit?
Does my unemployment income count when applying for a home loan?
How do I report my unemployment benefits?

..and this was just the start? We could have literally come up with 100’s of more questions, but for the sake of this example we have kept it to 16.

Step 3: Now that you have all of these examples, you need to search for the why? People are asking these questions “why”?

The most obvious one is that they are asking it because they are losing their jobs or have already lost their job (in most cases) and are looking for assistance. One thing you quickly understand when reading their questions in full is that they are in a financial bind?

Your job as a marketer is not only to help these people by “informing” them, but also to give them a solution to the root of their problem. In this case, the root of their problem is being unemployed…and the resolution to their problem will vary from question to question slightly, but the consensus is that these people want to make more money.

Step 4: Now it is time to build a campaign around your findings. You understand people are looking for unemployment, but now you need to inform them via your web page and offer some advice and insight as to how to resolve the problem.

These are a couple of resolutions to this problem (these ideas were taken from the responses):

-get employment assistance (unemployment)
-find a new job
-make money leveraging new avenues (like the Internet)
-register details with a temp agency
-strategies for saving money
-apply for welfare

Then you could probe this industry even further. This was just a simple and broad search under the search term “unemployment”. What if you took terms relevant to this like “find job”, “fired”, “lay off”, “employment” and applied the same strategy? You search would expand, your understanding of the niche would expand, and the insight would allow you to create a much more profitable campaign.

we are going to take this one step further and show you how to advance these research skills by leveraging something that is common to all of us.

The THESAURUS!

http://thesaurus.reference.com/

In part one, we took the example of using “unemployment” to find information as to what problems people are looking to resolve in relation to the search term “unemployment”.

As you and I both know, there are many different terms out there that have the same meaning as the root word, employment.

In this situation, we are going to use a different example however, showing you the exact process.

Let’s take a phrase, say “more money”. Using the thesaurus, we can find a bunch of terms that mean the exact same thing.

We plugged “money” into the thesaurus. Here was the result:

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/money

Now you add:

more + money_synonym

…to create your list of phrases (that you will then use with the 3 “how” sites).

Here is what we came up with:

“more money”

“more cash”

“more dollars”

“more loot”

“more green back”

“more coin”

“more bucks”

“more wage”

“more wealth”

“more riches”

“more salary”

“more dough”

“more pesos”

Now we follow the same process as before, using our generated list of “same meaning” search terms. Plug a few of these into the sites below and you will get a much more diverse set of results.

http://answers.yahoo.com
http://wikihow.com
http://ehow.com

Again, here is the process for researching:

(1) Type in a keyword related to the industry you are searching

(2) Create a list of all the questions people are asking within that topic

(3) Probe to find the hot button (people search for a how, but behind all of this there is a “why” …why does this person want to lose weight

(4) Formulate a campaign from your findings

Now instead of just one keyword, you have 13 search terms to type in that are all similar and will give you much greater insight into an industry and the problems that people are looking to resolve.

Q & A Sites + Thesaurus = POWERFUL NICHE RESEARCH

Hope this gives everyone a new tool in the arsenal. We are going to expand on this within our next blog post and show how you can incorporate some free online resources to expand on your “how to” research.

Until then, take care.

A “Buyers” Strategy…

What is the whole point of Internet marketing, or for that matter, marketing in general?

The goal is to turn a potential buyer into an active buyer.

The great thing about Internet advertising is that it is much more measurable than offline channels like TV commercials, magazine ads, and newspaper ads.

It looks like this:

Offline is not as predictable:

Traffic –> Product Awareness/Branding –> Website Traffic (??)  Conversion (where did it come from) –> Campaign ROI (not sure)

Where as the Internet provides much more decisive and predictable results:

Traffic –> Landing Page –> Conversion (YES/NO) –> Overall ROI

You know exactly which campaign and more times than not, which keywords are producing the sales within your campaign. This is powerful because anything that is measurable can be improved upon.

And…

Anything that can be improved upon, can increase your overall profits! Powerful stuff!

So, back to the core message of this post…

There are ways to expedite the process of turning a potential customer into a customer. Often times people do not even know they are a potential customer because they have not found the product they are looking for yet.

And sometimes people will never become “buyers” because they are either looking for “freebies” or they are much too early in the buying lifecycle, the information phase.

So how do you catch people late in the buying lifecycle? These are the people that already have their credit cards out on the table and are waiting to buy, or those people who are in the product review process and just need to find the “best fit” to what they are looking for.

I pretty much answered the question in the last sentence.

(1) People with their credit cards on the table

These are people that are probably the most serious buyers. These people are hungry to buy something, almost like buyers on Boxing Day, Black Friday, or Cyber Monday (three of the best online sales days of the year).

How do you trigger these people?

The easiest route to buyers is to target the “buy”, “purchase” and “order” keywords. For example, you could target the broader source of the keyword, like:

“buy 42” plasma TV”

Or you could be much more precise (and deliver a much more precise result):

“buy Panasonic TH 42” Widescreen Plasma”

Either way, your keywords will be attracting buyers. If you can deliver a product that fits their search, then you will be leveraging people late in the buy cycle. Note that the more relevant you are, the easier it is to convert.

What about starting your keyword research with buy type keywords? Let’s plug a few keywords into the free Google keyword tool and see what we get.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Typing in the term “buy”, these are a few of the results:

-buy prescription drugs
-buy songs
-buy vista
-buy used car
-buy a psp
-buy a Nintendo wii
-buy software
-buy contacts
-buy pictures
-buy flash
-buy a tv
-buy life insurance
-buy Mario cart
-buy bicycle

You could then elaborate on this search, but typing “buy bicycle” or “buy a psp” into the search. The more niche specific you get, the easier it will be to deliver the most relevant product, thus leading to higher conversions. You could also use this with the “order” and “purchase” and even “sale” or “cheap” keywords.

(2) People in the review “state” of the buying cycle

As consumers get smarter, the research they put into each and every purchase tends to increase. There are an abundance of reviews, ranking sites, forums, and blogs out there that discuss products and give overall product information.

Attracting people in the “review” state is also a great way to catch people further along in the buying lifecycle. People tend to get informed, review and then buy. If you can offer someone a quality product review or recommend another product and give the reasons why, you will likely be able to achieve a much easier SELL.

The types of keyword phrases that people search for in this phase are as follows:

PRODUCT A review
Compare PRODUCT A
Does PRODUCT A work
Review of PRODUCT A
PRODUCT A Scam
PRODUCT A Rating

Replace PRODUCT A with any product and you have yourself some great keyword phrases that will target people in the “review” state. These people convert and usually do not need too much more convincing before they buy.

For example:

Wealthy Affiliate Review
Compare Wealthy Affiliate
Does Wealthy Affiliate Work
Review of Wealthy Affiliate
Wealthy Affiliate Scam
Wealthy Affiliate Rating

Or you can work in the reverse to come up with some “niche” ideas. Use the Google Keyword tool again for this.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

I typed in “review of” into the search and here is what I came up with:

-review of digital cameras
-review of 21
-review of Nikon coolpix
-review of Twilight
-review of vista
-review of refrigerators
-review of mattresses
-review of gas grills
-review of finance
-review of Bluetooth

These are just a few. You could then elaborate on this research by isolating one of the searches like “review of digital camera”.

Here were the corresponding results:

-compact digital camera review
-review of canon digital camera
-review of Panasonic digit camera
-review of sonic camera
-review of beach camera
-review of best digital camera
-etc.

That alone is the start of a highly relevant, high converting campaign. You could do this with pretty much an topic you want “review of anti-spyware”, “review of ppc ebooks”, “review of tractors”…ANYTHING!

So, in order to look for buyers, you need to know where they are “hiding”. We have given you the two best ways to find and capitalize off of consumers whom are late in their buying lifecycle.

Now go try it for yourself (I think you will like the results).