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.
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