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Niche And Grow Rich

by André Anthony

Unless you've been living under an Internet rock, you've probably heard the buzz about Niche Marketing. Right now it's the hottest marketing topic online.

Is it a new concept?

Well on the Internet maybe, but if like me, you've been involved in direct response marketing in the 'Bricks and Mortar' world then it isn't—that's the way we've done things since time immemorial.

So what's this Niche Marketing thing all about?

If you have ever taken Marketing 101 then you'll have heard of the old marketing adage: "Find a need and fill it"— that's what "Niche Marketing" is all about. Finding a "focused" group of people, with a specialized interest, eager to buy (The Niche) and promoting a suitable product or service to all those interested in buying it (Marketing).You can easily profit from niche marketing by providing these people with products, services and information that helps them to solve their problems. The following method will help you uncover several of these problems, wants, and desires in several niche markets.

Let me give you a few examples of these niches:

Recipes
Golf
Fishing
Health and Fitness
Travel
Collectibles
Dating
Dog Training
Satellite TV
Beauty Tips
Astrology
Cats
Bartending
Alternative Health
Hand-poured Candles
Gourmet Foods
Gambling
Mortgages
Credit Cards
Music
Jewellery

...the list just goes on and on. Any subject is like to have a niche market for it, but the name of the game is to find a "tightly focused" niche. The above keywords are just main headings. There are niches within each of these niches...

The reason for this is the more general the market is, the harder it is, if not impossible, for the little guy to gain a market foothold when the competition is fierce.

When you narrow down the size of the market you eradicate most of the heavy hitters with bottomless advertising budgets, because these guys aren't interested in making a few thousand bucks a year from these tiny specialized markets, they're after millions from mass markets...

And let's face it if you're a little guy you simply can't be everything to everybody, so you must pick a specific focus (niche) for your business. For example don't target "Fishing", instead target "Fishing Baits" or "Fishing Lures" both of which have a much more specific focus...

Get the idea?

Once you narrow down the size of the market you have an automatic advantage over larger companies. Here's why:

* You can quickly become an expert in your niche (if you're not already)
* It's easier to keep current with a narrowly focused market niche
* You can respond faster to changes in the market
* You can build close relationships with key customers that will be hard to compete with

This is something I learned from experience—if you're interested you can read my story here.

By now you're probably wondering about the mechanics of this niche marketing stuff. In a nutshell here's how it works:

* Find and research profitable niche markets
* Locate or develop suitable products/services to market
* Set up a web site to market the products/services
* Establish a marketing system that works for you
* Repeat the process over and over again with a different niche each time.

Imagine having a niche site producing one sale a day at say $20. That's $7300 a year. How many sites could you set up and run? 10, 20...?

But before you get too excited, I have a word of caution for you:

Niche marketing is not a magic bullet. It isn't a matter of putting up a website and then sitting back and waiting for the money to roll in. "Build it and they will come" may have worked for Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, but it doesn't work that way on the Internet. If you do that you'll be waiting a long time.

If you want a successful niche business, you have to work at it just like any other business—prepare to put in the effort and build up the income level until it becomes significant.

Copyright © 2005, André Anthony, Niche Market Know-How

André Anthony has been running his own businesses on and off the Internet since 1983. He owns and operates Niche Market Know-How a resource for beginning Niche Marketers. Visit http://www.nichemarketknowhow.com today to find strategies, tips, tools, products and resources for effective niche marketing. Get his free Niche Market Know-How Course here: http://www.nichemarketknowhow.com/course.htm.

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