Great Niche or money hole ?

The other day, my mom shocked me. She asked me what a niche market was, and since she is not an online marketer ( doesn’t turn the computer on regularly enough to use email ), this question appeared quite out of the blue. Perhaps I should not have been surprised because in the area of marketing but particularly online marketing, this term is showing up more and more frequently. In truth, one of those late night, “Be the next internet Millionaire” scams that airs at 4 am for those with insomnia, also trumpets this term.

So, for the newbies amongst us, what is niche marketing? Can we eat it, buy it, use it up or make the ecology green with it?

Perhaps its best explained by first discussing what it’s not. Niche marketing is not marketing to a mysterious marketing segment called niche, nor is there a product called niche that a huge underground swell of people are clamoring over insurmountable walls to get. Nor, is there usually a department within any major corporation that has a position open in their niche marketing department. So don’t call Human Resources at your local City Council and ask for a position in their niche marketing department. Sorry, just had to get that one out of the way, lol.

Niche marketing example

I am going to make up a definition on the fly here. Niche marketing is marketing that is directed very specifically at a very narrow vertical market segment. So, let’s try this one.

Marketing to those that buy - Basketball shoes. Niche or not? Not - Michael Jordan running shoes. Niche or not. Not (What did that surprise you?) - Michael Jordan HighTop running shoes. Niche or not? Feeling the sun yet ? - Michael Jordan HighTops signed by the great one himself . Niche or no Niche? Jackpot !

This last example sounds like a niche for sure. It has a narrow focus and we have eliminated several wider approaches to our target audience. So, should we run out and stock up on these specialty running shoes in anticipation of the demand?

If you want to lose your shirt go ahead! That was a joke, don’t do it. Please don’t think I slipped and just told you about my huge money maker and have now decided to take it back. Further from the truth we could not be. We have an unproven premise here.

The prior example was just that. An example of the narrowing market segment that a niche market might end up in. That wasn’t even the process used to find a niche market so please don’t jump on that one. Even if half a dozen sports friends asked me for that product next week, I would neither stock nor drop ship this product for reasons that you will soon know.

So, did I just give you a really bad Niche Market example?

It might be and maybe it wasn’t but we don’t know that yet. When doing this kind of research one has to remind oneself that people use specific key words when searching for a product or service. Only the search engines, search engine tools ( like wordwatcher ) really know what is being searched for. And unfortunately only niche marketing software tools can give one the market intelligence needed in order to make a business decision.

If we know how many people are searching for the product and how many competing websites there are, isn’t this enough information to quantify this as a niche product? Wasn’t this what groups traditionally used to make their decision in the past? Well, it was, but its not enough anymore. There are tools out there now that can make a newbie 10 times more efficient and powerful than the traditional analysis used just 6 months ago.

Perhaps you are experienced and know that this was not the process used to find niches. Perhaps you are still using the tools inside google adwords, or google trends or wordwatcher. They are time tested and have worked wonderfully for the past few years but a newbie using a niche market tool and having little or no knowledge of the existing search tools from Google could blow you and I out of the competitive water in less than 5 minutes.

A software based Niche tool can be an extraordinarily powerful piece of arsenal for someone investigating this area. Most tools gave you competitiveness based on the number of sites that had the keyword in them, but most of us know that our search phrase is already on millions of websites but just a few hundred of those might be competitively attempting to get traffic based on that keyword. A Niche market tool, intuitively understands this and in this specific area searches for keywords in the titles, urls and domain names and comes back with a ranking. It can frequently open clickbank and other affiliate sites with your exact keywords to find affiliate products. Sometimes, these tools also understand article marketing and may directly find you an article for reprint.

Finding Niche Products is now so easy, even a newbie can do it. It does not require the in-depth type of intelligence that former adwords professionals used to use. Follow the links back to my site for lists of possible tools that you can use.