For many of us, niches and ideas are the lifeblood of our business. It can be incredibly
frustrating to run out of ideas, but you never have to worry about it again.

It’s stupid-simple, and requires nothing more than the ability to use a search box.

Go to…

Google
Yahoo
Ezinearticles.com

Then search for…

“3 Ways to”
“4 Ways to”
“5 Ways to”

All the way to,

“101 Ways to”

If you still come up short, then try…

“3 Tips for”
“4 Tips for”
“5 Tips for”

All the way to,

“101 Tips for”

The nice thing about generating ideas this way is that you get more ideas than one per result.
For example, a list of 99 Tips for A Cheap Wedding can become fodder for a whole series of
articles, a content site, or new infoproduct (to name a few).

I am not suggesting, nor hinting, that you should copy anyone else’s work.

Not all of them will ignite the spark, but you can bet the ideas will start to flow pretty quickly
once you get started.

You may think this is so simple it’s stupid. But it’s not stupid. What doesn’t make sense is trying
to overcomplicate things. Why get bogged down, when there are simple solutions to the
problem?

To be clear, I am not talking about any keyword or market research at this point – just how to
get ideas when you think you have run out of them.

Anywhere you look, you can find a niche. Kevin Riley suggests going to the newstand (real, or virtual) and looking at magazines to get ideas. That’s only one way to do it. Watch television and you can find all kinds of niches there. What is that reality show about, what are they talking about on that sitcom, and what problems does that commercial solve? All of the answers will lead to a niche.

There are many other sources that will reveal niches if you are attuned to spotting them. Simply open your eyes and ears, and keep an open mind. Do this, and I bet the next time you meet me, you won’t ask how to find niches, but rather how do you limit how many you find.

Your web business probably gets product inquiries from potential customers around the globe. Inquiries come via e-mail and your web site, and you try to send information to each hot prospect as quickly as you can. You know that you can drastically increase the likelihood of making a sale by satisfying each person’s need for information quickly!

But, after you’ve delivered that first bit of information to your prospect, do you send him any further information?

If you are like most Internet marketers, you don’t.

When you don’t follow that initial message with additional information later on, you let a valuable prospect slip from your grasp! This is a potential customer who may have been very interested in your products, but who lost your contact information, or was too busy to make a purchase when your first message reached him.

Often, a prospect will purposely put off making a purchase, to see if you find him important enough to follow up with later. When he doesn’t receive a follow up message from you, he will take his business elsewhere.

Are you losing profits due to inconsistent and ineffective follow up?

Following up with leads is more than just a process – it’s an art. In order to be effective, you need to design a follow up system, and stick to it, EVERY DAY! If you don’t follow up with your prospects consistently, INDIVIDUALLY, and in a timely fashion, then you might as well forget the whole follow up process.

Consistent follow up gets results!

When I first started marketing and following up with prospects, I used a follow up method that I now call the “List Technique.” I had a large database containing the names and e-mail addresses of people who had specifically requested information about my products and services. These prospects had already received my first letter by the time they requested more information, so I used the company’s latest news as a follow up piece.

I would write follow up newsletters every now and then, and send them, in one mass mailing, to everyone who had previously requested information from me. While this probably did help me win a few additional orders, it wasn’t a very good follow up method. Why isn’t the “List Technique” very effective?

• The List Technique isn’t consistent. Proponents of the List Technique tend to only send out follow up messages when their companies have “big news”.
• List Technique messages don’t give the potential customer any additional information about the product or service in question. He can’t make a more informed buying decision after receiving a newsletter! If someone is wondering whether your company sells the best knick-knacks, what does he care that you’ve just moved your headquarters?
• List Technique messages convey a “big list” mentality to your potential customers. When I used to write follow up messages using the List Technique, I was writing news bulletins to everyone I knew! I should have been sending a personal message to each individual who wanted to know more about my products.

What follow up method really works?

Following up with each lead individually, multiple times, but at set intervals, and with pre-written messages, will dramatically increase sales! Others who use this same technique confirm that they have all at least doubled the sales of various products! In order to set this system up, though, you need to do some planning.

First, you’ll need to develop your follow up messages. If you’ve been marketing on the Internet for any length of time, then you should already have a first informative letter. Your second letter marks the beginning of the follow up process, and should go into more detail than the first letter. Fill this letter with details that you didn’t have the space to add to the first letter. Stress the BENEFITS of your products or services!

Your next 2-3 follow up messages should be rather short. Include lists of the benefits and potential uses of your products and services. Write each letter so that your prospects can skim the contents, and still see the full force of your message.

The next couple of follow up messages should create a sense of urgency in your prospect’s mind. Make a special offer, giving him a reason to order NOW instead of waiting any longer. After reading these follow up messages, your prospect should want to order immediately!

Phrase each of your final 1 or 2 follow up messages in the form of a question. Ask your prospect why he hasn’t yet placed an order? Try to get him to actually respond. Ask if the price is to high, the product isn’t the right color or doesn’t have the right features, or if he is looking for something else entirely. (By this time, it’s unlikely that this person will order from you. However, his feedback can help you modify your follow up letters or products, so that other prospects will order from you.)

The timing of your follow up letters is just as important as their content. You don’t want one prospect to receive a follow up the day after he gets your initial informative letter, while another prospect waits weeks for a follow up!

Always send an initial, informative letter as soon as it is requested, and send the first follow up 24 hours afterwards. You want your hot prospects to have information quickly, so that they can make informed buying decisions!

Send the next 2-3 follow up messages between 1 and 3 days apart. Your prospect is still hot, and is probably still shopping around! Tell him about the benefits of your products and services, as opposed to your competitors’. You will make the sale!

Send the final follow up messages later on. You certainly don’t want to annoy your prospect! Make sure that these last letters are at least 4 days apart.

Following up effectively seems complicated, but it doesn’t have to be! So many potential customers are lost because of poor follow up – don’t you want to be one of the few to get it right?

A lot of misconceptions surround niche marketing. Much of this confusion stems from comparisons to traditional retail businesses. Without question, there are similarities, but the Internet makes entering a niche easy and inexpensive. However, an amateur approach will produce weak results. One thing that is necessary for bot types of business is looking at the competition. Here are the pros and cons of competition when ot comes to niche marketing.

Little to no competition - At first glance new niche marketers will be happy at the prospect of having little competition. The competition can range from hardly any to none at all. What could be better than being one of the select few people buy from, right? Well, there is a downside. Unless you happen to fortunate enough to find an untapped, hungry market then the lack of competition reflects a lack of a market.

Pros: Buyers more likely to find you. Grab larger share of market. Possible trendsetting if first to untapped market.

Cons: Market may not spend money. Market could be non-existent. Less motivation to improve.

Too much competition - Believe it or not, this can be a good thing. It shows that there are people making money in the niche. There is another benefit of a lot of competition, you will have to learn how to compete if you want to stand a chance, and what you learn in the process is valuable, too.

Pros: Shows there are buyers. Will learn more due to necessity. Competition increases quality and ultimately benefits customers.

Cons: Have to really stand out. Harder to attract buyers to you. Takes longer to get noticed.

The amount of competition in your niche isn’t as important as understanding what it means to you. Knowing how much competition is out there is a good, but not perfect, indicator of how large the market is. Research needs to be done to get an idea, but not everyone has the time to do it (that’s the main reason I started ProHotList), yet it’s important. If you’d rather spend your time earning money than on niche research, then a ProHotList membership is a smart move.

To select a niche start out by thinking in general terms. I’m not referring to topics. ‘Cars’ is a general topic, but to start, try being even more vague to find the really juicy niches. Think of what people are looking for when it comes to cars – then drop the specifics. After you are done you will some solid niches, and they don’t have to do anything with cars.

Here’s what I mean. This is off the top of my head, so bear with me.

Make a list of what people want to know about cars. Such as…

How to get better mileage.

Where to get the best deal.

What to look for when buying a used car.

How reliable are they?

How to fix your car.

…and so on.

Now that you have your list, look for the most general parts of it. In the sample above we have the general terms of, ‘how to’, ‘where to’, and ‘what to look for’. Enter these terms in your favorite niche research tool and you will find all kinds of niches you wouldn’t have thought of on your own.

That’s one of the things ProHotList does for you. They not only explore the nitty-gritty specific niches, but also expose some general niche marketing meta-ideas, too. Check it out and you’ll see what I mean.

Remember, this little out of the box technique means you’ll be working smarter, not harder. The niches you find this way just may surprise you.

You can gauge the popularity of any video by the number of views, it’s overall rating, and the comments it gets. The first two are helpful, but the comments are where the real niche gold is. Granted, you may have to wade through a bunch of frivolous comments, but there are sure to be a few that you can use. Any questions for clarification of what is presented, show a need for more information in the niche. Information you can provide.

Here’s a sneaky tip, for the most popular videos in your targeted niche, try to create a an ‘answer’ video related to them. Or, a similar video that uses the same keywords. The idea is to be displayed alongside these popular videos.

Another resource you can use in conjunction with YouTube is ProHotList. Here you will find tons of the hottest and most popular niches. Grabbing just one or two of these could pay off in a big way. It saves you the time of ding the niche research, and gives you more time to have fun making videos.

Once you are ready to upload the video you need to do two basic things. 1) Give it a compelling title. Your video’s title is the equivalent of a sales letter’s headline – make it count. 2) Get as many people to view it as soon as possible. If you have an email list, encourage them to view and comment on the video. In general, you have a 24 hour window in which the video will go viral or plod along. Do your best to avoid the latter.

Using YouTube in niche marketing can help in discovering new markets, as well as reaching current ones. And I would say that is very useful indeed.

1. Stop doing research. While research is important to selecting a good niche, you can also get into a rut where you are doing research, but not taking action. Stop! Your research is done, for now. If you have even the slightest hint of a niche topic then go for it.

2. Stop thinking ‘perfection’. The perfect niche does not exist, so you can’t find it. Some niches may be a better match for you, but you will never know until you try one. The problem is that the niches that tend to make the most money are competitive, while those that aren’t competitive are more risky.

3. You can always get better, but… Only if you start. Don’t be afraid to learn from a lack of success. I like term ‘fail forward’, you take action and keep improving. Nobody gets it 100% right, 100% of the time. Don’t let the fear of failure stop you.

4. You can’t pick the ‘wrong’ niche. Just as the perfect niche doesn’t exist, neither does a completely wrong one. The worse thing that can happen is that you will pick a niche that doesn’t work for you. Good. Now you know to try another one. I can guarantee that the lessons you learn from your first foray into niche marketing will help you immensely in each successive one.

5. Do it wrong on purpose. Now I’ve gone too far, right? Hear me out. Remember, this advice is for those who still haven’t taken that first step. Well, I am giving you permission to do a lousy job. Pick a niche that doesn’t interest you, has no apparent market, don’t do enough research, get an irrelevant domain name, don’t promote it, etc. This will force you to learn some things that you can then apply to a niche you ARE interested in. In other words: If you are going to learn from your mistakes, you may as well get them out of the way early.

Niche marketing has its share of challenges, but it makes it harder if you are your own worst enemy. There is a wide chasm between understanding niche marketing theories and learning from experience – it’s the difference between thoughts results.

If you want tons of ideas and other advice on how to cash in on niche marketing, choosing niches, free downloads, personal assistance, exclusive information and more to increase your profits then visit ProHotList now to take advantage of all your membership has to provide.

How long should you make the guarantee? That depends on the nature of your product. For physical items you have to figure out what the expected life is, and take it from there. You don’t want people returning items just because the item’s time is due. For electronically delivered items, such as eBooks, a longer guarantee offers several benefits. A one year guarantee hard to beat for these reasons:

1. It removes the perceived risk of buying. The person reading the guarantee may even be thinking, “Ha! I’ll just use it for a year, then ask for my money back”. Which brings us to…

2. The buyer may intend to return the item, sight unseen, but thinking they can always return it later. However, after some time they forget about it. This tip will help take care of those who planned on asking for a refund even before making the purchase.

3. Less competition. Few people use a one year guarantee, so you will stand above and beyond them.

Guarantees can be conditional or unconditional. For simplicity’s sake, an unconditional guarantee is recommended. All that means is you will refund a buyer’s money with no questions asked. The conditional guarantee can be effective in some cases, though. A common condition for information products is that the person has to prove that they failed – AFTER applying the information.

Regardless, of the terms of a guarantee, they can make a big difference in the number of sales. Keep them simple enough to understand, but don’t get too hung up in the details.

Above all else, be sure to honor any guarantees you give. If you don’t, you have lost a customer for life. If you do honor them, and do it professionally and courteously, then you just may have made a customer for life.

For example, the ProHotList Forum offers a guarnetee on the membership. Yes, people may take advantage of that from time to time, but that’s okay. What counts is that I can stand behind anything I offer. Check it out now to get tips on the hottest niche marketing, IM advice, money-making techniques, and other member’s only benefits.

1. You have to ask for it. True, there are times when people will make comments because they feel compelled to do so, but this is rare and will not give you enough feedback for real improvement. So, you simply have to ask people to voice concerns, suggest improvements and ask questions. Request feedback from the moment people are first exposed to your offer, all the way until they break the arrangement (such as unsubscribing or wanting a refund).

2. Negative feedback is better than …no feedback at all. And, in many ways, bad feedback is better than the goo kind. Why? Because this is where you get signals on what you can improve. Sure, you will get people who are having a bad day and take it out on you, but even then there may be some truth hidden in their vitriol. On the other hand, you may notice patterns in the messages you get; take note of these.

3. Use good feedback, too. While negative comments can help you improve weak areas in your business, good feedback reinforces what you are doing right. Again, if you spot patterns of good feedback, then be sure to highlight or ramp up that part of your business.

4. Don’t take it personal. Some people are afraid to ask for feedback because they are afraid of what others will say. After all, they have spent their time and money to get up and running. They are invested emotionally, as well. But, if you are afraid of your feelings getting hurt, then you will not go far. A simple way to handle this (besides getting a backbone) is to disconnect your emotions from the equation. Think that this is nothing more than business and that you now have a suggestion on how to do even better.

5. One comment does not a business make. Now, while you need to consider all of your feedback seriously, not all of it should be implemented. You still get to make the ultimate decision about what’s right for your business.

How you ask for feedback is less important than actually asking for it. Let people know you value their opinions. Just be sure to do your best to get those opinions from them – your success depends on it.

If you haven’t yet checked out the ProHotList Forum, you may want to do so now. There are frequent updates about the hottest niches, marketing advice, freebies, and YES a chance to offer suggestions and feedback.

1. Research to get specific - The key to finding a successful niche is to get as specific as you can while still reaching a large enough market to make it worthwhile. But first you have to do the research to see if there is a need and if you can fill it. For example, you may want to target baseball fans. That is too broad. So, on to the next step…

2. Identify who your niche is - This is where you will narrow things down. How old are they? What is their gender? Income? Lifestyle? Profession? Where do they live, work or play? Do they have other hobbies? You do not have to answer everyone of these, but answering a few will get your niche more specific. Professional women over 55 who have blogs, and happen to like baseball is a well-defined niche.

3. Determine how and where to reach them – Now that you know you have a viable and specific niche, you should have some ideas on how to reach them. In our example, we can see that people in our niche have blogs, so using newspapers to reach them doesn’t make sense.

4. Follow through – Develop a written plan and put your information into action. Track your results to see if the niche is bigger or smaller than you expected, and respond accordingly. You have to take action. Understand that there is no guarantee that any niche will respond to your offer, but you never know until you try. It is better to learn what to do better next time than it is to wonder ‘what if’.

Using these four steps will put you on track to niche marketing success. Doing the research is necessary, but there are sites that do that work for you, giving you more time to focus on earning money.