Competition In Niche Marketing
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.
What Is The Best Niche?
A niche where people are likely to make only one purchase is fine, but only if you can generate the volume to support it. To make more money it is better to find a niche where people will buy the same thing repeatedly, or buy related products.
For example, a friend of mine collects sports cards. As a collector, he is not going to buy a few cards and then stop. This is a niche where people will buy the same thing over and over. On top of that, some of the cards may be very special, creating a need for special display binders. Proper storage is important for the other cards as well. But he also needs to know how much the cards are worth, and try to get an idea of their future value. Of course, to do this he has to be informed about the players on each card which leads to the purchasing of reference guides and perhaps a subscription to a few sports and/or collector’s magazines. So, not only have we established a niche where people keep buying the same things (sports cards), but it is also a niche market where people are likely to buy related products.
Catering to those niches that continuously spend money is part of what will keep people coming back to your site for what you offer. But there is one more thing to consider to get people to return to your site. You need to show people that you know something about the niche if you want to be recognized as an authority that people can trust enough to potentially buy from. That is one reason why when you are starting out that choosing a niche you are interested in will help.
Once you have found a suitable niche, try to branch out from it, but in a logical way. Think about the related products or services your current niche may also like. Check out competitor’s sites to see if they offer related products. Visit and read online forums related to your niche. There will often be discussions that point out ways you could logically add to your offerings.
Marketing to a niche where customers make one or two large purchases may be okay with you, and can put a large sum of money in your bank account, but only sporadically. Each payment may be bigger, but you will have to work harder to keep bringing new people in to buy from you. By finding a niche market that spends a bit here, a little there, and needs another thing, then something else to go with it, you may get smaller amounts, but in volume. While you will still want to seek out new customers, you will be generating income from current customers at the same time.
It’s easy to see that the best niche is the niche that keeps spending money. Go to ProHotList to find what some of these niches are and to stay ahead of the competition.
Niche Marketing Research: The Key To Online Success
Regardless of what the critics say, making money online today is all about niche marketing. That includes finding and exploiting viable niche markets. Building a successful Internet marketing business is an ongoing process of finding hungry markets and offering products & services to them. But not all niches are hungry niches, and without good research, you’re shooting arrows in the dark.
Whether you’re an affiliate marketer or content developer, building AdSense sites or information products; effective niche marketing research allows you to find those hungry markets – the right niches. It’s what separates the successful marketer from those who struggle and wonder why they can’t find any lasting success.
Researching niche markets can be tedious, but it’s absolutely essential. The industry is strewn with countless marketers who skimped on, or altogether skipped, this step. While many gurus will tell you to simply pick a market you’re “passionate about”, many have gone broke doing exactly that. Being passionate about a market has nothing to do with making money. Without proper research, you can expend a lot of time, energy, and resources learning that the market you’re passionate about is too small, doesn’t spend money, or just doesn’t have needs into which you can sell solutions.
Niche marketing research begins with developing a list of potential markets. Websites like eBay and Amazon are good starting points. Your local bookstore or library can also be a good source of inspiration in developing a list of niches to explore. But if you limit your research to simply listing niches, you will most likely join the ranks of those who don’t make it.
The good new is there are many tools to help research niche markets once you have developed your initial list. The bad news is this is where the real work begins. In order to uncover profitable niches and separate the winners from the losers (that will eat up your time & money), you must first determine their relative size, what their needs are, whether they’re willing to spend money to address those needs, and how to get in front of them.
Without this kind of market intelligence, your chances of success are greatly diminished. But good niche marketing research can ensure that all the hard work you put afterwards will have the greatest possible chance of success.
However, there are a few simple things you can do to get an idea of just how hungry your market is likely to be. At the very least, you can see how active it is, and how many people are looking for information related to it. That’s one of the main functions of a site like ProHotList – to identify niches you may not even be aware of, and to gauge how viable they are.
