Web Marketing Business Tips

Making money online all comes down to one thing…

Choosing your niche.

Choosing the right niche is the key to online business success.  Most Internet Entrepreneurs try to start an Internet business by marketing to anybody and everybody.  When it comes to marketing your own business and products and services online, you must choose one niche market to deliver your marketing messages to and stick to that specific area of market focus.

Finding the right niche for yourself and building a business out of it is the only true way to online success.

Here’s three steps you can take to make sure you choose a niche that fits you perfectly so you can begin your journey to getting rich like the online success stories you read about.  Remember, it’s a journey.

Step #1 - Niche Idea Generation

The first thing you must do is niche idea generation.

Begin by writing down what you are most passionate about in life.  The things you like talking about most would be a great place to start.

Whatever you never seem to be quiet about once you get going on the topic is what should be at the top of your list in the form of topics, hobbies, skills, and interests.

Your goal is to get about 20 different ideas of niches you may want to build an Internet business out of written down on a sheet of paper or saved in an easy word processor like Microsoft Word, Note Pad, or even Open Office Suite.

Step #2 - Niche Idea Research

The second step is to begin researching your niche.

The first thing you want to know is if it has a good chance of being profitable.  Find out how profitable it can be by simply finding out if your niche market is large enough in number, easy to reach with your marketing messages, and has money to spend.  Simple do a few searches through Word Tracker, Click Bank, and Google to find this info.

The second thing you want to know is what it is already willing to buy.  Browse through the bestsellers lists on Amazon and Barnes&Noble as well as ClickBank Marketplace and see which titles are selling most.  The topics of those titles is what your market wants.

Check each niche idea that has passed the research in step #2.  If a market passes this initial research we can now make absolutely sure these markets are not only profitable for others but will be profitable for you.

Step #3 - Niche Topic Testing

Thirdly you must test to see for sure whether your market is going to buy from you.

Go to ClickBank.com and pick out a product in your niche that is sold primarily through affiliates - something that has a high gravity of about 80%.  It should also be high enough in price to recoup a small investment or break even – around $49 or so.

Advertise your affiliate link for that product in Google AdWords and drive about 400 visitors to the site for a low cost per click.  Your goal is to get a .5% conversion rate.

That means that one out of every 200 people will buy your product through AdWords.  If they do, you have a profitable niche on your hands.

Now all you have to do is build an Internet business in one of the niches that passed all three steps.

That’s how you make money online and get rich in your niche.

If you have been online for any amount of time you may be having a period of time when people just don’t seem to buy. In fact, they aren’t even taking the bait.   They aren’t even taking your free offers and subscribing to your squeezepages.

While I do believe that in almost any business you will have slow times you may be suffering from any one of these scenarios…

#1 Your Market Isn’t Profitable

Many times businesses fail because they market they enter into just isn’t profitable. This can happen for a number of reasons, but generally comes down to how much money is circulating in the market, how big that market is, how much of their capital is actually spent on that area of business, how much of their capital is expendable income, and how easy it is to reach that market.

If either of these situations are in effect, you will definitely see lackluster sales. Many in the internet marketing crowd are seeing this same thing happen. It’s not because the market isn’t there, it’s because it isn’t profitable (at least…not without joint venture relationships).

#2 The Economy Is Down

These days gas prices are still on the rise and show no signs of stopping nor does anyone seem to know how to stop it. Everyone has their opinion. Now, this isn’t going to turn into one of those political discussions by any means, but the point is, in a recession people tend to cut back.

They spend less on what they want (unless it is a very strong desire) and make sure to meet their basic nessesities.

You can no longer sell people something that has their interest, you have to capture much more than that. Your market must have a “must have” desire. They should be able to easily say “I need that widget like it was my last breath”.

Many times this can only be taken advantage of if you are targeting people’s problems and meeting them there all the way. Leveling with them and harping on the problem until they can’t take it anymore. Only then do you offer a solution.

This may sound counterintuitive, but far too often businesses are focusing on their solutions (self focused marketing message) rather than the market’s hardest problems (market focused).

Focusing on the problems of the market is key to making the sale. When the economy is in a downturn this way of thinking and operating your business is essential. It should control what is put inside every communication you have with your prospective customer.

#3 Nobody Has A Burning Desire for What You Have

If you have ever heard the phrase “I could sell ice to eskimos” think again.

The truth is, even the greatest copywriter/salesman in the world couldn’t do such a thing. If your market doesn’t have a burning desire for what you have, you won’t see anything move.

When you have a headache you take an aspirin. These days, you don’t just take an aspirin, you take Bayer. If you have a splitting headache you take Excedrin.

Even the pharmaceutical companies have it right. In fact, they have there core fundamentals in place so well that every commercial they put on television 95% why you shouldn’t take the drug and all the problems it can cause you, yet because they target markets with a burning desire they still make a fortune.

You see, people tend not to care about anything else when they have a splitting headache than to get rid of the headache. If someone is suffering from erectile disfunction they don’t care about the cancer it can cause or the heart-attack it has an 16% chance of causing, they know their marriage is in danger, they want to please their mate now.

They need that pill. They need that solution but only because they have a burning desire stemming from a very serious problem.

#4 You Are Not Marketing Your Business Effectively

Ouch.

God forbid you have everything else right but get this fundamental key to success wrong. Marketing.

I’ve heard it said, “Nothing moves without a sale”.

So many products, companies, and small businesses online and off that have superb customer service, all of the above is in place just perfect like a newly finished jig saw puzzle.

Still no sales. Why? It hurts to even say. It is even scary at times, but marketing is the most important job a company has.

How many great restarants start up with the absolute greatest tasting food but shut down three months into business? About 95%. How many retail stores get great locations, are even located in the business of the city, but shut down and walk away with piles of debt to show for their efforts within two years? About 95%.

The statistics are sad, but I’ve seen it happen first hand. The best pizza joint in town where I live (Midland Michigan) shut it’s doors because it couldn’t stay in business.

Truth is it was in the wrong business. It was in the pizza business. It should have been in the business of marketing it’s pizza business. Can you believe it?

Not one promotion, not one ad, not one flyer, not one phone call. No coupons showed up at my mail box. They just opened their doors and said “Come on in!” They might as well as said “We have ovens, cash registers, and friendly people”.

It would have gotten them the same results. After studying and collecting dozens of folders worth of marketing messages from the real world, that is exactly what most restarants are telling their prospective clients. The clients then hear, “We have nothing great to offer you. We just want you to walk in and give us money because that’s why we opened our doors to you in the first place. Deal?”

It goes the same way for your business. If I may so eloquently end with a wonderful quote uttered by P.T. Barnum…

“Without marketing something terrible happens. Nothing!”

Today is the day when Americans celebrate their independence.  We do a multitude of different things to accomplish such an amazing feat, but here’s three things you can do to make your 4th of July an absolute blast.

Throw A 4th of July Barbecue

I love nothing more (other than the fireworks and good times all around) than having a huge barbecue full of food, fun time, hanging out and relaxing with friends, having games and such, with all of my family and really just celebrating our country’s independence.

Having a real good barbecue really seems to draw everybody closer together.  After all, the 4th of July is all about relationships, care, and nurturing your existing relationships.  It reminds you what war is really all about.

War is all about bringing peace.  Without war, our country wouldn’t have it’s independence.  Let’s fellowship with one another today and forget about our Internet businesses.  If it weren’t for the past, we wouldn’t have our freedom to barbecue and enjoy life today.  In a sense, we wouldn’t be building our own Internet businesses.

Hot dog anyone?

Have Some Back Yard Fun

If you think you can enjoy your 4th of July without a few games of cards, bad mitten, slip and slide, table tennis, horse shoes, croquet, and ladder golf (sometimes known as hillbilly golf, hillbilly horseshoes, redneck golf, and bolo toss) you are dead in the water.

These games not only bring families and friends together, but they up the ante on 4th of July fun.  I like to call them “friendly” competition games

You can do girls versus guys, chicks versus chicks, or dudes versus dudes.  Dudes versus dudes is fun because we like to all be the best dudes (and we aren’t distracted by the chicks so we play a better game - LOL).

Bring a few of these games to your backyard and it’ll be sure to spice up your 4th of July celebration.  Just don’t forget, anything you can do to bring people to celebrate your business and company online is a great idea too.  You can apply this sort of thing to your Internet business for increased traffic or even use fun as a tool to relax everybody in your organization and bring them together.  I know Google tends to do this every day by bringing all their employees outside for a private fun game of volley ball. 

What can you do to get the juices flowing and the body rejuvenated?

Did Somebody Bring The Fireworks?

Okay, no 4th of July celebration is complete without firing one off (and I’m not talking about that rumble feeling you get after you eat all of that barbecue).

Fireworks are great family and friendly fun.  You can do all sorts of things with these things for literally everyone in every age group.  Get the sparklers, the flares, the worms, and the bottle rockets.

If you are Chinese and normally don’t celebrate your independence until October 1st, Australian and don’t normally until January 26, Canadian and don’t normally until July 1st, celebrate with us Americans anyway.  Let the world know we can come together in celebration.

Enjoy your fun and enjoy your independence.  Happy 4th of July to all and happy Internet marketing!