I'm going to use shock-and-awe here to illustrate a point.
It's the Saving Private Ryan Omaha beach scene. If you've ever watched the movie, you'll know this scene well. It won an Oscar for Best Cinematography.
Warning: If you're at all sensitive to death and violence — then don't watch the clip. It's hard core. I still remember the scene from when I first watched the movie some 10 years ago. It has been etched in my mind ever since.
Here's my point of the blood bath scene above.
Picking a niche to target is where I see most people stumble … and get shot down.
Sadly — because this key component is right at the beginning of the money making process … it's typically the single biggest reason why people fail right out the gate.
I recently did a consult. Chad was having problems. His niche wasn't making him a cent. He had tried everything. It was like trying to squeeze water from a rock. He was frustrated. So he booked a one-hour consult with me.
Five minutes into the conversation it was clear to me why Chad was fighting a losing battle.
He's a very clever guy. He's a professor at a State side university. He's been messing about in "IM" for a number of years already. He's not new to this business. He knows a lot.
Yet … Chad had made a rookie mistake. He chose the niche he was in because it was close to his heart. He knew a lot about it.
He didn't validate whether the niche had other marketers successfully operating in it (selling similar stuff to him).
I asked Chad if he had checked if other advertisers were selling similar stuff to him on Google?
He said he had checked on ClickBank and there were other merchants selling ebooks. This niche was also a hot topic in the news … so he just "presumed" everything was sweet.
Rookie mistake. "Presumption is the mother of all …"
So I asked Chad — if your ideal customer was searching Google for the information that you sell — what would they typically type in?
Response … job interview and interview questions.
Quick Validation Test #1
I went to Google. Typed in the two ideal search queries…
Bar one … no advertisers. Not good. Not good at all.
Quick Validation Test #2
Next I went to the Google Keyword Tool …
After the quick Google AdWords test … it wasn't surprising to me to see these results in the Google Keyword Tool. No (very low) competition (across the board).
Never a good sign. Not good at all.
Chad: Oh wow! Obviously I've never looked at this.
We didn't need to dig any further. I had revealed why selling information to this niche was so hard. Sad part though … Chad had spent the best part of 8 months writing his ebook.
Listen … I'm not suggesting that it's impossible to sell stuff to these people. But one thing is for sure — it won't be easy.
Why battle like this?
Why … when there are so many other markets and niches where there are tons of hungry and desperate buyers.
Here's a quick glimpse of how I go about identifying and picking a killer niche…
About a year ago I wrote about how to identify an audience. Read/reread that page before continuing here. Do it now. Then come back here.
The biggest tip I can give you is this …
… instead of starting with a product in mind — like everyone does — start by identifying an audience that has a specific need (solve problems).
Did you get that?
Never start with a "product" in mind … and then attempt to find an audience to sell it to. No. That's not the most effective way to approach niche selection.
Identify the audience FIRST. Find out what they are ALREADY looking for … then simply give it to them. Really doesn't need to be much more complicated than that.
"…the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself." — Peter Drucker
Locating pockets of people potentially looking for solutions, can require some out of the box thinking (hint hint!). Some general starting points could be…
where to buy *
how to stop *
how to lose *
how to *
how to become *
how to reduce *
how to improve *
how to remove *
how to get rid of *
… but also dig deeper and get specific to uncover the real gems.
Also read here where I list a number of killer resources I use to find audiences with needs.
Once you've identified a few potential "need based" audiences … run them through the to two quick due-diligence tests I listed earlier to check for commercial viability.
For example, one of my searches revealed a high demand for "how to jump higher" information (presumably for basketball).
From the quick validation tests, this niche looks promising…
- #1 — this is obvious. Decent competition exists across the board. Always a good sign.
- #2 — this is less obvious. People searing for "jump higher shoes" obviously aren't looking for information per say. But it makes for a great angle if a little "out the box" thinking is used. Not the place to discuss this here tho (too public). But it's something I'll talk about to my insiders.
So to recap…
- Identify a potential audience with a very specific need.
- Validate (look for healthy competition) and check for demand.
- Now find a product (solution) to satisfy the needs of this audience…
A quick look in the ClickBank Marketplace reveals this Vertical Jump Training Manual in position #3 in the Health & Fitness > Strength Training category …
A bit more digging on YouTube revealed this video…
… where Jacob Hiller (the author of the ebook) says he's doing between 500 and 1000 ebook sales per month — and doing over a $1 million/year in total sales.
That's demand validated too now :)
Click here to continue… (Page 5 of 8)
