You have probably heard it said that if you do what you love, the money will follow.
That may be true if you are in a niche that other people love too. But if what you love is some obscure little hobby that you invented all by yourself, making money doing it could be an uphill battle.
That doesn’t mean that it can’t be done because others have done it.
For example; remember the Pet Rock? Who could have imagined a rock would have such a following. Then there is the phenomenon of the Rubik’s Cube that made its debut in 1974. All these years later it still can hold a person’s attention. This one little thing inspired competitions, and large convention gatherings the world over. So just being unknown or obscure doesn’t mean you can’t make any money in something off the beaten path – it’s just that the probability of success will likely require more work and money to obtain.
How to Find a Niche you (and others) Will Love
The TOP THREE profitable niches are in these groups:
1. Fitness / Weight Loss
2. Romance / Relationships
3. Finance / Making Money
These top three make for a good starting point when determining where your interests are.
Another strong market to look at is hobbies! There is a mass of people spending money on their hobbies. This includes things like golfers, model train collectors, comic book and Sci-fi enthusiasts, scrapbookers, and pet owners. Another class of hobbyist are kit builders like; jigsaws, robots, mechanical sets, and airplanes. Simply find a hobby that has a large number of aficionados that you can serve and sell to.
To help get you started on the research one of the best places to begin your search it to look at the myriad of magazine subscriptions. Basically,if there is a magazine for it, you can safely bet there is an audience. Next, make sure there are products that you can sell them, that will feed their passion, for a very long time. If you know someone with a hobby, you know they can never get enough of their hobby stuff.
Niche Marketing Definition
Niche marketing is essentially just zooming in on ONE narrow facet of a particular market. For example; model builders can be segregated into planes, trains, and automobiles etc. Another example of a large market narrowly niched down is “weight loss”. It can be narrowed into several areas of focus like; men or women, age groups, dieters, exercisers, the number of pounds to lose, and time restraints (like a wedding date to prepare for).
The next step is to narrow these even further by combining the sections. For example; “women over 40 who are bridesmaids at a June wedding and need to lose 50 lbs.” That’s a prime example of a super duper narrow niche! You can easily service these tightly narrowed niches by just tweaking an existing flagship product to suit the purpose.
By narrowing your market you can focus on a specific Avatar and putting your efforts into satisfying one particular aspect. Yes, the pool of prospects is smaller but when done correctly, the response rate will improve.
For example; assume I write an ad that says “Lose all your Weight Free – Today Only!” Running this ad will cost a fortune, it will be shown to millions and the people who sign up may not be the client I am looking for.
The only people who can afford to mass market this way are the huge companies like Weight Watchers, or Jenny Craig. You and I on the other hand need to pick our battles a little smarter than that.
Something more along the lines of “Still Struggling With Your Weight After 40?” – NOW you know who is going to sign up. You can narrow this even more by calling them out directly. “Hey Ladies. Over Weight and Over 40?”. Now you know exactly who you will be communicating with.
How to Do Niche Marketing
Marketing to a specific niche can be through advertising, your website, social media platforms, even through local marketing efforts.
The best thing to do is to really get to know YOUR people. Go into the forums they hang out in, shop at their stores, buy their books and read them. Become one of them and find a way to help them do more, get more, become more through their chosen passion.
When people know they can come to you to scratch their itch, solve their problem, or cure their pain – THEN you know you have become successful in your chosen niche.
