In this module you will take the first essential step towards launching your online business by selecting a niche market. Choosing a niche market that you enjoy to work in is extremely important. However, it is equally important that the niche you choose has profit potential as well.
It?s important that you do this step right as it can be the difference between a successful online business and one that flops. By the time you finish this module you will have selected a profitable niche market that you?re excited to build your online business around.
To get started you will go through a series of questions and exercises to help you identify a niche that resonates with you. This is important to make sure you are building a business around something that makes you excited to get out of bed everyday and work. Then you will put on your marketing hat to analyze the profitability of your favorite niche topics you?re interested in pursuing.
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Your Interests
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A great place to start is with your own interests. If you can find a niche topic that you are extremely interested in it can be one of the best niche markets you can go after. When your niche is around one of your major interests you will attack your business with passion which is a formula for success.
Start by answering the questions below. This will give you a great indicator of the things you are interested in.
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What niches do you buy products in?
What books and magazines do you read?
What websites are you frequently browsing?
What are some of your biggest passions and interests?
What hobbies do you have?
What would be a business topic that would be a dream business for you?
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Your Strengths/Knowledge
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Next you want to look at your skills, strengths and knowledge base. Maybe you had a job that taught you a very specific skill set. Or maybe you went to school for a particular topic. Or maybe you have acquired some skill set through years of self study.
Whatever it may be you want to identify the skills, strengths and knowledge that you already have. Make a list of all the skills, strengths, and knowledge that you have.
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Testing Profitability
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There is certainly no 100% surefire way to ensure a niche market will make you good money. However, there are a number of indicators of a successful niche market that you can find through research. The idea here is that you want to make sure that people are spending money on the topics you are interested in pursuing.
In the last step you identified a number of interests, passions, skills, and knowledge that you have. At this point you may have quite an extensive list. At this point you want to narrow down your list of ideas to your top 5 favorite.
Once you have your list of five you can dig in and start doing your research. With your research you want to identify a few things:
- People are passionate about the topic
- People are spending money on that topic.
To do this you want to do some searching. A great place to start your research is with a simple Google Search. Let?s demonstrate with an example. Maybe one of the skill sets you identified is that you are good with spreadsheets. To start your research you could do a simple google search for ?Microsoft Excel Course?
While performing this search two very good things popped up! First there are advertisers spending money on the keyword ?Microsoft Excel Course.? This is a great indicator that it is profitable. If people are spending advertising dollars on that keyword there is a good chance they are making an ROI or return on investment on that topic.
See the screenshot below:
Next, you will see that there are also courses on this topic on popular course platforms such as coursera and Udemy. See the screenshot below:
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This is a great indication this niche is profitable. You can also do searches using the following search combinations:
?Keyword books?
?Keyword magazines?
?Keyword courses?
?Keyword products?
?Keyword Coaching?
?Keyword Seminar?
?Keyword Webinar?
?Keyword Event?
Just replace your niche topic where it says keyword and do a simple google search. Such as ?Microsoft Excel Books?, or ?Weight loss webinar?
Repeat this process for all of your favorite niche choices. Make extensive notes as you go through so you can make a great niche choice.
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Choose your niche market
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Now that you have done your research it is time to choose the niche market you will target. Remember, your interest on the topic is important. It’s not all about profitability. If it’s not something that will interest you for years to come you can burn out. You may find that a topic you?re more interested in may not be as profitable as others but it still may be the best choice for you.
Spend some time going through your notes and thinking about which of those profitable business ideas makes you the most excited to build. When ready choose the niche market you will target.
Action Steps
- Identify your interests by asking the following questions:
- What niches do you buy products in?
- What books and magazines do you read?
- What websites are you frequently browsing?
- What are some of your biggests passions and interests?
- What hobbies do you have?
- What would be a business topic that would be a dream business for you?
- Make a list of all the skills, strengths, and knowledge that you have.
- Narrow down your list of ideas to your top 5 favorite.
- Test profitability
- Search your keyword for the following items in Google:
- ?Keyword books?
- ?Keyword magazines?
- ?Keyword courses?
- ?Keyword products?
- ?Keyword Coaching?
- ?Keyword Seminar?
- ?Keyword Webinar?
- ?Keyword Event?
- Make extensive notes on the products and offers you find.
- Choose your niche market
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In the next lesson you will layout your goals and targets. Goals are so important to make sure you stay on task and have forward momentum.
