Market Research to Find a Profitable Niche Market

We all know that you need to perform market research to find a niche market in which to sell information products.  We know we need to do it, but many people are confused about how to do it.

Today we are going to cover some simple ways to get ideas and get going with your market research.

Brainstorming Ideas for Information Marketing

The first thing I tell clients who want to become infopreneurs selling information to a hungry market online, is to start making a list of ideas. Get a notebook, or a recording device, to carry with you at all times. You want to be able to record your ideas as soon as you get them and research them when you need them. For example, when you’re at the mall and come up with an idea for a website or a hot market, write it down, or record it,  immediately so that you don’t forget your great idea a couple of days later. This list will come in handy when you want a new project to work on later and you need a new idea.

Speaking of the mall, a magazine shop is a fantastic place to get ideas.  There are magazines published in every niche imaginable and the the covers will have the hottest trends right on the front covers. You can also go to Magazines.com to find the hottest trends.

The easiest place for newbies to begin, and for the old pros to expand, is to search for desperate people.

For example, if you have an excruciatingly painful toothache, and you have a dentist phobia, you may not want to go to the dentist, but you do want to find a way to alleviate the pain. If you’ve been dealing with the pain long enough, your pain may override your dentist phobia enough to look for some help.  At that point you probably won’t mind forking over the extra cash for an immediate appointment to receive immediate relief from the pain and pressure in your head.

When people are searching the Internet they are looking for the solutions to a problem, or for information about a desire that they have that will make them feel better or look better.

If you have acne you are not going to be looking for information on acne. You already know you have it and could care less about the medical reasons as to why you have it.  What you are going to be looking for is a way to get rid of it. If you find a way to get rid of it you will whip out that credit card to buy that product.

Another example:  If you envision sitting on you back deck looking at your garden while having cocktails, you will be searching for a way to get that deck built. Having that deck on the back of your house will make you feel better so you might be looking for information on how to build a deck or for information on how to get someone else to build it for you. Once you have that deck you will feel better.

Think about all the painful, embarrassing, obsessive, nagging problems that people have, from physical challenges to making money, from looking for a mate to getting rid of stretch marks.

Get the idea?

Once you have a master list of about 100 niche ideas it is time to do your research. Start with selecting 10 of your favorite ideas from your the master list of 100 that you have compiled. Begin your market research by looking for the amount of competition your niche is up against. Your aim will be to narrow these 10 ideas down to 3 good ones to start.

Keep in mind that just because the subject is something that you are interested in, does not mean anyone else will be interested in it. You may think your idea is the greatest idea since the discovery of fire, but will sadly discover that no one else agrees with you.  At the same time, it might be a subject that already has too much competition.

You are looking for a market of hungry buyers wanting to whip out their credit card and buy the information you have to sell.

How Do You Know They are Eager Buyers for that Market?

By the number of searches and the number of ads you find for the subject.

BTW there is nothing wrong with having competition, in fact…..

A Little Competition in Your Keyword Searches is a Good Thing.

“Too much competition and your website will get lost in the sea of websites out there. That ocean is mighty deep and you don’t want to drown!”,

This is what you will often hear marketers say.  This can be true if you want to try to compete with the big gun companies. In a market such as credit cards, you may have a difficult time, unless you have unlimited monetary resources available. Then again, on the other hand, if the competition is too low you will have to put up more micro sites to compensate for the lack of interest, which in turn equals to more time and more work.

Most of the time, you want competition in the niche topic you have chosen.

One of the ways to narrow down your ideas to three topics with your keyword research is to go to Google and do a keyword search of your topic. Look on the right hand side of the page that comes up. If there are a lot of ads listed on the right hand side, then you know that people are buying products in this niche. If there are only a couple of ads, or none at all then it could mean one of two things.

1. The main reason is that this keyword is a topic that people only look for free information, but are not willing to buy.
2. The second reason is that it is such a small niche that it hasn’t been explored yet. In this case, it could be very difficult to market to this group until you become more experienced with your information marketing.

How Do You Know Ads Represent Buyers?

Because no one in their right mind would be paying the high price of ads if no one was buying the products. This is why competition is a good thing. It means that people ARE BUYING products in this niche.

Look for keywords that say “buy your topic name” and avoid anything with free in the keyword search, for the obvious reasons.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R3PaCZybA0[/youtube]

Search your niche topic keyword or long tail phrases using quotation marks “” around your keywords. For example, “dog training”. You want topics that get between 2,000 to 6,000 searches a month. These numbers equate an excellent search ratio for a smaller, lesser known niche for you to target.

Free Keyword Tools from Google

Google offers many freeware tools to assist you with your market research. Here is a list of their free and helpful research tools.

• Google Search Basics – Google Basics teaches you how to get the most out of your searches. I won’t go into it here, as Google explains it very well for you.

• Google Guide - Google Guide is a more advance guide that Google has put out to help make your searching more precise in order to find the most relevant information available. This is a “must read”.

• Google Groups -  Search groups for niche ideas to market. Often you can find the problems that people are trying to solve by researching the group topics. (You can also research your topics in groups at Yahoo Groups, and check out the Yahoo ads at the top of the groups topic page.)

• Google Trends - Google Trends will show you the marketing trends for your keyword phrase.

• Google Suggest – Google Suggest is a tool that many marketers are not aware of, or if they are aware, many times will forget to use it and it is one of Google’s more valuable tools. You can not only type in a keyword, or a long tail phrase, in the main page search box, but you can also click the links to the right of the search box for more Advanced Searches, Preferences, and Language Tools.

• Google Keyword Tool -  Use this Keyword Tool to get new keyword ideas.

• Google Skool – Google Skool is the search-based keyword tool that Google provides to make your market research easier. This is useful as a guide for finding new markets.

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Want to Cut Down on Your Research Time?

There are two excellent ways to do this:

1. Get Micro Niche Finder, which is my favorite keyword research tool. It will give you the “strength of competition” results for finding profitable niche markets.

1. Get a new niche website emailed to you every week from Daily Niche Idea for free. Not only will you get a massive supply of inspirational ideas, but Daily Niche Idea also hands you niche products that you can simply download and turn into income.  They include everything you need to set up a new niche market every week for free.

Looking for Affiliate Programs as Part of Your Market Research

Once you have narrowed your search down to 3 topics you want to find an affiliate product to sell by going to Clickbank. If there are not any products to sell for your niche topic, leave that idea on your main list of ideas, but cross it off your list of 3 as not feasible to pursue right away.  You want to leave it on your main list because even if it is not a good topic now, it may be at another time in the future as trends change. You may also want to create your own product for it in the near future.

Go to the next topic on your list of  now 2 and search the Clickbank Marketplace again. Decide which one of these 2 markets you would like to start with. If none of these last 2 ideas have an affiliate product, go back to your original list to try again.

The bottom line in Market Research is locating a market of buyers FIRST.  Don’t try to put the cart before the horse.  Find yourself the river of money first and then bring along a bucket to scoop it up.

If you can find a market to take over, you can literally go crazy and do practically whatever you want with it.

Answer To: “What is the Easiest Way to Find a Niche Market?“