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By Eric V. Van Der Hope
Copyright (c) 2008 NicheSourcing.com

You need to know how to identify your niche.

Find a market with little competition or narrow down your choice of market to a high, particularly focused group that your competitors often neglect.

According to many niche marketing experts, when it comes to choosing a niche market, people really don’t put much thought into the process.

What’s the result?

Well, I’ve more than hinted at it. If you don’t properly research your niche marketing opportunity, if you don’t really think about what your business is going to do to target your niche market customers, the chances are that you and your business won’t be doing very much at all.

When trying to choose their niche market, most people do one of two things. Either they choose to try and operate in a market that is enjoying booming sales or they choose a market solely based on their own expertise, without any reference to the wants/needs of the customers they expect to have.

Of course, there are a number of problems with both of these methods.

To properly identify your niche, you need to know what not to do as much as what to do.

First of all, if you target a market that’s doing well or that’s saturated with opportunities to make money fast, you’re going to really struggle to break in. A “new comer” in an already booming market is several steps behind their competitors and, as hard as you might be prepared to try, it’s extremely difficult to catch up those extra steps.

You’re also going to struggle to get any control in the market. A hot market, in which a lot of money is exchanging hands; it looks really good from a distance, but as soon as you get up close, you realize the struggle is fast and furious. Most of the businesses operating will have larger budgets than you, more staff, and the ability to just do so much more than you within a given period.

Even if you could break through with sweat and blood, why would you want to go to so much trouble? There are so many niche markets out there that haven’t been tapped yet, there’s very little sense in trying to push yourself into one that is completely or close to completely saturated already.

Okay, so perhaps you now leap ahead and make common niche marketing mistake number two.

You choose a market that relates very well to your expertise.

Actually, this approach isn’t as bad as I’ve just made it out to be. You have a chance of making it very big by going into business blind and relying on your skills and knowledge base. You’re looking at a possibility of achieving your dreams, making a lot of money with a business that requires very little work in the end.

The flip side, however, is that you’re also looking at your worst nightmare if – and the odds predict this happening – you miss the mark and don’t, at the end of the day, have a good target focus on customers.

It’s right that you should create a product or offer a service that relates to something that you know a lot about or that you can do very well at.

To be successful, however, at least, to guarantee success, you need to follow a couple of basic rules.

Number one: don’t repeat the mistake of oh-so-many other would be niche market business people. Don’t develop a product that looks great to just you. Don’t go out and spend a fortune on advertising to target all the people you think are dying to buy your product. This is a bottomless pit.

Nowadays it’s way too easy to chase several thousand dollars – sometimes more – throwing all the money out into the universe and sitting back, expecting it to go forth and multiply only to return to you before too much time has passed. Don’t think that money will ever do this.

You cannot just spend money, generate advertising, and expect a product that only you have okayed to sell like hot cakes! 🙂

Don’t jump into any niche market. Don’t make a move until you have considered all of the elements in the market.

So, how do you identify your niche and ensure it can be sustained, but more important be profitable?

That’s a great question and I’ll explain this next . . .

That’s where my 5 “Niche Sourcing Qualifiers” come into play . . .

It’s extremely important to note that success of a particular niche that you’ve decided to concentrate on depends on specific demands, what I’d like to refer to as – qualifiers.

Once you’ve targeted a potential niche, it should at least satisfy 4 of the 5 qualifiers to increase your chance of developing the niche into something sustainable yet profitable! 🙂

1) The niche should be actively searched for on the internet – so it must be a craving market.

2) People must be spending money in this area of the market.

3) There must be at least some competition existing in the marketplace for this product.

4) The product you’ve chosen must have a long-term sustainability in the market.

5) Decide whether you will enjoy your choice if you decide to develop it as a business!

Of course, while you try to find or hone in on your niche, you should also look at the situation for evidence of a problem that people want to have solved or a specific need that could be better addressed. Remember that you can always improve an existing product and let that be the basis for your business.

There is something extremely important here that you should know . . .

Before we go any further, I’d like to emphasize how important my 5 “Niche Sourcing Qualifiers” are. To put it simply – this will ‘make’ or ‘break’ your business depending on how you’ve implemented these factors in your research.

So, this is by far one of the most important lessons you should seriously consider and put into practice to ensure success of your business!

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In order to get a more thorough grasp on these guidelines, I’ve explained this in detail, step-by-step, to further help individuals visualize how important these principals really are.

I’ve even provided a real-life case study of how I regularly use my 5 Niche Sourcing Qualifiers to reveal a sustainable and profitable niche! 🙂

If you’d like to learn more about this as well as get the answers to your most pressing questions, check out my book here:

http://www.nichesourcing.com

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Remember, if you find a niche that can match up with at least 4 of the 5 qualifiers – you’ve struck the ‘mother-lode’ of gold! 🙂

In the next lesson, you’ll discover what techniques you should be using to evaluate the potential profit of your niche.

That’s all for now – I look forward to talking with you further in the next part of my informative yet valuable 6-Day mini-niche eCourse.

Read Lesson #3 by clicking here

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If you missed Lesson #1, you can click here to read it! 🙂
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