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

Now that you’ve made it this far, I’m going to assume that you are serious about profiting from the many niche markets that are available and ‘ready for the taking’, by offering these potentially hot ideas to a ‘hungry’ market.

At this point you should already have a product idea as well as evaluated its profit potential. If you’ve followed the previous lessons then you know that the fastest way to get your niche product online and or developed, is to get it outsourced or developed by experts in your niche. You should basically be ready or have your idea close to completion before you start with my 5-day plan!

So lets review a step-by-step procedure that’ll put you on the road to a successful and profitable business!

Before I get started with this process, there are a couple things that you should have a clear understanding on – I’d like to refer to these as my 5 Guiding Principals:

1. Don’t try to be perfect! By getting your product out now – your opportunity to make money will begin sooner . . . obviously! 🙂

So don’t painstakingly troubleshoot every conceivable situation before you decide to publish and or launch it!

If you need to make minor modifications to your product, you can always do it after!

You should always, either before, during or after your product is developed, test it. By testing I mean test your presentation/salespage with different browsers, test the product itself, test the purchase and order procedures and test the delivery of the product itself.

2. Keep things simplified – you don’t need another J-O-B! One of the biggest advantages to doing business online is that it can be mostly automated! The less you have to be involved in the day-to-day tasks, the more time you’ll have for yourself and ultimately the more profits you’ll make as a result. When you get one online niche business running, you move to the next business thus creating multiple streams of income.

3. Be cautious with your advertising dollars on untested ideas and or products until you’ve seen the actual conversion numbers. I assume you are a small business so spending money left and right would not be in your best interest. Any unused or extra money you have from your advertising budget can be used towards other marketing efforts.

4. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket – don’t allocate all your money on one idea alone. This especially holds true of individuals new to the industry. There can be alot of built-up excitement and hype with the next great product. Big industry guru’s are always promoting products and claiming enourmous amounts of money being made. In many cases this money is being made – but this has taken enormous amount of time, effort and a considerable large list of people knowing about it!

Remember, this is a legitamate business you are starting so it will take time to build a solid foundation before you start producing a substantial amount of money.

With all the hype in much of this industry, it not surprising that many individuals quickly spend way too much money for something that is completely worthless. So be mindful of what kind of decisions you make that could directly affect your personal life when it comes to managing a career and your money.

5. Invest in your education. Look, I’m not saying go spend $25,000 on an Internet Seminar when you are just getting started. There are some great guides that you can purchase for under a few hundred and even under $50. I personally started out reading Internet related books and courses by Corey Rudl (and other very reputable marketers) and attended several of his seminars! That was several years ago but it built a foundation. I will give you some information later on that will point out some of the best education courses and books that I’ve reviewed and that I am reviewing now.

Starting a business can be daunting, however – it doesn’t have to be! It can also be very enjoyable as long as you have a plan and know where you are headed.

As long as you can make forward progress, as little as those steps may be – your chances of success multiply exponentially! 🙂

With that said, let’s start with Day 1.

DAY 1 OBJECTIVE: To register a domain name and get hosting setup.

Registering a domain name should not take more than a couple of minutes.

Here are some reputable registrars:

http://www.Domainorb.com
http://www.Domain.com
http://www.Godaddy.com

There are others – you simply have to choose which one you’d like to go with.

If I had to recommend one I’d go with Domainorb.com, simply because that’s who I use (and I’ve never had any problems with their service).

Much thought goes into deciding your specific domain name but this lesson does not get into that detail.

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If you’re curious to know what the most important requirements are to domain name decision making, I go into much more detail within my book: http://www.nichesourcing.com.
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You will find most often than not that most marketers encourage picking a .com name – there are just so many out there and when most people think of domain names – they think .com!

Once you’ve registered your domain name, you need to host it somewhere – yep, a Host!

Hosting can cost you anywhere between $0.00 to $150.00! Yes, a wide range.

At a minimum, the host that you’ve decided to use should offer the following (Again, I go into much more detail within my book which you can review here – http://www.nichesourcing.com):

1. The host should not be cheap! (What you pay for is what you get!) So, your host should be reasonably inexpensive. What I’ve had the most success with is in the $24.00 to $25.00 per month range.

2. Should provide an unlimited amount of POP email accounts.

3. Offer full FTP access.

4. Server space – should provide at least 500MB – 1000MB

5. Data transfer, also known as bandwidth – at the very least you should be given 50 – 100 GB of data transfer potential per month.

6. Provide ability to turn on/off Frontpage Extensions.

7. Your host should provide a web statistics program so that you can monitor different aspects of your site. Do not underestimate how important this is!

The host I’ve had the most experience with and who I’ve had the least problems with is:

http://www.thirdsphereplus.com

Here are some discounted hosting sites, however remember that cheap doesn’t mean good – you get what you pay for!) . . .

Here are a couple reputable (inexpensive) hosting companines to choose from:

http://www.1and1.com
http://www.Godaddy.com
http://www.ipowerweb.com

Once you’ve choosen your hosting company, you need to make sure that you point your domain name to the hosting company server. Usually you get instructions on how to do this once you receive your welcome email.

Once this is complete, you may have to wait for your domain to propogate throughout the internet network. This can take up to 48 hours but I’ve experienced as little as 15 minutes!

Now in most cases this will be limited to a 24 to 48 hour time period. So this is a good time to start designing your site and choosing the content.

This leads us to our objectives for Day 2 and Day 3.

DAY 2 and DAY 3 OBJECTIVE: Site Design and Content

This is where most people have difficulty!

If you are going to outsource your website design/content, you have to make absolutely sure that you get this done by someone with experience in Direct Response Marketing.

There are many website designers out there that feel they are the best – that’s just great . . . however, you can have the coolest looking site on the net but if it doesn’t get your visitors to buy your product – what’s the point of spending your hard earned money to get it done?

Before you decide to outsource, make sure you get someone who is familiar with direct response marketing and has done this type of work for others.

If you feel you can do it yourself, pay particular attention to my Salesletter Quick-Action Reference Guide. This’ll give you a solid foundation for your salesletter.

http://www.nichesourcing.com/salesguide.pdf (Will be Available shortly!)

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For detailed instructions and free software on developing a responsive salesletter, then you should read my book: http://www.nichesourcing.com! 🙂
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Your website should be at most 2-3 pages in length – no more.

Here is an example of what I’m referring to:

1. Your Main Page/Home Page (The Sales Page).
2. The Order Page.
3. The One Time Offer (OTO) Page.

You want to keep your website simple enough for your visitors to understand what it is that they should do there!

What’s that?

To buy your product of course!

As you create and build your 1-page website – ‘think simple’. You can always make improvements on what you have after you actually put your website up. Once it’s up you have time to test it and tweak it to your heart’s content.

Check out the following for good examples of responsive mini-niche sites using the 1-page salesletter approach:

http://www.yourparrotwilltalk.com
http://www.nursinghomesecrets.com

Marlon Sanders created an automated software that makes it incredibly easy to develop a salesletter for niche sites!

I highly recommend it – you can check it out here:

http://www.pushbuttonletters.com

If you feel you cannot do this yourself or with the assistance of automated software, then outsourcing is your best option.

There are a couple of sites that would be extremely beneficial to you if you decided to go this route:

1. Elance.com – http://www.elance.com
2. Rentacoder.com – http://www.rentacoder.com
3. Guru.com – http://www.guru.com

More often times than not you’ll be able to post what you are looking for and have many bids within hours of your posting!

A simple example for posting your project could be something similar to this: Design a simple 2-page mini-niche site with a header, footer, background and book cover. Model this minisite after the mini-niche site examples provided earlier. You should request completion within a 24-48 hour period.

Most if not all the time you will begin to receive bids that will include samples created for you to review and choose from. Depending on the request, the bids can start coming in within minutes to a couple of hours!

It wouldn’t be unusual to start receiving the rough drafts of the work you requested from the bidders within 24 hours of your posting.

Usually, you can expect to pay around $125.00 to $200.00 to get your project completed. If you are lucky, you can get it done for less.

Tip: If you decide to outsource, always make sure that your project is completed before you make your final payment!

DAY 4 OBJECTIVE: Set up a merchant account and prepare your Marketing Strategy.

I highly recommend that you set up a Paypal account if you haven’t already (It’s also free to do so.).

http://www.paypal.com

Other 3rd party merchant account providers that you may want to sign up with are (there is a small fee to set up):

http://www.clickbank.com
http://www.2checkout.com

Now, it’s time to start researching and implementing a range of different marketing opportunites starting with the following:

1. Pay-per-click search engines

There are a couple good companies you can choose from:

Google Adwords – http://www.google.com/adwords
Overture – http://www.overture.com
Findwhat – http://www.findwhat.com

2. Ezines – Ezines are electronic newsletters.

In order to properly use ezines in your marketing plan, you have to make sure that what you pick is related to your niche. Ezine publishers constantly look for new content so you can put together simple, short articles and submit it to them.

There are practically hundreds if not thousands of ezines available.

In order to find the ezines for your particular subject, you can use any search engine and type “ezines + your niche” and you’ll be on your way to finding good ezines.

However, one of the best resources that can make your research extremely simple and less time consuming is the Directory of Ezine (a.k.a. DOE). This is by far one of the best tools you’ll ever find that lists hundreds of Ezines and Publishers and includes detailed information on individual profiles.

http://www.directoryofezines.com

3. Forums – Where people go to talk about what interests them the most, whether it be their hobby, a passion, their expertise, whatever!

Also, there are hundreds if not thousands of forums as well! In order to find a forum for your particular niche, follow the same suggestion as above but type in “forums + your niche” in any search engine.

DAY 5 OBJECTIVE: Begin testing and tweaking your website as well as putting additional emphasis on growing your marketing stratadey.

Start Day 5 by going through all the links on your site and make sure they work. This is a good time to make a few test orders to make sure everything is working properly. You may have to do this several times if you are not getting the right results!

The following is a list of additional marketing options you have to promote your site:

1. Add an Opt-in form (to collect email addresses) to your site.
2. Develop your own Affiliate Program.
3. Search for Joint Venture partners related to your niche.
3. Exchange links with related sites.

Your objective is to find sites that sell products and services that will compliment your own. While you are visiting these sites look for contact information so that you can get in touch with the owners of these sites. By emailing or calling the people associated with the sites you’ll be able to find out if they have ezines or affiliate programs of their own. This will then give you the opportunity of cross promoting and sending each of your offers to your readers and or customers.

This cool ‘tool’ will make this process a no-brainer! (It’s Free):

http://www.alexa.com
http://www.betterwhois.com

If you’ve gotten this far reading this lesson, then you have proven to yourself that you are ready to learn how to build your own legitamate business. I go into much more detail within my book at: http://www.nichesourcing.com. This’ll take you from foundation to completion and improve your chances of success exponentially.

In the sixth and final lesson, you will learn how to scale your niche market business through duplication and multiplication.

Read Lesson #6 by clicking here

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If you missed Lesson #4, you can click here to read it! 🙂
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