Focusing on a Niche Market: IronMan Movie

Initial numbers are out, and it’s no surprise… the IronMan movie is owning up the box office. As reported by Deadline Hollywood, here are what the first numbers look like and forecast:

‘IRON MAN’ FIRST SUMMER STRONGMAN: Friday’s $30 Million Dollar Marvel; $80+M Weekend, $30M Intl, 2008’s Biggest Yet

So what does this mean for you? Besides being one of the millions of people that are going to see this movie, why turn it around for once and make money off the movie, while enjoying it! If you have an interest in comics and or just like IronMan, the potential here is amazing. Just look at the Spiderman movie series, they have been marketing and commercializing the heck out of that movie since day one. If you got in early with promoting or marketing Spiderman products, you probably made out very well. Don’t let another Marvel Movie pass you buy without making some extra pocket change, not to mention you will be ready when the sequels come out too!

The IronMan movie has now been released and it’s already going to get massive overflow of people searching online for videos, screencaps, the IronMan story, comics and more… you name it! So how can you start promoting IronMan products or get in on the action. Be creative! Target to your audience and give them what they want. If you are good with ppc marketing, you can setup ad campaigns around IronMan, or you can simply setup an IronMan store and sell products, dvds and comics. Amazon.com and several other Affiliate Programs have thousands of IronMan products.

Another idea is to create a Build a Niche Store site. I created an IronMan comics sites just for the movie’s release. With the new movie coming out, you know there is going to be a huge interest in the comic book series. The creation of this IronMan comics site, using BANS, will also play into my case study for you to follow and watch. For now I have thrown together a basic design using the BANS program to give you an idea of what an out of the box site would look like. As of now, I have just registered a domain and created a header image for the site and will now document and write a tutorial of how I made the basic site into a monetized IronMan dedicated comic and memorabilia site. Through the week updates will follow with screen captures and what changes were made the to site. This should not only give you ideas on how to target to niche markets, but also how to monetize a page to the maximum.

What are your ideas for creating a revenue generating campaign around a new movie? If you are targeting towards a movie that is already bound for success, the branding and audience is already there. You just need to focus on providing a quality products and getting users to your site.

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Introduction to Build a Niche Store

Before setting up your site with Build a Niche Store, you should first know what the program does and how it works. Build a Niche Store is a program that you upload to your web site, which creates a database and admin area for you to easily create an eBay auction resource type site, the program costs $97. (Other alternatives to BANS is phpbay, which is a wordpress plugin and costs $47.) The Build a Niche Store program is focused and aimed towards new comers to web site design, marketers and anyone that doesn’t want to program or play with eBay’s API system. In short, the $97 cost on this software is to save you time and pay for the time spent on creating this product and to access their active members forum.

What is BANS and how does it make money?
Build a Niche Store is a program that you install on your web server, which easily creates sites based on eBay auctions. The basic platform and concept for earning revenue with a BANS site is through the eBay Affiliate Program. Every time your web site generates a new user to eBay or a winning bid for an auction, you earn money. Through this guide I will cover many different ways to monetize a BANS web site, in addition to listing eBay auctions.

What do I need to create a BANS site?
If you currently have your own web site or knowledge on setting up domains and new sites, you are set and should have no problems creating a new site for BANS. If you are new to creating/hosting web sites, you will need a host and a domain name. I recently setup a new hosting account with HostGator ($7.95 a month / unlimited domains) to house most of my Build a Niche Stores. I also order domains through GoDaddy. Once you have your web site hosting and domain available, BANS comes with a very easy to understand guide for uploading and setting up your BANS site.
- If you need a web host, used coupon code “SPRING” at HostGator and save 20%.

How long does it take to go live with a BANS site?
If you are completely new and need to setup your own hosting and purchase a domain, you should be able to go live with your store in less than an hour. (HostGator had my new account live within 20 mins of ordering) If you are already established and know what to do, you’ll have a store up in minutes. Figure two minutes to register a domain, another 5-10 minutes to upload and setup your BANS store, then spend a couple minutes to link/submit your new site to a few indexes or partner sites. In addition to how quickly you can have your site setup, it shouldn’t take long to get indexed in the major search engines as well.

What type of site do I create with BANS?
Without sounding to cliché, the possibilities are really endless. However, from a marketing standpoint, it would be best to target to niche markets that offer high end priced products, or are sold in volume. The more traffic and bids/sales your site generates, the more revenue you will receive. Another crucial factor to think about when creating your niche store, is to choose a topic you are interested in. The advantage to being interested in your topic, is that you will be more motivated to work on the site, and you can write content pages for the site, which will help it index in search engines and give your site users something to read.

Can I see examples of current BANS sites?
When you visit the Build a Niche Store web site, on the right column you will see a section called “Customer Stores“. This area profiles a select group of BANS customers and the stores they have setup. You will see that most of them are just utilizing the eBay affiliate program as a source for revenue. In the next follow up post this guide, I will show you actual BANS sites that I have created and am promoting through search marketing, articles and linking to drive traffic through the site, as well as many different revenue sources added to the site.

Targets towards almost any niche with eBay Auction content.

How do I promote eBay auctions on my BANS site?
eBay has their own affiliate program called the eBay Partner Network, which gives you linking access to all auctions currently running on their network. With the integration of BANS and eBay, your site can easily link up hundreds of auctions and will update automatically along with eBay. Once you setup your BANS site, in the admin area you can provide your eBay Partner Network account information and it will track all existing campaigns and referrals through your site. Depending on your site’s traffic volume, you will earn 50-75% of the revenue for each winner bid placed through your site. You will also earn $25-$35 per new active user sent to eBay.

Who should use BANS and why?
Build a Niche Store was created to make the ease of setting up niche auction stores simple and fast. After setting up your first site and going through the process, you can whip these out pretty fast. Unfortunately, making money isn’t so easy… anyone can create a ton of stores with BANS and hope for the best, but site promotion and monetization are key. I will provide you with many stats and real life examples on how to make the most of your BANS pages.

As for who should use BANS, anyone can use the program to create site, however most will find that it is very simplistic and could be a very good intro for anyone starting out in the web marketing and affiliate space. Though the program is simple, even veteran marketers can make use of the program. If you currently have an existing network of sites and traffic, you can easily setup new niche sites to bring new traffic to. Once establishing your new niche area, you can focus and build it up to a new residual revenue source.

This has been a quick intro the the Build a Niche Store program and what/how it works. While there has been some skeptics on the potential of the program or feel that I am wasting everyone’s time by even writing about it, I feel it definitely has potential and I have been working in niche markets for years and know they are profitable. In the next post on Build a Niche Store, I will use a site I setup with BANS as an example and show you how to target to niche markets, while monetizing your BANS site with more revenue sources besides eBay Partner Network.

As much as I would like for everyone to make money with the BANS program, it just isn’t likely. The program itself WILL NOT make you money, you need to dedicate yourself to put in the time to market and monetize your site. This program makes it super easy to install and setup a new site, but how many people stop there? I wrote this tutorial and guide to inspire and motivate you to go beyond the norm and put forth the time and effort to make money with your BANS store, than move onto bigger and better projects.

In the next follow-up post, I will cover how to focus on niche markets and break down one of my BANS created sites, including how to add new revenue generating sources to your sites.

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