Everyone is always talking about niche marketing and how you can make good money if you dedicate yourself and target the right niche. So how are you supposed to know what niche market to target, without wasting your time and ad dollars. Here are a few quick questions and ideas to ask yourself when trying to find and target a new niche market.
2.) Is this a Profitable Niche?
Once you have a few ideas and passions written down, take a look at them and see if there is a high demand or big money being spent in these markets. A very simple way to see if there is a lot of money to be made, is to do a simple Google search, then look at the advertisers on the right hand column. If you are seeing a lot of advertisers, there is usually a high demand for the product or service. Another obvious method for calculating is retail pricing. Will it be better for you to target a less competitive niche market (basketball skills training guides) and sell 100 items and make $10 or each, or try and target an over saturated market (sports tickets) and making $50-$100 per sale?
3.) Is there a Demand for this Niche? Nearly just as important as how much people are willing to spend on your niche product or service, is how many people actually want it. Using the Google Traffic Estimator, you can get an idea on how often people are searching for a specific niche area or product. Not only will you be given estimates on daily search term traffic, but you can also use this tool as another resource to find how much others are paying to market in this niche, by looking at the average cpc cost.
Just using some simple “basketball” related terms, you can see there are multiple niche markets. You have less cost and traffic for targeting toward people that want to “increase vertical leap“, so it would be easier for you to take advantage of a larger portion of this niche market. On the opposite side, you could sell basketball tickets and memorabilia, where the average advertising is paying more money, with more traffic. Map out your passions and niche markets and see which opportunities make the most sense.
4.) Target Towards Yourself
Once again, going back to basing your new niche market on your passion… as a customer, learn to target towards yourself. If you are going to create a web site based on “increasing your vertical leap“, you should have prior / existing relation to the topic. If you were doing a search on Google for the same topic, what type of information would you want to find on the sites you are visiting. Since you are now the marketer and the potential buyer, you should be able to relate to your customers better than most. Create your new site and niche market to cater as much to your users as possible.
5.) Stay in It to Win It If you are going to target to a niche market and find you are doing well with it, I would recommend focusing on this niche area for the long haul. Depending on what you are targeting it may be extremely difficult, or quite possible for you to become one of the main and prominent sites in this area. If you are going to target towards people looking to increase their basketball jumping ability vs. selling sports tickets, you will probably have a lot more success with the prior. Not only will you have less competition from heavily funded companies in search marketing, but if you provide a quality site and/or product in a small niche area, you can get a ton of exposure and sales from word of mouth. Before selecting your new niche market, ask yourself… “Can I become one of the top 5% marketers/sites in this area?”
These are just a few questions and tips to consider when starting in a new niche area. Niche marketing can be very fun and profitable, or very frustrating and a waste of time and money. Before jumping into a new niche market, make sure that you take the time and effort to map out your business plan.
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.
Once again, Market Leverage has gone above and beyond what is expected from an affiliate marketing company. Yesterday I received an unexpected Fedex package, only to find it was a real care package from the Market Leverage affiliate network. I’ve worked with Market Leverage for a few years now, but first met up with Debby Banning at Affiliate Summit West. Since then we have talked frequently over email and I look forward to working with their network a lot more. As for the gift package… it was awesome! Most affiliate networks or companies will send you a gift package which is loaded up with mouse pads, clothes and hats with their company logo on it… which I imagine most people just stuff in the closet. Market Leverage went way beyond the traditional gift care package by sending the following:
The Ultimate Care Package sent by Market Leverage
- A plaque in Memory of Rocky
- USB Pen, Flight Travel Pillow & Kit, Sailing Clock
- Flip Ultra Camera with Accessories (Tripod & Travel Case)
- MarketLevege Hat, Polo Shirt (Nike), Fleece Jacket and Blanket
The dedication that was put together to make this care package was awesome. I’ve received a lot of gifts from companies, but the Rocky plaque and the Flip camera are just amazing.
If you haven’t already, signup to the Market Leverage affiliate network. They just recently designed their site and it is looking great. In addition to a great site design and an amazing staff, they really do have ad campaigns that can make you some big money. I highly recommend using Market Leverage and I’ve been an affiliate with them for years now!
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.
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.
I get emails daily asking “How do i start making money online?” or “How do i get started in affiliate marketing?”. Unfortunately I don’t have to time to answer all of these emails in details since I get so many and only have so much time. I was looking at a somewhat new program last week called Build A Niche Store (BANS). After getting the program and fooling around with it for a bit, I thought it would make for a good intro to affiliate marketing and an easy way for people to get started. Not only can you start making money with the program, by creating your own niche sites, but you can learn about all different types of affiliate marketing as you grow your BANS site.
I’d like for this blog to not only be a resource for successful and established affiliates, but for everyone with an interest to make money online and get started in affiliate marketing. This week I will start a series of posts on how to setup a Build a Niche Store site, implementing different Affiliate Programs, how to target niches markets and how to successfully repeat the process over and over again to eventually provide you with a network of web sites earning you residual income month after month. The BANS software in itself focuses on how to make money off eBay and creating Auction sites. In addition to getting you setup with the eBay affiliate program, I will walk you through all of the different methods and programs you can use to monetize your new sites to the fullest. Not only will I have detailed guides for each topic, but I will also use my own BANS pages to give you examples and walk you through the process, and earnings as my BANS pages establish themselves.
If you would like to get started with creating your own Build a Niche Store, visit their web site for more information and to purchase their software. If you aren’t interesting in using the BANS program, you can still read through the future posts and use the advice and tips to monetize any existing web sites or landing pages you may have. Feel free to post any comments or questions your have that I will try to cover over the series of post due out this week.
There are a lot of ways you can start making money online. One of the quickest and most profitable methods is through Pay Per Click marketing. Please read my "Super Affiliate's Guide to Pay Per Click Marketing" to see if it's right for you. I recommend using the following ad networks to run offers from.
"With great power comes great responsibility".... my Uncle Ben told me that. Haha, just kidding! I'm Zac Johnson and I've been making money online for over 10 years now. In short, I started making money online while I was in high school... but my passion for marketing and making money goes back way earlier than that. I created ZacJohnson.com to help motivate you to start making money online, and live the life the you always dreamed of. [Read my full bio...]
Everyone is always talking about niche marketing and how you can make good money if you dedicate yourself and target the right niche. So how are you supposed to know what niche market to target, without wasting your time and ad dollars. Here are a few quick questions and ideas to ask yourself when trying to find and target a new niche market.
Nearly just as important as how much people are willing to spend on your niche product or service, is how many people actually want it. Using the Google Traffic Estimator, you can get an idea on how often people are searching for a specific niche area or product. Not only will you be given estimates on daily search term traffic, but you can also use this tool as another resource to find how much others are paying to market in this niche, by looking at the average cpc cost.
If you are going to target to a niche market and find you are doing well with it, I would recommend focusing on this niche area for the long haul. Depending on what you are targeting it may be extremely difficult, or quite possible for you to become one of the main and prominent sites in this area. If you are going to target towards people looking to increase their basketball jumping ability vs. selling sports tickets, you will probably have a lot more success with the prior. Not only will you have less competition from heavily funded companies in search marketing, but if you provide a quality site and/or product in a small niche area, you can get a ton of exposure and sales from word of mouth. Before selecting your new niche market, ask yourself… “Can I become one of the top 5% marketers/sites in this area?”
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 
Another idea is to create a 
eBay has their own affiliate program called the 
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.
"With great power comes great responsibility".... my Uncle Ben told me that. Haha, just kidding! I'm Zac Johnson and I've been making money online for over 10 years now. In short, I started making money online while I was in high school... but my passion for marketing and making money goes back way earlier than that. I created ZacJohnson.com to help motivate you to start making money online, and live the life the you always dreamed of.