Can Any Niche Be Profitable?

Not all niches are alike. Some are more profitable than others. Some groups are more “window shoppers” than “buyers”. You need to look at your audience and see if they’re willing (and able) to spend money for the solutions they’re seeking. As an example, targeting golfers is going to be profitable than some because in general golfers have deep pockets because the game of golf in itself is expensive. They’re also rabid fans of the game who would do anything to improve their score or beat their competitors on the links.

But another niche, such as single moms on a budget may not be willing to pay $67 for an information product showing them how to get organized. Sometimes it depends on the solution itself. Targeting this same niche of single moms, you may find some are willing to pay $47 for an eBook that shows them how to make more money working from home than they do in their regular 9-5 jobs. One good place to start is with online groups and forums. You can go to iVillage or Yahoo and see what kind of groups garner the most posts. Men’s groups such as AskMen might give you insight into what kind of information products this portion of the population might need that help you generate a handsome profit.

A Good Target Niche Has Lots of Problems

You’re not just looking for a broad group of people to cater to – you’re looking for those with a lot of problems. When you start creating your information products, you’ll want to build an empire of products that all focus on the same niche, allowing you to market to existing, loyal customers who buy from you time and time again. Sometimes, you’ll find one large niche and then realize you need to build your information product line around a more targeted, narrow niche of people. For instance, parents in general have many problems you could address, such as raising smart kids, dealing with discipline, and saving money. But you can then narrow that niche to moms or dad and dig deeper by focusing on parents of multiples or parents raising kids with physical ailments. Just remember that an information product is not really a product at all – it’s a solution, so it needs to be marketed as something that will improve the lives of others, not just yours!

Tip #1  Make sure you’re actually tagging your keywords. 

Do you spend a lot of time optimizing your content and then neglect to tag them on your webpage?  Tags are where search engines look and if there are no tags they’ll pass right by your web pages.  Here’s a quick brief on tags.

There are a number of tag types including,

Title tags. 

Title tags are quite possibly the most important place to situate your keywords.  Here’s what they look like – <title>Primary keyword phrase here. </title>

Your title tag is where you place your primary keyword or keyword phrase.  The sentence will describe your business in less than 90 characters. 

Header Tags. 

Header tags are next in order of importance to search engines.  They’re ranked in order of importance and look like this – <h1>Primary and/or Secondary keywords here</h1>

      The “1” designates this header as the most important header on the page.

Meta Tags.

Meta tags provide the small descriptive text found underneath the title tag on the search engine results page.  Like title tags these should be kept brief, informative and up to date.

Alt Tags. 

Alt tags are used to provide a text description of a graphic.  Each graphic on your site should have a description and an alt tag. 

Tip #2 Add content to your site daily

Content is essential for traffic and a top search engine ranking.  Content is what search engine spiders look for and index – without it there’s nothing to index or rank.  Give visitors and search engines a reason to visit and index your site. Make a commitment to provide daily, optimized content and your traffic will soar.

Tip #3 Procure valuable and relevant incoming links

The more websites which link to your webpages the more valuable search engines perceive you to be, though not all links are created equal.  Search engines give more leverage to links from sites which are popular and credible and from sites which are relevant to your website topic. 

There are different types of links.

- A direct link looks like a basic website address, for example, www.yourwebsite.com

- A text link occurs when the webpage address is embedded in the text.  Readers simply click on the link and are redirected to a new website page. 

- If the link is to an internal web page, for example an article published on a website, rather than the home page, it is called a “deep link.”
You can encourage linking to your website by:

* Adding content to your site. 
* Submitting to article directories. 
* Publishing press releases. 
* Blogging and participating in social networking forums, chat rooms and social networking sites. 

Tip #4 Be Social!

Now more than ever before, internet marketing is about building a community.  Whether you offer a forum on your website or you participate in social networking sites, social networking is a valuable traffic generating tactic.  Sites like Facebook and Twitter can be powerful tools for generating links and traffic to your site – create a profile and then post comments, links to your site and ideas which generate conversation. 

Get involved – many chat rooms and forums are industry specific, find those which cater to your industry, and begin participating.  Speak to and connect with a highly targeted audience. 

Tip #5 Advertise for more exposure and traffic

Advertising, when handled strategically, can be used to promote your content and products or services.  PPC advertising is often the tool of choice because you control the advertising budget on a daily basis and have the tools to test and track your advertising efforts.  Once you’ve honed your PPC ads the return on investment can be phenomenal in terms of traffic and purchases.   

For maximum results, create a traffic and SEO strategy.  Outline your plan and your goals and then take the necessary action.  Take advantage of these five traffic and search engine tips to boost your business.

Content is king. It gets to wear the crown. And sit on the throne. And rule the world. When it comes to establishing credibility, gaining trust and producing sales, content is royalty.

While I would never suggest abandoning the concept of delivering high quality content to your subscribers, there is another type of list composed of subscribers who couldn’t care less about content.

“What is this type of list?” you ask.

- > The “announcement list”.

I’ve been teaching about the “announcement” list since at least 2002 (on record at an event). And, yet, it’s a widely untapped asset in most email marketing circles.

The main reason is: nobody’s teaching it. And so, nobody knows anything about it, let alone how to effectively create one of these lists.

So, we’re going to revisit it.

————————————-
What Is An “Announcement” List?
————————————-

DEFINED: An announcement list is a list whose sole purpose is to “announce” (I.E. Inform, notify) when something new is available for review, consumption or purchase.

In other words, it unapologetically says, “Hey, I just released XYZ. Come check it out!”

Now, at first glance you may be thinking, “Who would join a list that offers no content and only sales pitch?”

If you say it that way, it doesn’t sound too good to me either! That’s why you don’t say it that way. Let’s take a look at HOW to “say it”…

————————————-
How About An Example “Announcement” List?
————————————-

If you go to this site:
http://PLRSO.com
you’ll find a textbook example of this concept. PLRSO stands for “Private Label Rights Special Offers” I established this list for the sole purpose of informing people anytime I have a new PLR offer available for them to buy.

That’s it.

I don’t send out ezine articles to them. No newsletters.
They don’t get blog posts. There aren’t any special reports.
No content of any kind. What they get, in essence, are sales messages.

And there are already 2,822 subscribers, many of which have already purchased some of the PLR special offers that have been “announced” to the list.

Why does it work? Let me give you plenty of reasons…

1. I took something that was “in-demand” (PLR) and I allow people to get a head-start on the world by knowing about new releases FIRST by joining this list.

2. It’s not billed as an “announcement list”, but rather a “Free PLR Club”. Big, big difference in perception.

3. It has it’s own domain name, further adding to the perceived value and importance to those who join.

4. There is no requirement to buy once you join. Buy the offers that you want, pass on the ones you don’t want.

5. A cost example is provided to show what you can buy immediately, further illustrating the value of the complimentary “membership”.

And here’s the big twist that makes this idea of creating an “announcement” list a complete no-brainer…

I allow my affiliates to “give away” complimentary memberships to the PLRSO club!

When someone they refer buys one of the offers, they earn a commission. And I get other people to promote and build my list for me. We all win.

So, you may be thinking…

————————————-
What Kind Of “Announcement” List can I Build?
————————————-

There are a wide variety of “announcement” lists that you can build. Let’s briefly look at ten of them…

* PLR List. You can swipe my idea and create a list of private label rights buyers.

* New Offers List. Build a list of people who love your work and want to be notified any time you have a new offer available.

* Pre-Launch List. Create buzz and anticipation for an upcoming new product release by building a pre-launch list several weeks (even months) in advance.

* Ezine Publishers List. Build a list of publishers who want to know any time you have a new ezine article that is available for reprint in their ezines.

* Bloggers List. Another idea is to allow bloggers who are looking for ready-made content to post to their blogs.

* Industry News List. How about becoming the “go to”
guy or gal to share breaking news about your industry?

* Joint Venture List. Develop a list of partners and affiliates who are ready to promote anytime you have a new offer.

* Incentives List. Here’s a great idea – create a list of people who you offer “incentives” to when they purchase someone else’s new product through YOUR affiliate link.

* Freebie List. Regularly give away rebrandable content (reports, articles, videos, etc.) to these subscribers to earn commissions.

While all ten of these lists aren’t necessarily “buyers”
up front, they each can certainly lead to buyers and revenue for you if you implement them.

Content is king. But let’s not forget that there are alot of queens, princes, dukes and earls out there too.

——-
Jimmy D. Brown, one of the most respected marketing teachers online, has been fine-tuning what and how he teaches when it comes to Internet Marketing since 1999. Now you can benefit from those years of experience and also get full PLR rights to many of his best-selling products – at ridiculously LOW prices (I’m talking Ten Bucks).
Run, don’t walk to this website !

Once primarily a medium for everyday people to express themselves, blogging has become a powerful tool for businesses.  It’s very inexpensive, requiring only a domain and a hosting account to get started.  Here are some of the reasons that women benefit so much from blogging for business.

* Blogging is a medium that Internet users can relate to.  Blogs are usually less formal in tone than business websites, giving business owners an opportunity to really connect with their target markets.  The ability to comment on posts adds to the community aspect.

* The search engines love blogs.  Due to their ease of navigation and frequency of updates, Google and other search engine companies crawl them very often.  This gives business bloggers plenty of opportunity to get search engine traffic.

* There’s a sense of camaraderie among bloggers, and especially among female bloggers.  Other women in the blogosphere will add you to their blogrolls if they like your blog, and often link to individual posts they enjoy.  By writing linkworthy content and linking to other bloggers, we can harness the power of the blogging community.

* There are tons of ways to promote blogs for free.  By adding links to our blogs to forum signatures, social networking pages, and blog directories, we can boost our search engine rankings and get click-through traffic.  And if we’re targeting our efforts properly, that traffic will translate to sales.

* Blogging is great for public relations.  It can help you build your brand, and it gives you an outlet to refute any false or damaging claims that others might make about your business online.

* Blogging can help women in business establish themselves as experts.  Thoughtful and well-researched blog posts let readers know that you’re serious about your business and know what you’re doing.  This confidence in you will not only make your audience more likely to buy from you, it will also give them a reason to spread the word about your blog and your business.

A business blog is essentially a relationship-building tool, and an effective one at that.  Blog readers from your target market could find your blog through search engines or links, read it, and decide to see what your business has to offer.  Prospects might arrive at your blog from your business site, and reading it could give them the push they need to become paying customers.  Either way, the blog proves to be a wonderful asset.

Blogging offers a multitude of benefits for women entrepreneurs.  If you don’t already have a blog, you’re missing out on a grand opportunity to grow your business.  It’s easy to get started, so what are you waiting for?

Martha Stewart

Although her career has not been without controversy, there’s no denying that Martha Stewart is a shrewd businesswoman.  Founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, she is well known for her television show, magazine and line of housewares.

Stewart worked as a model and a stockbroker before she started a catering business in 1976.  From there she started selling cookbooks, and she began to make her television appearances.  She eventually became editor of Martha Stewart Living Magazine and started her own show.  Other projects include her own wine and food labels and a satellite radio talk show.

Sandy Lerner

Sandy Lerner is not your average businesswoman.  Lerner made her mark in an male-dominated industry when she entered the business world as co-founder of Cisco Systems, a networking and communications technology company.

Fired when the company went public, she went on to found Urban Decay Cosmetics.  The company was acquired by Moet-Hennessy Louis Vuitton in 2000.  Since then, Lerner has founded and directed several smaller companies and done a great deal of charitable work.

Kay Koplovitz

Media mogul Kay Koplovitz is the CEO of Koplovitz and Company.  She founded the Madison Square Garden Sports Network, which later became USA Network, in 1977.  This made her the first female network president in television history.

Koplovitz led USA to the top of cable primetime ratings, where it remained for 14 years.  She also founded the Sci-Fi network in 1992.  She is a co-founder of Boldcap Ventures, an all-woman venture capital firm that invests in media, technology and healthcare.

Lillian Hochberg

Lillian Hochberg came from a family of German Jews who were forced to leave the country during World War II and start anew.  After dropping out of New York University to get married, Hochberg started selling personalized handbags and belts through magazine ads.  This venture went on to become the Lillian Vernon Corporation.

Lillian Vernon went on to publish five catalog titles, and became one of the biggest companies in the mail order business.  Hochberg is a recipient of the International Center in New York’s Award of Excellence.

Oprah Winfrey

No list of successful female entrepreneurs would be complete without Oprah Winfrey.  The child of an impoverished teenage single mother, she began working in radio while she was in high school.  This led to a series of jobs in television, including a local Chicago talk show.  Winfrey started her own production company, and her show became nationally syndicated.

Not only is Oprah a popular television personality, she is also the first black woman billionaire in history.  She is known as one of the most influential people in the world, and her Angel Network has raised millions of dollars for charity.

These five women are living proof that females can be highly successful in business and marketing.  Their stories are an inspiration to us all.

However, every business needs to grow.  Growth can take place in different ways.  You can reach out to a larger market than the one you have now, you can increase your share of the market that you are currently targeting.  Either way will help keep your business healthy enough to survive obstacles such as difficult economic times.

It is imperative that you continue to move forward, or else your business will likely fade out and die.  One way to ensure that your business is moving forward is to market your business constantly.  You must dedicate a certain percentage of your resources to building your brand and reaching your target market.

Here are some simple strategies for moving your business forward through effective marketing efforts:

* Make sure you have a clear picture of your target market.  Use the research tools available online and offline to find out what types of people use the products and services you provide and which groups will respond best to your business philosophies.  If you’re not marketing to the right people for your business or product, all your efforts will be wasted.

* Research, research, research. Once you have a clear picture of your target market, you still need to use your research skills to determine how to best reach your target market and what they expect out of your offerings.  In addition, study your competition carefully, and make note of what they’re doing right and wrong, and what you can do better.

* Choose your marketing channels wisely.  If your target market rarely reads, there’s no point in advertising in a magazine.  Likewise, if your target market tends to be computer illiterate, don’t waste your efforts on marketing online.  Use what you’ve learned about them to find the best possible outlets for your message, and focus your marketing efforts in those areas.

* Don’t bail out too quickly.  Your advertising needs time to work effectively.  Studies show that consumers require repeated exposure to a product before they will even consider buying.  So don’t be surprised if one ad run doesn’t bring spectacular results.  If you’ve done your homework and found a viable way to reach your market, run the ad at least two more times before you evaluate the results.

* Take advantage of free publicity.  Send out press releases and find other ways to attract the media and you will get high-quality exposure that won’t eat into your budget.

* Don’t forget to track of the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.  If what you’re doing is working, you should be generating more revenue.  Use some of that revenue for to do more marketing.  If it isn’t working, make adjustments and try again.

Sometimes you’ll have to take a step back and readjust your marketing efforts.  But that’s not a sign you’ve failed.  It’s a sign that you’re a smart marketer.  Sometimes the market changes, and it’s up to us to monitor those changes and adjust our marketing plans accordingly.  No successful company markets the same way forever.  By evolving with our target market, we can ensure the present and future success of our businesses.

Online Marketing

Online marketing is probably one of the more popular choices of marketing for a modern business. There are many pros that come to mind when you think of online marketing. One is that you can reach people from all over the world with one ad. The Internet is accessible to anyone with an Internet connection at any time of the day.

This leads to the other pro of online marketing; it is working for you 24 hours a day. Once you’ve put into effect an online marketing campaign, it is working for your company 24 hours a day.

With all these positives, it is sometimes hard to remember that there are cons to online marketing. One of the biggest is that once your marketing is out there on the Internet, it never goes away. You can try to delete your online marketing if you decide to go another way with your marketing, but it will still exist on the Internet in some form or another.

Another con is that Internet marketing can easily be ignored. It is not something that is physically in the hands of a prospective client. Online marketing can be bypassed on the way to other items on the Internet.

Offline Marketing

Offline marketing has been around a lot longer than its online counterpart. There are pros to using this tried and true form of marketing. With offline marketing, you will only be sending out marketing to a certain area of the country. By knowing the people and where they live that you are marketing to, you can tailor your marketing to these people.

Another pro to offline marketing is that your potential clients often have something in their hand to see what your business has to offer. Potential clients like to have something material to have in their hand to make their buying choices with.

However, there are cons to offline marketing. One of the biggest cons of offline marketing is that you do have to pay upfront for most of your marketing. This is why it is extremely important that you have done your research to ensure that you are targeting the right prospects. And this one “con” can actually become a “pro”, because by doing your homework and targeting the right group, you increase your chances of making the sale.

However, you don’t have to choose just one or the other.  It’s great to find a balance and use both methods for your home business success.

A great place to start your offline marketing is through local churches and other groups in your areas. You can purchase a small ad in the newsletters and bulletins of your local churches and groups. These ads will cost you less then buying an ad in your newspaper. Using this easy offline marketing technique will also help you to focus who you are marketing to.

To market offline you will need to diversify what you do to reach your clients. There is other ad space that you can buy. Diners often sell ad space on their placemats. People from all walks of life will see your ad when it is on the placemat at a diner. Another place to buy ad space is on your local high school’s football programs. This is a great way to support your community and get the name of your business out there for everyone to see.

Offline marketing can come in other forms besides buying ad space. You can join your local chamber of commerce. This is a great place to meet other businesses in your community. The networking that you will do through the chamber of commerce can help to take your business to the next level.

Place flyers about your business out in your community as another way to do some offline marketing. Make sure that the places that you place the flyers are places that allow this. Grocery stores and community centers have bulletin boards that will allow you to post your flyers to promote your business offline.

Your local radio stations can be another way to do some offline marketing for your business. You can choose which radio stations to use to market offline by the people that you want to focus on. A short radio ad can go a long way in promoting your business offline.

In the world of offline marketing, there are many choices to be made as to what types to use for your business. As you start out, it is better to go slowly with your offline marketing so that you are sure that it is focused towards your target clients. A little bit of work and a few choices is all it takes to make offline marketing work for you. Offline marketing will help to grow your business in leaps and bounds.

To Canvas or Not To Canvas

Many businesses choose to place flyers out in the community to promote their business. This can be a good offline marketing technique if it is done in the right way.  One of the mistakes that can easily be made is when flyers are placed on cars in public places.  This is considered littering by many municipalities. The offline marketing done this way could end up getting your business in trouble and end up costing you big money in the form of some fines.  Many people also get annoyed at having to deal with an unwanted flyer on their car.

Its All In the Numbers – Or Is It?

Another mistake that is often made in offline marketing is that businesses believe that it is all in the numbers. The belief is the more ads that you have out there the more business that you will get. This is not true in the world of offline marketing. It is quality marketing and ad placement that will bring you more leads and profits.

Research where to place your ads in order to bring about the most exposure with your targeted audience. A couple of well-placed offline ads can net you more profits than scattering your marketing everywhere that space permits in the offline world.

The Fortune Is In the Follow Up

One of the pitfalls that first timers in the offline marketing world fall into is that they don’t follow up.  They may spend the time and money to send out a mail campaign but then do nothing for the follow-up.  It’s proven that people often do not act the first time they receive information about a company; this is why the follow-up is actually more important than the first mailing.

A sequence mail campaign is best set up before you even send the first letter. In other words, you’ll send a piece of information on day one, another on day ten and another on day thirty and so on. If this is going to eat into your budget too much, then mail a lower amount of people, but don’t skimp on the follow-up as this is where the majority of sales are usually made.
If you avoid these mistakes of offline marketing, you will be able to use offline marketing to your business’ advantage. Make sure that you do your research and prepare your marketing before you take the leap into the offline marketing world.

As a business owner, you are aware that a steady stream of new and returning clients is the blood that keeps your business going. To achieve this steady stream, you need to do marketing of your business to get new leads for your business.

However, with the booming success of the internet, many businesses have stopped using one of the most productive ways to achieve new client leads – offline marketing.   Offline marketing will work for any business, even online businesses. There are many reasons that your business can benefit from offline marketing.

• Offline marketing will open up your business to a new field of potential clients that you may never have accessed. There are people in this world who do not spend the majority of their time on the Internet. These people could become clients for your business if you could only reach them and tell them about what you have to offer. This is where offline marketing comes in.

• Offline marketing tends to have more lasting power than the world of online marketing. Ads and articles written online have only a couple of seconds to grab the attention of potential clients. There are types of offline marketing that will be seen over and over again by your potential clients. This gives you the opportunity to change their mind about giving your business a chance.

• Offline marketing can be just as cost effective as online marketing. There are many simple and inexpensive ways to start into the world of offline marketing. However, there is a cost for all forms of marketing, whether they be online or offline. Offline marketing has long been looked at as being time-consuming and costly. But this is untrue; offline marketing does not need to take a lot from you to bring a big boost to your business.

• Offline marketing benefits many different types of businesses. Whether it be an online or offline business, you can use offline marketing to increase your business. You can use offline marketing to reinforce the online marketing campaign that you already have going.

You do not need to have your offline marketing campaign running separately from your online marketing. The one can be a natural extension of the other. Offline marketing is easy to set up off your online marketing to get you some more clients for your business.

There is no good reason for a business not to use both online and offline marketing. Offline marketing may have become the forgotten stepchild of the marketing world, but by using this to your advantage you will increase your business by leaps and bounds. This may be the business secret that you need to know about to get ahead in your niche. So take the leap off the Internet and start your offline marketing for your business today.