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Effective Marketing Isn't a Game!
Marketing strategies abound on the internet. We all know that bad advice is floating all around the net.
Your marketing department must work seriously, if you have intentions of making a decent e-income. How do you decipher the junk from the...
Internet Marketing
Is internet marketing something for you? Do you dream about working at home where your kids are, where you feel you should be? Internet marketing can promise this and so much more. But, tread lightly and do your research before jumping into the...
Internet Marketing - A Maze In A Haze?
Internet marketing, website marketing, call it what you will, can be a bit like a maze. You charge off down one route......dead end. Someone sends you off down another route with a big smile on their face.......another dead end. Another route looks...
Internet Marketing Requires Lots of Patience!
When you first make a decision to start an Internet business or to put your existing business online, it helps if you have a realistic appreciation of just how long it takes to break-even on your efforts. Usually, it takes several months! Putting...
Network Marketing Success- The MLM Success Secrets of Finding Gold in Your Initial Contact List
by Doug Firebaugh
The question all new Network Marketing Distributors ask when they get started is:
“Who Do I Know?”
In this mlm training article, we are going to go over the contact list. This is where you start “Digging for Gold”...
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Niche Marketing - Assessing The Potential Of A Niche
Potential niche products exist all around us, but how do you decide which ones are likely to be worth pursuing?
Here's a quick method that will give you a pretty good indication without having to spend large amounts of time and money on the task.
Step One :
This is a fairly obvious step - find out if other marketers are spending advertising dollars in that niche. If they are, you can be pretty certain that it's a profitable niche.
Why?
Because savvy marketers "don't" spend money on advertising that doesn't show a profit.
You can check this out quickly on "Pay Per Click" search engines like Overture and 7search where advertisers pay each time someone clicks on their listing.
Let's check out an example.
For demo purposes I'm going to search on the keyword "snoring" because I have a project in progress on the subject of "how to stop snoring without surgery".
Now go to http://www.content.overture.com/d/ and type in "snoring". When you arrive at the results page click on "View Advertisers' Max Bids" at the top right of the screen. A new window will open up asking you to enter a code to access the information. Enter the code and submit it. On the page that comes up you will find the bidding range for our search term - the higher the top three bids the more profitable (and competitive) the niche is likely to be.
In this case the top three bids on Overture (at time of writing) for the keyword "snoring" are : $1.50, $1.47 and $1.46 - based on this we can be pretty sure that there is a viable market for niche products on "snoring"
Step Two :
OK now let's take this a step further and find out what search terms (keywords and keyword phrases) are being used to find our niche subject on Overture.
Go to : http://inventory.overture.com/ and type in "snoring". This returns a list including :
snoring 27352 stop snoring 8211 snoring cure 3308 snoring remedy 2366 cause of snoring 2186 snoring treatment 1233 snoring solution 1133 snoring problem 800 prevent snoring 623
... and a whole lot more. The numbers indicate the number of times that each of those keywords/phrases have been requested in the previous 30 days.
Step Three :
Next we need to find out how many competing sites there are for each of our keywords/phrases. We're going to do this on Google - but first we need to decide what number of competing sites is acceptable for our niche subject.
As with any subject, opinions differ widely.
Rosalind Gardner (Super Affiliate Handbook) does not consider anything under 100,000 competing sites to be a viable niche.
Jimmy D Brown (Nicheology)suggests 30,000 - 100,000 competing sites to be the ideal.
At the other end of the spectrum Andrew Williams (Keyword Results Analyzer - Word Tacker Version) looks
for niches with 1,000 or less competing sites for each keyword/phrase.
For our example here, I'm going to use Jimmy Brown's criteria : 30,000 - 100,000.
Now go over to http://www.google.com and start entering the keywords/phrases from your Overture search, taking note of the number of sites which are displayed. (Enclose your keywords/phrases with " for specific results, e.g. "snoring cures").
Here's the Google results from the list above :
snoring 977,000 stop snoring 121,000 snoring cure 3,850 snoring remedy 24,100 cause of snoring 2,310 snoring treatment 6,660 snoring solution 21,100 snoring problem 18,500 prevent snoring 3,510
So what does this tell us now?
The first keyword "snoring" is a non-starter. The term is well outside our competing sites criteria at 977,000 and far too general.
There are no individual search terms in the 30,000 - 100,000 range, but that doesn't rule it out as a viable niche, the term "stop snoring" isn't too far out of the ball park and we can combine some of the other keywords/phrases to meet the criteria.
Result - we probably have a viable market niche.
Step Four :
Finally we need to check the ratio of "supply" to "demand" for our keywords/phrases to make doubly sure the niche is worth pursuing.
Here's how we do it. The formula is :
Google Results(Supply)/Overture Results(Demand)
The lower the ratio the less competition. Here's an example using our keywords/phrases :
snoring : 977,000/27352 = 35.72 stop snoring : 121,000/8211 = 14.73 snoring cure : 3,850/3308 = 1.16 snoring remedy : 24,100/2366 = 10.19 cause of snoring : 2,310/2186 = 1.06 snoring treatment : 6,660/1233 = 5.40 snoring solution : 21,100/1133 = 18.62 snoring problem : 18,500/800 = 23.13 prevent snoring : 3,510/623 = 5.63
So do we have a viable niche?
Based on the figures I would say the subject has pretty good potential. The niche is tightly focussed and the level of competition is low, so it's worth pursuing.
Will the niche make money?
The answer to that question will be down to how effective our marketing is.
One final note : This system has it's limitations. If you're really serious about this Niche Marketing stuff you should invest in some specialist tools which will provide a more comprehensive range of keywords/phrases than Overture returns.
Copyright © 2005, André Anthony Niche Market Know-How
About the Author
André Anthony owns and operates Niche Market Know-How a resource for beginning Niche Marketers. Visit http://www.nichemarketknowhow.com today to find strategies, tips, tools, products and resources for effective niche product creation and marketing. Get his Niche Market Know-how Mini Course here: http://www.nichemarketknowhow.com/course.htm
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KnowThis: For Marketing, Market Research, Internet Marketing ... |
KnowThis.com offers a wealth of information, forums, and resources for professionals, academics and students in traditional and internet marketing, ... |
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Marketing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
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Marketing.org - Home of the Business Marketing Association |
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Welcome - American Marketing Association - www.marketingpower.com |
Dedicated to serving the educational and professional needs of marketing executives. |
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Advertising, Marketing, Media and PR News - Brand Republic |
Find the latest Advertising, Marketing, Media and PR news from Brand Republic, the online resource for up to the minute advertising and marketing news and ... |
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Marketing Magazine - Marketing News - Brand Republic |
Marketing Magazine - Marketing News - Brand Republic. |
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Marketing (Canada) |
Offers a Canadian source of news and articles on marketing, advertising and media. |
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BidVertiser - Pay Per Click Advertising On Sites Of Your Choice. |
Pay per click advertising - online advertising directly on sites of your choice, internet marketing solution for online advertisers. |
www.bidvertiser.com |
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Online Behavioral Contextual Advertising and Marketing. |
Promote your business with today's most effective online advertising technology, contextual advertising at a cost effective metric of CPC, PPC, CPM or CPV. |
www.clicksor.com |
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Sales Jobs / Marketing Jobs / Advertising Jobs - MarketingJobs.com |
Employment site for marketing and sales professionals. |
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The Chartered Institute of Marketing |
The Chartered Institute of Marketing is the world's largest international marketing professional body and helps with career support and information ... |
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Marketing: See what people are saying right now on Technorati |
See all blog posts tagged with marketing on Technorati. |
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Marketing Profs - Marketing Concepts and Strategies: Expert ... |
Marketing knowhow from professionals. Newsletter, articles and how-to's. |
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Guerrilla Marketing Online - The Official Site |
Guerrilla Marketing Online is anonline magazine for small business, entrepreneurs, sales people and marketers of all kinds. |
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Business Marketing - Small Business Marketing |
Business marketing - Read everything your need to know about small business marketing. |
www.entrepreneur.com |
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All About Marketing |
Adapted from Field Guide to Nonprofit Program Design, Marketing and Evaluation ... Inbound Marketing Includes Market Research to Find Out: ... |
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Pages tagged with "marketing" on del.icio.us |
USA Network Announces a NASHVILLE STAR Marketing Partnership With ... - Yahoo! ... Direct Marketing Association: Telephone, Mail & Internet Marketing ... |
del.icio.us |
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ClickZ Internet Marketing Solutions for Marketers |
Includes columns with commentary and analysis on a wide variety of internet marketing subjects ranging from B2B marketing to search engine marketing. |
www.clickz.com |
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Direct Marketing Association: Telephone, Mail & Internet Marketing |
Trade association for users and suppliers in the direct, database and interactive marketing fields, offering seminars and resources, and lobbying for ... |
www.the-dma.org |
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