So much of your success selling an ebook or any information product comes from identifying and then targeting a specific topic within your chosen niche market.
So it is no surprise to find that this is where information product professionals struggle the most.Â
Not just new infoproduct publishers either, I saw a Million+ infoproduct guru miss the mark on a product late last year…so it happens to anyone who is not careful in advance of targeting their niche market.Â
For example, you want to target the weight loss niche, so is the best idea…
a) A general weight loss guide?
b) A focus on exercise or nutrition?
c) A specific diet or program that someone must follow?
d) A guide to diet supplements and nutritionals?
e) Alternative weight loss techniques such as detox?Â
f) A sub-category of weight loss for new Mom’s, working professionals, road warriors who live out of a suitcase?
The same set of questions comes up no matter what your niche market is…parenting, self improvement, alternative health, pets, business, a hobby, etc…
Since this question is CRITICAL to your success, there has to be a way to figure out which sub-topic will be best within your niche market…and yes, there is a system we provide full training around inside InfoMarketer’sZone based on our own experiences including hundreds of coaching clients.Â
1. Locate active discussion forums on the net around your niche market and look for the top threads. Many forums today give statistics on number of times that thread was read, as well as the number of messages within the thread. This allows you to quickly identify the threads with the most interest and narrow down top questions, interests, frustrations and thoughts that often guide you to specific topics within the niche.
2. Find the top selling books on Amazon, they not only list them by popularity but also give you a sales rank that lets you in on their buying activity. Next, dig into their table of contents (most offer this right on Amazon itself) to get a sense for what they include, but also chapters or content that is either NOT included or where you could include more…I love finding gaps for future infoproducts this way.Â
3. Search other affiliate directories, Commission Junction, Linkshare, Clickbank, etc…to find the top sellers around your niche
4. Search the web for YOUR TOPIC + seminars, YOUR TOPIC + DVD, YOUR TOPIC + Course, etc… to find and examine higher-end products. While you don’t always know how each of these are selling, you can get a pretty good feel for trends, especially if you see that a range of other authority sites in your niche market are promoting certain affiliate products.Â
Beyond that, you can do some quick things to test interest in topics by taking 4-5 potential sub-niches or topic ideas and create a content page or offer mini course and drive traffic – see where the traffic goes.Â
We did this with an alternative health topic lately where we were not quite sure of the angle, so we tested 3 different mini-reports and found one outperformed all of the others by more that 5X.Â
I’ve heard many people suggest that “testing” an idea or concept this way is ok for major projects, but is it really necessary for a $27 ebook?
The fact is that every single top selling information product I am aware of went through (either by design or mostly by accident) a testing phase, where the original idea was changed outright or altered slightly to capture more market attention.Â
Each day I get contacted by people who have spent weeks, months or even years developing their dream information product (reports, ebooks and courses) and nearly without fail the #1 issue is how their product is positioned in their respective market. This issue can ALWAYS be fixed within days or a couple of weeks with a simple testing phase.
So it comes down to whether you would like ot rush a product to market and “guess” if it is a good match (where your odds are less than winning the lottery in my experience) or spend a few extra days and let the market tell you what they will buy
