While there are different points that can stop the most enthusiastic aspiring entrepreneur when setting out to market online, there is one particular point that stumps most of us when we just get things rolling.
That point is understanding the different business models that work online – in other words – how many ways are their to make money and which one do I want to tap into?
Often I get asked – “What niche market should I choose” as if finding the niche market filled with eager, hungry buyers is the holy grail of internet marketing…not a simple task if you don’t match that hungry market with a business model that works and delivers to them what they want.
What is often a quetsion about finding a niche market to focus your online marketing busines on really comes down to is understanding the different business models and ways to make money online such…for example:
- Information publishing: there are thousands of niche markets where the desire for instant knowledge, a cure, a remedy, a system or plan to achieve a certain desired outcome translates into a passionte, hungry desire for infoproducts such as reports, ebooks, seminars, membership sites, courses, workshops, etc… If your strengths are in matching a desire for information with answers to questions, then writing your own “how-to” information product can be a hugely profitable money-making internet business. We cover this business model in our fast-start program — “The Ultimate Information Entrepreneur’s Success System”
-  Selling someone else’s products (affiliate marketing) is another approach where you can match a desire for a product or service online with an ability to drive traffic and pre-sell leading to the vendor’s sales page where you make a commission on each referral that turns into a sale. Your internet marketing business in this case is based largely on your ability to 1) identify hot desires within a marketplace for a given product or service 2) generate enough content and advertising to drive significant traffic and 3) pre-sell your market through email marketing, blogging or other techniques of communication leading to the sale where you get paid
- Advertising revenue – the objective here, of course, is to get as many eyeballs to your site as many times as possible and setup an ad offering that entices users to advertise on your site. Blogging can work, content portals are effective, sites organized around tools, videos, software giveways can all work too. Here, you want to choose a niche market that is more on the mass market side so that you can achieve strong advertising dollars for your efforts
These are just a few of the online business models that you can tap for your online marketing business. Each though comes with its own criteria for what is considered a hot niche market – until you know which model you will target, it is like shooting in the dark trying to pick a market.
What is a good niche for your own information product may not be best for creating a content site designed to rake in advertising income.
So first, it is a matter of understanding what business they want to be in – what skillset and interests they have – what they are best at doing so they can operate in the type of business that suits their skillset.
Then we can choose a hot niche once we have an idea what the monetization method is that suits that particular method.
So, if you are still puzzled by how to get started marketing online, seekt to achieve a better understanding of the business models – how you can make money – this will help guide you to the criteria you use when picking a target niche market.
