Tuesday, July 29, 2008

The Advantages of Niche Marketing

By Gunnar Berglund

Niche marketing has become the new powerhouse way of making money in the business world--not just with a bricks and mortars store, either, but also (and perhaps even more so) on the Internet.

Niche marketing is a way of business that addresses the fact that in today's market, there is a lot of competition in almost every industry. Niche marketing recognizes that there are businesses trying to stand up against top competitors like Target and Wal-Mart. To stand against these companies, it is important to have a large some of start-up cash, but very few people have a large sum of money to put into their business. When going against big companies, failure is always hovering above. Today it seems that everyone is making something and there are plenty of places to with enough merchandise volume that allows them to undersell their competitors, especially on small profit margins. Many new businesses, however, cannot afford to do this.

With niche marketing, you are able to leverage something that not many other people in the business world have: your specialized knowledge or interest in a focused field. Niche marketing, just as the name implies, allows you to fit yourself into a certain niche. With this, you are aiming to target only those people who have an interest or a need in the products within your own niche.

Here you will find that the competition you would have had originally is extremely reduced. This is because there aren't as many competitors with a narrow niche as there are across a very broad and open industry. Those competitors have to compete on things such as quality as well as uniqueness. These businesses also have to worry about just how knowledgeable they are with their products. Big competition also brings about smaller profit because competitors have to have similar profit margins. People who shop within a smaller niche don't care much about price. Instead they focus more of their attention on service, quality, and finding something different.

There are more and more success stories of people who get involved with, either from the beginning or during their business careers, affiliate marketing and niche businesses on the Internet. The Internet is able to provide the broadest, fastest, and least expensive way of reaching a large amount of possible prospects and customers within a niche. The best part is that it is much less expensive to create and maintain a niche marketing website. You can even handle a few of them because they are very inexpensive.

Commissions are earned from the sales of products off the website with an affiliate marketing program. You can own a business and pay people a percentage of the sales made on your behalf or you can become an affiliate yourself. This is where you sell something for others. You bring people to the website and they buy the niche products and you earn commissions off of them.

The important thing about your niche business is that it must offer a product or service that interests you. If something interests you, you are far more likely to learn everything about it, become an expert in it. And in the niche marketing game, having a level of expertise that sets you apart gives you an enormous competitive advantage. If something interests you, you also project authentic enthusiasm for it, and your prospects will pick up on this energy and be more apt to buy from you.

Another important part of niche marketing is that your niche is something narrow and focused as well as unique. Selling the secrets of how to grow the perfect tobacco at home, or offering one-of-a-kind customizable discounted greeting card making and mailing service, or maybe it's pre-paid legal services that cost very little each month. What ever interests you, make sure it is unique and interesting to you.

Niche marketing done correctly can make you much more profit and give more freedom than you will ever get from a regular job.

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