In the previous two lessons we talked about how to select a niche market, and how to determine whether there’s money to be made in it.
Today we’re going to refine your topic to make sure you’re zooming in on the desires of your niche audience. If you fail to do this, your product runs the risk of missing the target…
(Watch this video…)
Main points:
In general, people may be willing to pay for information that will…
– ease their pain
– fuel their pleasure
1) find a different niche
2) figure out different way to monetize it (ie. give the info away for free to build a list, and monetize the back end through physical product/affiliate sales)
1) email replies
2) self hosted survey – You can put a survey on your own website using a script such as this one (available with Master Resale Rights)
3) 3rd party survey – I recommend doing an ASK Campaign
UPDATE: I now use Instant Form Pro for most of my surveys. That’s what I used for my twitter survey, and other surveys. I like how easy it is to set up, and how it enables me to export the data to Excel to sort it as I wish.
1) Hire a market research firm (generally not recommended, due to the high cost)
2) Make a deal with a list owner in your niche. Create a win-win situation where the list owner benefits from the data being collected (or some other mutually beneficial arrangement).
3) Use PPC. You can send targeted traffic to a survey on your own site, or to an ASK Campaign. This will cost you some money, but very cheap compared to some alternatives (as few as 100 respondents may be enough).
4) Find free traffic. Get involved in forums in your niche, and then poll other members. Use social networks, etc.
5) Do it offline. Call people you know who are in your niche, text them, email them… do whatever it takes. Poll your neighbors, your church members, whatever you need to do to make sure your product hits the bulls eye.
What is your biggest problem regarding _________ ?
How difficult is it to find the answer to that problem?
What would you most like to learn about ________ ?
How much would you be willing to pay for a solution to ____________ ?
You want to know what PROBLEMS they are having. So pay special attention to questions like…
“Can someone tell me how to fix/improve/avoid… ______?”
“Is there a better/cheaper/faster way to… ______?”
“I need help with… _______”
Look for problems related to your niche that people are discussing on the forums.
This is the biggest article submission site, and will show you what is being done by other internet marketers to provide information in your niche. Are all of your audience’s most burning questions already being answered for free in these articles? Look at the author bio boxes to see how they are attempting to monetize the articles (ie. do they have a competing infoproduct?)
Action steps:
1) Survey your market and/or
2) Research the market in detail to find out exactly what they want
3) Decide what the focus of your topic will be
4) Come up with a USP for your product
I want to give you fair warning that this is where a lot of new marketers miss the boat. If you end up with a product that nobody wants to buy, more than likely you can trace it back to this lesson and see that you didn’t dig deep enough into your market to find out what they really want to pay for.
Once you’ve narrowed down your topic, it’s time to envision your product and come up with a great brand name. I’ll be talking all about that in the next lesson.
As always, you are welcome to post your questions and comments below 🙂
Have a great day!
In my country, you should appreciate Eric by sending him out of what you made since he is instrumental to your obtaining the seminar. Ha ha ha!
Eric, I have used PPC before but I am not sure how you mean to use it for a survey. Can you please explain. thanks.
You can send the PPC traffic directly to your survey page. Most likely it will be best if you give them some sort of incentive for taking the survey (like a free ebook that they would be interested in.)
Suppose you’re paying 20 cents a click and you send 300 visitors to your page, and 100 of them complete your survey. You just paid $60 for some keen insight into your target market.
If you tie it into an opt-in list, you also just added 100 subscribers to your list. Plus if you put some sort of offer on the back end of your survey (see lesson #55 for OTO’s), then you very well might have made back the $60 or more.
So as you can see it can make sense to use PPC for a survey. The metrics may not work out as well, depending on your niche, but certainly worth looking into if you’ve got PPC experience.
Hi Eric
Great lesson I loved it because it reminded me what I can do to make that what I love to do into a working product, I am looking at doing something that I am best at, doing what I love and find that what poeple are looking for. One thing I have noticed is that people look for what you have to offer, yet asking for it in a complete different way than one expect.
Hi Eric,
Thank you for the Lessons, it is just what i needed. is it legal/illegal to place chapters of books on the net or sell as ebooks, i will of course rewrite the content in my own words.
Generally speaking, if you rewrite something in your own words then you can avoid copyright infringement.
However I would not recommend selling chapters of books. It would be better to transpose the knowledge into a new product of your own. There will be a lesson about ebooks.
Thank you dear ERIC,
This is to inform you that I have recieved the lesson #23,and I am grateful.Your lessons are steps to wealth.
Hi Eric
Thank you for these interesting videos and wanting to help others. You sent me lesson 21 twice. Please send me lesson 22.
I’m always looking forward to watching your videos everyday.
God Bless
helo Eric,
I actualy interested in doing online reselling buisness, but all the information i got from theese lessons, helped me a lot…thank you..
i have on question, hope you can help me with this…
Have you ever heared about WORLDWIDE BRANDS? They are the biggest company for droppshipers doing reseacrch on market and have a list of a real manufactures….but i was thinking, if they are the biggest and the most popular, it means most of online droppshipers are with them, so all of them use the same selling tools and the same distributors, wich makes hard to have usp….and they are pretty expensive as well…
I know it is not from your area, but hope to hear from you soon
thanks
I have heard of Worldwide Brands, but I’m not very familiar with them. As with any dropshipper opportunity, you have to treat it like a real business in order to be successful. Most people sign up for such programs expecting easy money, which of course doesn’t happen.
You’re right, if it’s a competitive marketplace you have to work harder on your USP.
I recommend following my lessons and learning more about information marketing. When you create your own info-product, you’ll have a unique product not sold by anyone else.
Eric is it a good idea to get unlimited hosting plan i mean i will have a bunch of sits anyway right
Eric this gets better and better… Idea’s wise. Mp3 players wouldn’t be my thing but the marketing tips relate to what does interest me!
Eric, I’m enjoying the information you are providing, and I realize it is early in the program, but I wanted to know if you will be giving real nuts and bolts instructions on the basics on setting up a website, how to find a host, and how to organize and manage up to several operations at once. I have no background in internet marketing, and really need a primer on the basic skills of running this type of operation. Please help.
Yes I will, and those nuts and bolts start in lesson #23, so you’re almost there.
Yes it’s not a bad idea, but what’s more important is to have a good web host. Because the unlimited hosting plan will do you no good if the server is down frequently. I cover hosting here, including my recommendation for hosting multiple sites:
Eric,
We purchased PLR rights to your Tailwind Trading programme and we have re-packaged it (see website) and have been promoting it for the past two months on a CPA network, but to date with little response, ie no actual sales. Can you give us some tips / ideas as to how we may get more success with this product?
Regards
Phil
Hi Eric,
I’ve looked at your cloaking article. And I note that even though the initial link is cloaked http://erictips.com/adsensegold.html when you click the link the address bar shows the following – http://www.sitesupertracker.com/cb.php?hop=toplevel So your link is displayed just after the click through, but is obviously a click bank link. How do you make it so that the user id is hidden? I have seen it done on some sites I’d be interested to know how this can be done.
It looks like this might be part of the answer to my question above. But does this redirect mean that the affiliate link has been cut off?
http://www.vipmarketingsecrets.com/
This web page at http://www.vipmarketingsecrets.com has been reported as an attack page according to Firefox! when I clicked it.
There’s a few ways to do it.
The proper way when it comes to clickbank is for the vendor to do it on their end. It’s very simple. In their clickbank account they just need to set the hoplink target URL to a php redirect that directs to the real sales page.
Short of that there are basically two ways to do it.
You could use a frame where your URL is in an invisible top frame, but still shows up in the URL bar of the browser, and the sales page shows up in the bottom (visible frame).
This is discouraged and disallowed by most affiliate programs.
Another way is to “drop” or “stuff” the cookie, and then simply send the visitor to the sales page URL instead of sending them through your affiliate link. This is possible by embedding the cookie on your page, or in the link itself. Again, this practice is discouraged by most affiliate programs.
First, thanks for your business 🙂
A couple things…
CPA traffic is probably not the best for this system. CPA offers are best if they are targeted for the mass market. And while this one has wide appeal, it’s not quite mass market.
Or did you mean PPC? PPC should be ok, because it’s more targeted. But PPC is really a science, and there’s a lot of factors that affect the quality of your traffic and how much you’re paying for it.
If you are getting decent traffic, then you should do some split testing (http://www.ericstips.com/tips/lesson57/). you never know what tweak might cause it to start converting.
I would try lowering the price until they start buying, offer payment plans, etc.
Also I noticed that you have a .uk domain but the system is mainly for US market. As a US resident, I probably would not buy a stock trading system from a .uk domain.
Beyond that, focus on list building (lesson #59-70), because the money is in the list. People will buy from you if they know you and trust you.
I will also be covering many other traffic methods.
Thanks for the tips…
Eric
Lesson 21…Thanks for all of it..
Checked out Jeff’s launch sounds great would love to join him, I am sure it is worth every penny. Can’t spend for now.
very good ,keep going
hi
i find these video tips fantastic and thank god i found them. i have watched them from video 1 to 21 so far and they are great, however. i have noticed that video 20 and 21 and there was 1 or 2 others that freeze half way through can you give me a heads up as to why?
Please try these solutions:
Hi Eric, Eric team and all eric visitors.
Thank you for your fantastic lessons, you explained very well. Great work.
Thanks from a Portuguese, actualy living in Brazil,
André
P.S.: Yes i’m searching my niche in Portuguese language too. 😉
Hi Eric,
What’s seem to be my problem? When watching your video lesson, the pause button is functional and for this lesson 21 it’s not functioning?
Hi Garry,
I watched the video presentation of intantpaysites.com. I am a novice in IM that’s why I patiently trying to understand the step by step video tutorial of Eric. After watching your video my problem is how can I earn money if I don’t have a list of subscribers like all you guys have?
Thanks
I’m really not sure, but I would suggest trying a different browser (such as Firefox or Google Chrome) and see if the problem persists.
Hi,
This is my site and another individual was able hack into my hosting account. As a result, they put bad code on the site that I was unaware of. The bad code has been removed and the site is down for now.
Just a reminder, be sure to always check your websites on a regular basis.
Tom
How many keywords should we use?
Regarding niche research, there’s no specific # of keywords you should use. You just need to look at a few of the top keywords for the niche you’re considering. Later on when we talk about PPC and SEO, we’ll go more in depth on keywords.
Mark,
Don’t do it. I have been there. What they don’t tell you until AFTER they have your money is that you will have to create 30 pages of original content BEFORE they even LET you monetize your site. Also their keyword tool is very complicated to use and you will have to use it before you can even write those 30 pages! Stick with Eric. I should have months ago!
Hi Eric, I was going over the last lesson 3 times before I watched this to get a good understanding of the process, before going on with this research lesson. I like the way you narrow down the niche here, and I will apply that as well. I don’t have an email list, but I do have a Twitter account with around 10,000 followers on it, even though I don’t have a highly targeted group of followers in any given area. I have mainly used it as a hobby sharing site relating to my interest in archiving, and converting old phonograph records and tapes into current digital medias by sharing my Youtube channel link where I have old records from my old collection uploaded to Youtube to show younger audience for example, how music used to be played before all the digital platforms came along. Nothing is monetized on my YT channel since I am showing records of music that I have not recorded myself, and is for show only…Maybe you might have an idea for me with the Twitter followers, as well as Facebook?…Friends, Lloyd.
Eric
Great lesson, sorry for the delay in making comments, I do have a question. I have heard you mention on several occasions when looking for your niche, make sure you don’t have too much competition, and make sure you have enough visitors. Do you have a rule of thumb i.e. no more than (500000) and no less than (30000) or
do you make your decision based on the additional information you collect while doing your due diligence?
Thanks
Russ
Some marketers said that “if it’s free, it is not the best” but with Ericstips, it’s a 100 free step-by-step lessons and it’s still the best.
I do not have a specific rule of thumb in that regard. Also, I have been increasingly erring on the side of more competition. Even if it’s a massive market with lots of competition, if you do your marketing correctly, you can carve out at least a small piece of it for yourself.
In other words, I’d rather have a big market with lots of competition, than a tiny market with questionable viability. If you can find something in between, that may be a sweet spot.
Lloyd, it sounds like you’ve got a potential niche (group of people who share a common interest). The key is to figure out what they WANT, and what they’re willing to pay for.
In the mean time… IF you’re going to use twitter and Facebook, I’d recommend using them for their original intended purpose: socializing, networking, making friends.
(Just don’t let it distract you or take away time from building a business)
As you’ll learn later on, social media is not one of my preferred strategies, but it can certainly be used. In many businesses, relationship is the name of the game. If you find yourself in one of those kind of businesses, then social media is great because that’s where relationships are happening these days.
Hi Eric, I should mention that when I entered my area of interest as a possible niche, I used the sentence, “How to convert old records into mp3 files” and Google came back with no results for those groups of words used in that order, but there was allot of organic traffic using some of the words in their articles, blogs…etc relating to archiving old recordings into current digital formats. Also, there were about 10 paid ads, 2 on top, and 8 or so off on the right side of page relating to products and services that archive old recordings into current formats. Clickbank yielded no products relating to that area either, so I might scrap the audio archiving niche for now, and go back to the drawing board and research the evergreen niche areas that are not so technology sensitive to changes as time goes on. I have a passion about converting, and preserving old audio/video recordings, however, I have to remember that in a few years, those same recordings will have to be updated to the next upcoming storage format, and on, and on with technology, and format changes over the years in the future…Friends, Lloyd.
Eric,
I’m really starting to appreciate the info in your lessons! But- as you have ‘warned’, I’m getting ‘barraged’with all kinds of sale offers- especially for web traffic. I need to ask your opinion on one in particular. Would “extreme traffic arbitrage” be beneficial to get to help sell my products. Note: I am a “newbie” and still setting up the great stock tips deal you sold me. Any additional info regarding this would be most helpful.
Thankyou- Michael
Hi Michael,
Thanks for pointing out the product. We are unfamiliar with Extreme Traffic Arbitrage.
If Eric feels that it would benefit his readers at this stage, he’ll be sure to do a review.
Here is a link to one of Eric’s current recommended traffic products:
http://www.instanttrafficshortcuts.com/eric.html
To Eric’s team:
Hello- I seem to be missing (or I mis-placed) Eric’s Tips lessons #’s 23 & 24. Could you folks please resend those 2 lessons? Thankyou…
Sincerely, Michael
Hi Michael,
The next lesson will soon be completed and will be sent to you shortly thereafter. You can also visit EricsTips.com to see the latest lesson updates and revisit earlier lessons:
http://www.ericstips.com/tips/category/lessons/
Here is the direct link to lessons 23 and 24:
It sounds like your email may be blocking some of the lessons. We also recommend that you view this tip on whitelisting an email address:
Eric, I tried to buy your program last week but I couldn’t get the paypal to accept my payment. Isent you a copy of the problem…..Help!
Please get in touch with my helpdesk http://www.ericsupport.com and we’ll help you with it. Thanks
Thank you for such in depth teachings. We’re really moving along!
Thanks but I already recieved and reviewed Lesson 21…looking forward to #22!
Looks like I have some work to do,no-one has even come close to the advise you are giving me,for free thank you.
Leland
LOL I get so much value out of reading all the posts so today I almost forgot to watch the video!!