Once you’ve brainstormed your list of niche topics, it’s time to narrow down your list to a handful of niches that have the highest potential for success. This leads to a question that’s often asked by new internet marketers: if I enter market X, am I going to lose my shirt?
While there’s no formula for calculating if a market has room for new competitors, a slew of “tools” claim they can give x-ray vision of a market. And their sales letters always make outrageous claims of how easy it is to enter a market - if you just spend a few bucks to buy their latest and greatest gadget.
The fact is there’s no way of knowing for sure if a market will be profitable for you - because profitability depends on how well you research and execute your marketing plan, and how you respond to a competitive environment that’s always changing.
Depressed yet? Wait!
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“To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal ideas from many is research.”
Wilson Mizner, playwright, raconteur, and entrepreneur
How many times have you been told that you need to “get inside your customer’s head” to be able to sell successfully on the web? Countless times, no doubt.
But what exactly does “getting inside your customer’s head” mean? Simply put, it means that you need to understand the problems your market is facing and, more importantly, the solutions they’re actively looking for - what has motivated them to jump on the net and do a Google search, or direct navigate to a website about X topic.
A lot of internet marketers simply guess at what their market is looking for. They think, “Well I feel this way, so everyone must, too.” This is known as the false consensus effect in psychology. Anyone who dives into a market using this approach and still makes money is just LUCKY. Most dive in and lose a lot of money - whether they are affiliate marketers, information marketers, or small business owners.
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