Finding a niche was the topic of conversation last week when I met with a small business owner who put together faith based travel destinations for individuals and groups. She recently took a buy out at General Motors and opened her business two years ago. The travel business was not doing very well so she also became involved in selling promotional products.
Margaret considered herself a practicing Christian and was very active in her church. In fact, her mission in life was her religion and church. My first piece of advice to her at the time we met at a networking meeting was to forget the promotional business and stay with her passion. That was when she asked if we could meet and talk further about her niche.
When we met, I found out she marketed her travel business to all religions and variations of Christianity. I strongly encouraged her to narrow her niche down to church groups similar to the one she attended. There are hundreds of churches like hers in the Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana area.
Thinking about your own passions is a great way to generate possible niche ideas for yourself. Your first step is to stop for 10 minutes and write down everything you love to do whether it is playing golf, scrap booking, opera, jazz, or growing your own herb garden. Once you have a list of a dozen passions, think how you could turn any of these into a product. For instance, my passion is writing and I am collecting information to put together a course on email marketing. Another of my passions is playing golf. For the past 15 years I have thought about writing a book that teaches women how to play golf only I have not figured out how to market it because I am not a PGA professional.
Do not worry if your niche is very small. For those who love to use jargon those very small niches are called micro niche markets. You will have less prospects, but they will be more likely to purchase something from you because you have really honed in on your market. Listen to the news and find out what are the latest trends. Look at the newspapers, online media and hundreds of magazines in the book store and find out what is in demand. Check out eBay and see what kinds of searches are taking place there.
By now you realize that there are all sorts of possibilities for you for your niche. And keep in mind that in your business you do not have to stay with your first niche. You should stay long enough to make some money with it and then put it on autopilot for some residual income. That is when it is time to find your next niche.
You are almost guaranteed to make a profit if you can focus your niche on a topic or category that is a new trend. One of the ways you can find out what are the trends is to use this tool: http://www.google.com/trends
Type in a keyword to Google Trends and it will display a graph showing how the number of search has changed since a few years ago. It is a good way to identify niche markets that are on their way out and those that are moving up. If you put all your efforts into a niche that's on its way down there is no way you can make a good profit.
Still another way for you to find a niche is to visit other websites and look at their categories. Can you make sub-categories to make a niche. And above all, do not forget your keyword research. There are many different tools for searching keywords. I do not know enough about all of them so use the one with which you're most comfortable.
After you have a list of 6 or 7 niches that look promising, ask yourself if each has the potential for creating info products that people will want to buy. For instance, in faith based travel my client could write an e book describing how to plan a trip to the Holy Land with a 2 day side trip to Egypt. Above all, you want to create a product that solves a problem then you'll have people who will buy your product because they are looking for the answers.
A next step may be to find out who else is involved in a business that is similar to yours. You may want to contact them and inquire whether they are interested in doing a project together and sharing mailing lists and contacts.
About this Author
I invite you to learn more about how to create an internet presence targeting for your small business or profession. Ruthan Brodsky, long time copywriter is a copywriter and Content Marketer who helps small business and professionals set up their internet. Claim your free report at http://ruthanbrodsky.com.
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