Niche marketing is a rather loosely knit term that has become sort of a latent buzzword. It’s starting to turn into one of those train’s that quite a few opportunistic yet unknowledgeable individuals jump on in order to improve, at least at first glance, their imminent appeal to new clients. Let’s take niche marketing down a peg or two to it’s roots first.

Niche marketing, to the affiliate marketer, is the process of finding a “niche” ~ something they love, like, adore, are very comfortable with or very knowledgeable about ~ be it shoes, handbags, cell phones,  video equipment,  cars, jewelry ~ and creating a strong online presence (some of us like to call it an “empire” LOL) with said “niche”. Whether they decide to blog about it, run a Build A Niche store, find a reputable drop shipper, or use another source for said affiliate marketing, the affiliate marketer carves out a niche for themselves in the chosen field or fields of their interest or expertise.

That being said, that was the fun part of niche marketing. Now for the more advanced concept.

Let’s say you’ve started a business, whether brick and mortar, online, or both. Let’s assume the business is a few years old, has done well, or sort of well, or at least you are still in business (even with this NASTY economic climate). You’ve achieved somewhat of a milestone. However, you are finding that your efforts are basically all over the map ~ you’ve got some marketing ideas, some on paper, some cruising around in your head, some just an occasional fleeting thought here and there.

You’ve got a website, not entirely happy with it. Perhaps it’s not bringing you the traffic it should, the return on investment (ROI) you feel you deserve, perhaps it doesn’t even look the way you had hoped it would ~ or, maybe it does, yet the aesthetics which are the “lights, camera” are not quite hitting a satisfactory note on the “action” part of this familiar phrase.

Anyhow, you know in your gut that your business has the potential to take off, to grow, to be more than it is but how to get there? How to tie it all together?

Sure you could spend more on yet another designer, on yet another marketing agent, but where is that really going to go? You could blame the economy, but even that is getting old.

Niche marketing, in your case, is relational to several other facets of website development and growth. Niche marketing, branding, search engine optimization, design, and a business plan all go together, all depend on each other, like eggs, bread, and milk are the basic staples of what’s in the fridge.

In your case, niche marketing relies on and at the same time is the integral ingredient of several mission critical factors. Excellent website design ~ not just a pretty face, it must be easy to navigate, easy for the customer to use; effective branding ~ a logo or banner that defines your business to a “T” and makes a memorable lasting impression on people ~ in other words “grabs” them.

The search engine optimization done on the website must be top quality, organic SEO, and make maximum use of your website’s quality content, which should be and need’s to be on every page. Your business plan should allow for an be flexible enough for changes whenver needed. When you see something is not working, it’s time to seriously evaluate it and either tweak or abandon. However that is fodder for yet another article from me, so we’ll get back to the business plan end of things in another post.

What really needs to be done first, and can’t always be done first, is the niche market research. If you are just starting out, yes, of course, you do the niche market research first. However, if you already have the less than fabulously performing website, it’s never too late to do the niche market research.

You need to do this objectively and without sentiment towards your own business or partiality. What needs to be evaluated is what you are selling. Doesn’t matter if it is tangible goods or services. You need to research who out there sells similar or same, how they are marketing it, how they are presenting it, and what part of the lion’s share of the market they have.

Their page rank is not nearly so important as their search engine ranking. People do not purchase goods or services based upon page rank. People purchase goods and / or services based upon search engine ranking, which is another way of saying search engine visibility. If you are not in the top 10 or 20, or even giving it a stretch in the top 30 for your chosen keywords, you’ve got some serious work ahead of you.

You also, if you are selling tangible goods, then need to research your competition’s prices, because their prices reflect their wholesale buying ability. Doesn’t matter if they make their products themselves or not, their prices reflect their wholesale buying ability. Once you get a clean picture of their prices, you need to source out wholesale sources for the same materials for yourself. You may, as a result, have to adjust your business plan to allocate funds to be able to buy in a more competitive wholesale environment.

If you sell services, your task is a bit easier. If your competition sells the same services as you, read far and wide beyond the title of the service. Read what they offer with each service. This gives you a very good idea of what value they place on their time, which is, after all, money. Some service providers will practically give some services away in an effort to rope clients in, and some will charge their normal hourly or package fees yet offer repeat or steady customers a significant reward or price break.

In the end you need to determine your value on your time, the value of your service, and whether your are a service provider with the experience and satisfied client base who can afford to charge middle of the road fees, or higher, more expert fees. Or, whether you are starting out or haven’t got much in the way of a client base will determine whether you’d be better off with your fees at the lower end. As you gain expertise and experience your fees can always go up commensurate with the quality of your work.

Now, if you are in the field of affililate marketing, the same rules apply, with a twist here and there. However, basically, it’s the same. You are not selling your own products, you are selling someone else’s, and you get a percentage in commission. That’s about as plain as any writing on the wall can get.

What isn’t plain is how you should go about the entire venture. You need to do the exact same research on your competition as anyone else needs to, taking the whole picture into consideration ~ what they are selling, for what price (in this case, their markup), how they are presenting the products, their website design, their search engine optimization, their keywords and keyphrases.

This all needs to be taken into consideration while you sit and make your game plan, as you have your website designed accordingly, your quality content written, your blog and your articles, your search engine optimization, your branding.

If you are heavily into affiliate marketing, do this one website at a time. You’ll be better off in the long run and benefit better in the long run by putting up one quality website at a time.

In the end, niche marketing research is what determines the life line of your online business. All other factors, in the end, depend on the niche market research you have done.

Is it all a little too much for you or a bit too much to understand? Contact us here at Jewelry Collectibles Design and we will create a package for you that we can implement, and in turn, teach you to implement yourself. Your success is our success, and we wouldn’t have it any other way!