Membership Niche Selection Tips
July 25, 2010 by Team101
This article explains how to select a profitable niche for your membership business.
First – Look for Fanatics
The number 1 thing you have to do is find fanatics if you want a profitable membership website. Fanatic is defined as someone with an irrational enthusiasm. These are the people you’re looking for because they are so enthusiastic they’re willing to spend money on their topic of fanaticism. Here’s how to find fanatics:
- Here’s something you may not have considered – magazines! We’re so internet-based these days, it’s easy to forget about them. Because it’s becoming harder and harder to keep print periodicals profitable these days, if you see a magazine on the shelves, you know it’s making money. And that means there are lots of people interested in it. That doesn’t mean definitely that it will make a good membership business, but it’s a good starting point.
- You’ve got lots of opportunities every day to see what people are interested in. Just pay attention to what people talk about on the radio, at social gatherings, at the store or restaurants and anywhere in public. If people are talking about it, they are interested in it. And this means there may be a market for information about it.
- Conventions, clubs, and organizations. Once again, if there are enough people interested in a topic to create a club or organization, then there are enough people to build a membership business around it. Conventions are expensive to hold and attend, so if one if going on that’s another strong indication of a good niche to go into with your membership website.
- Think about the things that you are interested in. Chances are that if you like a certain topic or hobby, other people do, too. And, as an added bonus, it’s much more fun to build a business around things you’re interested in.
- Google Trends. This is a great way to figure out what people are interested in. This service shows you the current most popular search terms. These topics are the hottest topics because lots and lots of people want information about them. Building a membership business around things people are actively searching for is a great way to ensure your success.
Second – Analyze the "commerciality"
After selecting a possible niche to build your membership site around, the next step is to find out if it’s a profitable niche to be in. An easy way to determine this is to figure out if anyone else is making money in this niche.
Here’s how to determine if you can make money in your chosen niche
- Find out if there are blogs or forums related to it. Just search Google for "YourNiche blog" & "YourNiche forum" and see what comes up. This tells you there are people who are actively interested in your niche.
- See if other people are creating and selling product in this niche by searching in Google Shopping, ebay and Amazon. What you’re trying to figure out is if anyone is making money in this niche, and if people are selling products it means they are making money.
- Look at Google Adwords for the same ads are running over time. If people are running the same ad over time it means they are making money in the niche. They would not continue to spend money on the ads if there were not making a return from them.
Last, but not least… How hard will it be to break into this niche?
After figuring out a good niche and determining that other people are making money in it, the last thing to do is decide if you will be able to enter the market. Here are some things to look at to figure this out:
- Product types. What kind of products are being sold in the niche? You’re looking for a niche that sells info products. The easiest membership website to create and maintain are information membership sites.
- The last thing you want is a marketing filled with tons of competitors. A few means it’s a profitable niche, but too many means you won’t be able to take a piece of it.
- Unless the market is just so big that it doesn’t matter how many competitors there are, you want to limit the competition. So evaluate the size vs. the competition.
- Market readiness. Are people ready to buy? Are the receptive to marketing messages? Every market is different. Sometimes people are looking for information and are ready to pay for it right now. And sometimes it takes weeks, months or even years for them to make the decision to purchase.
Summing it all up
So far, we’ve talked about exactly what it takes to pick a great niche: One with a hungry crowd of fanatics, who are ready to spend money on information about their topic. And you’ve determined your barrier to entry is small enough to give it a go. If you’ve done your homework, your business will be a success because you already know your market is a profitable one with room for you. Learning how to run a membership website is a topic for another article…