What Types of Info Products Will People Buy?

Those of us new to marketing – on our first time out with an info product – create a product on something we are familiar with. In our eyes, it looks like a real winner, because we know we’d buy the ebook if we found it for sale online.

So we blindly head into the next step – paying for advertising, investing time into building a website, writing articles and press releases, etc. Spending all kinds of money and time trying to sell a product with little luck. If we don’t give up on the concept of niche marketing and making money online at that point, we likely decide to learn more about internet marketing as a whole, (and not just niche marketing specifically) where we eventually discover that our great idea doesn’t actually have a defined market. (Now stay with me, this starts to make sense in a moment…)

Still sometimes, the market does exist, but it has no money.

So before just jumping in any niche market, consider ALL of the factors.

Here are a few you need to look at:

1. The amount of competition you will have, and how big the competitors are.
2. Whether there is a market for your product.
3. That market has to have money for your product.
4. Is the market growing, or declining in interest?
5. Will you enjoy the chosen market’s customers and referring other products to them later on in your niche market business?

All factors are very important, especially the last one.

I, and many others have found that when you really have true passion for what you are doing, then you can always do it one better than someone who never had passion for the business or has lost their interest. Enjoying your niche market will make the difference in how successful your business will be. It won’t seem like work to you, it will be more like fun!

As trainers in the make money online marketplace, we are inundated daily with emails from people asking “What would you do if you needed $1000 – $2000 by TOMORROW, and you didn’t see it (coming)…?”

Click here to see one answer…

So don’t jump into this business blindfolded. Understand your market fully and enjoy it. Brian Tracy once said “Find something that you really love, and put your whole heart into it”.

Here’s why Niche Marketing is THE Place to Start Your Online Empire

I quote Ron Ruiz here when I say, “It is much better to be the big fish in a little pond, rather than a little fish in a big pond”.

This is where niche marketing holds the gold. Choose a market or niche where you could potentially dominate it within short order. In your first online business you don’t need to find yourself up against the big guns with the big money – well established in their industry and ready to knock you over with their latest marketing thrust. Quietly build up your business in a market with very little competition, keep learning about growing your business and applying what you learn and you’ll succeed.

How to Learn About Your Chosen Niche Market

The 5 factors above will be revealed when you survey your market.

What Do People Want to Buy?

Once you’ve chosen a niche topic, you have to find out what people want before you spend your time on creating something. It would be completely foolish of you to spend time or money creating a product, a website, sales letter, bonuses, etc.. and then find out that there is no interest in the market for what you’re offering.

If you are thinking of creating something similar to an already successful product, then you need to figure out how to do it better than that successful product. Never waste your time creating something that is exactly the same as a product already selling successfully. You’ve got to do it one better, or with a twist.

How to discover what will make a product better than what’s currently available? Ask a few questions…

Survey your target niche market to find out what they want…

You’ll want to ask people in your target market a few questions to see what it is they are willing to buy, what problems they have, or topics they can’t find information on relating to the niche.

Here is how it’s done:

Create a list of product ideas in your niche topic that you are willing to create – 5 to 10 ideas is all you need. Then find out where your market ‘hangs out’ online (forums, message boards, newsletters, blogs, etc.) and offer them something of value if they’ll take a few minutes to answer a survey for you. (It could be a free copy of your upcoming product should you choose to create it. It could be a prize draw. It could be a short report on a similar topic. You’ll think of something, just ask yourself, "What would it take to get me to answer a survey?")

This will save you hours or even days creating products that might not sell. And when you do find what people want and give it to them at a reasonable price, you’ll know that you are creating a product for a crowd hungry for your information.

Surveying your market, step by step is on this page, but if you’re looking for a faster way to learn more about your market, check out some niche marketing software.

Profitable Niche Markets for Info Products is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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Consider yourself – your hobbies, interests, desires.

Then consider your family and immediate friends. What hobbies or interests do they have? What special talents do they nurture or are constantly developing?

I’ll give you some idea examples from my own life:

Niche Market Product Ideas – Example 1

One of the most often asked questions I get is "How do you find or evaluate an idea for a niche info product when you’ve never done it before?" –Laura Childs, Jan 10, 2006

I’m a great cook. My friends love my homemade bread and cookies best. They are always asking me to show them how to bake bread and share my cookie recipes. Now if my friends want this information, wouldn’t it stand to reason that a few thousand other people might want that information as well?

Idea: Create a book on how to bake bread and provide all my best recipes in that product.

Evaluation: It turns out that approximately 90,000 searches are performed each month on the search engines for baking bread, bread recipes, how to bake bread, etc.

Next Step: Create the product, set up a website, etc., etc. (I did it back in 2000, it’s here.)

Niche Market Product Ideas – Example 2

My kid sister works on a cruise ship. She loves this life (she started working in the Caribbean and currently she’s in Southern Europe). She makes fantastic money, always has a tan, eats the most delicious foods and gets to see the world for free. Everyone I know is envious of this and asks “How can I do what you’re doing?”

Idea: Create a book on what people need to know to get hired as cruise ship staff. Provide successful sample resumes and cover letters, a list of available jobs on a cruise ship, addresses to the recruiting companies, and special tactics to dealing with life on a cruise ship. A real insider’s look at getting hired and working the cruise lines.

Evaluation: Over 50,000 searches are performed each month on the search engines for cruise ship jobs, work on cruise ship, cruise ship hire, etc.

Next Step: Create the product, set up a website, etc., etc. (My sister is currently compiling the information that will go into the report.)

Now It’s Your Turn to Come Up With An Idea

I can see that you’re already starting to think about yourself, friends and family – searching for a product idea. It takes about a week to really get your head rolling in this direction. Just be observant.

Getting Niche Market Ideas from Magazines

Another good source of ideas is the magazine section of your local bookstore. Here is a valuable source of Niche Market ideas.

Why? Because publishers don’t publish magazines that don’t earn a profit. To earn a profit magazines must have subscribers and advertisers. Make sure the niche magazine you choose has been around for at least a year – that way you know there is an existing base to a profitable niche market – and has a subscriber base of at least 25,000 monthly.

Look for something that makes you say “They have a magazine for that?”

Here’s some that struck me as odd markets.

• NailPro – circulation of 65,000 monthly, written for salon based manicurists. 
• St. Maarten Nights – circulation of 225,000 yearly, covering vacation activities in St. Martin
• Opera News – circulation 105,000

Now that you’ve defined the niche market, what product could you sell them?

Buy the magazines, take them home, study them, observe the ads – what is being sold within? For instance there may be an article in NailPro about contagious skin conditions. Perhaps there’s a market for that information online, bundled with prevention ideas for the salon professional, home remedies in the event of an infection, etc. Or in Opera News there may be an ad in the back that reads “You too can be an Opera Star! Train your voice with our methods and learn the insider’s secrets to getting an audition.”

If people are successfully selling items in magazine advertisements wouldn’t it stand to reason that the same product could reach a much larger audience online?

Now On to Evaluating Your Niche Market Product Idea

In the free niche marketing training course I mentioned that evaluating an idea has a cost of $0. I have tried many methods of evaluating product ideas (some of them free, but generally labor intensive), but the hands-down best way to evaluate a product idea is through research and understanding your target market (potential buyers’ mindset). I’ll discuss this in further detail in a later post as I did in last year’s ebook titled “What’s My Ebook Idea Worth?”

Finding Ideas for Niche Marketing Info Products is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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Process Payments Online – Credit Card, Debit Card, or Bank Transfer

Question: Is there a ‘best’ company, a superior service for credit card processing and other online payments for your products or services?

There are thousands of merchant account and third party providers with just as many methods for accepting payments online. Determining which one is right for your company or niche website is the hard part.

Shocking! The payment partners that fork over the highest commisions to their affiliates are the ones you’ll hear the most about – and the ones that are most used. But there are better alternatives. Choices that will save your company money in the long run. Choices that lend credibility to your company. (And in today’s tough marketplace, credibility is a key concern for business.)

The two most recognized and heavily promoted payment processors are listed below. They are perfect for start-up niche authors, and have a solid online reputation. However, if you are an established business searching for online payment processors and merchant accounts, just leave me a note below and I will reply personally with the best reliable credit card payment processor running the best deals right now.

Payment Processor for Digital and Subscription Based Sales – Clickbank

If you’re not a brick and mortar retail store and you plan on providing digital products or subscriber access to a website, ClickBank is still considered number one. They may just be the biggest credit card processor for downloadable reports and ebooks. ClickBank comes highly recommended for the online niche marketer. Why? Because sooner or later you will want an army of affiliates sending you website traffic and customers. ClickBank does all that heavy lifting since most marketers browse affiliate opportunities on ClickBank regularly.

Finding and managing affiliates via the ClickBank network requires no extra work on your part. Affiliate marketers in the know (other niche-market promoters) will find out about your product just from surfing the Clickbank marketplace. We all do this at least once per month to see what new products can be offered to our email lists, through pay-per-click, or on our websites to earn commission.

Affiliate marketers will advertise your link and/or recommend your info-product in exchange for your advertised commission rate (ranging from 10-100%). Industry standard is a minimum of 40% payment to your affiliates – any less and not too many marketers will pick your product to promote – after all promoting a product can be costly – either in money or in work involved.

Now don’t worry that you don’t have time to manage an affiliate team and write checks to them. ClickBank collects all payments and mails both of you a check. You don’t even need to keep records!

The cost to set up an account with ClickBank is $50, but you can sell a multitude of products on any number of websites with just one account. This is one $50 charge you won’t mind on your credit card statement. With clever promotion, both you and your ClickBank discovered affiliates will be receiving checks around the same time the registration fee shows up on your credit card!

Payment Processor for Selling Products #2 – PayPal

The second service I use and recommend is PayPal. PayPal is the best known (due to it’s increased use on ebay.com) payment processor. Only take this route if need some fast cash or if you plan on selling every copy of your product yourself (without affiliates).

PayPal has recently added a few new features to it’s service offering – namely affiliate management (still not as smooth as Clickbank’s interface), and subscription payments. Due to ClickBank and PayPal co-branding their service, you can set up subscription payments now from either company. PayPal automatically bills your customer and pays you on a pre-determined schedule without fault. If you were running any kind of membership site or monthly billed service PayPal is the one for you.

There are currently no start up fees to open an account with PayPal and you can start receiving money right away from your ebay sales or website purchases. A great way to get going with your online business. Transaction fees can be high so do your homework first. If you’re serious about your business get your own merchant account with much lower fees!

Registration is free at PayPal but don’t use it as a long term solution. If you can manage it right off, register for a business account (it looks more professional at the payment screen for your visitors to see a business name than rather than a personal email address).

How to Accept Credit Card Payments is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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If you already know a thing or two about me, you’re probably wondering how I survive financially in this one horse town and still have time to home school my daughter, run a farm, craft and spend time with my family…

The answer is Niche Marketing!

What I’ve been doing, you can surely do as well!

Are you interested in making money online to either subsidize or replace your current income? It’s not as hard as you might think, but there is a learning curve.

"If you are ready to commit to online success, don’t wait a moment more. The answer is here for you – invest this time in yourself and your future today."

Turn your interests and hobbies into an online source of income. You could potentially and dramatically change your lifestyle, your surroundings and your peace of mind about the future.

Some will tell you that you can work when you want and that it all runs on autopilot, but that’s not entirely true…

You see you have to learn the ropes of making money online. Work with the tools and automate your efforts. When you’ve reached a relatively high level of success you’ll be much freer – no reporting Monday to Friday from 9 to 5 – and continue earn as you learn. It’s all up to you, there’s no fast and super easy route – but once you learn how to do it, you can apply the principles and techniques into more profitable markets and keep increasing your income.

(It took me nearly a year to learn and replace my income – now I’m working on replacing my husband’s income so he can retire as well.)

There’s nothing terribly difficult about it if you’re dedicated.

And if you are dedicated, then this introductory course on niche marketing is for you!

I originally wrote this course while I was learning the ropes myself. You’ll find the text is geared for up and coming entrepreneurs to grasp quickly. Putting this knowledge under your belt will move you into the next phase of internet marketing in short order – the money-making phase!

This is:

…a short learning program to an entrepreneurial activity that you can duplicate at will, once you have the concept down.

…knowledge you can absorb within twenty minutes (that will empower you to start an online venture in a weekend’s time).

…a great way to earn some money for retirement or to buy that country home you’ve always wanted.

… the niche marketing technique and list of tools I have researched and used (that I discovered by watching and listening to some high-income earners online).

This will require some time, some brain matter, and some money. Stay with me for 20 minutes – not much of either money or time are required. All I want is your time, this course is completely free – you can keep your wallet tucked safely into your back pocket.

What this isn’t:

…not a get-rich-quick scheme.

border=0 width="6" height="9"> …not an MLM opportunity.

…not a scam, nor do you have to scam anyone to make money.

…not a ‘pitch’ to get you to buy something from me.

If you want to know how to do what I do, and leave the grind behind, read on to Making A Living Online.

How to Make Money Online – Learn Niche Marketing is a post from: online marketing with smartzville

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