Let’s talk about niche selection. This is very important to ensuring the profitability of your membership website.

First – Look for Fanatics

The first step in developing a profitable membership business is to find a market with fanatics in it. Simply put, a fanatic is someone who’s willing to spend time and more importantly money on a topic they are interested in. Now that we know what we’re looking for, let’s talk about how to find them…

• One simple idea that’s easily forgotten is to scan the magazine racks when you’re out and about. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to run a print magazine. So if you see one on the shelves you know they are making money, which means that there are enough people interested in what they’re saying to make it profitable. If they can make money in a print version, you can probably make money with a membership website.
• Pay attention throughout the day in your regular activities. See what people are talking about on the radio, TV, at parties, in public, etc. If people are talking about something, they probably want to know more about it. Which means you can start a membership business providing information on it.
• Again, looking in the physical world for clues you can tell there are lots of people interested in something if there are clubs and organizations around the topic. Likewise, if there are enough people to hold a convention, there are definitely enough people to fill your membership website.
• What about your interests and hobbies? There’s a good chance that others are interested in these things, as well. And, as an added bonus, it’s much more fun to build a business around things you’re interested in.
• Another fantastic way to discover what people are interest in is Google Trends. Google Trends tells you the most popular current search terms. These are the things people are actively searching for in Google. They’re searching because they want information. 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. One way to figure this out is to see if other are making money in it.

Here’s how to determine if you can make money in your chosen niche

• First go to Google and type in the name of your niche followed by “blog” and “forum”. If there are blogs and forums related to it, that’s a good sign. This means there is a large group of people already assembled for you to market to.
• Check Amazon, eBay and Google Shopping to find out if others are making and selling products in your niche. If other people are creating and selling products in this niche, it means there is money to be made.
• Monitor Google Adwords to determine if people are running the same ads for weeks in a row. If they are, this means they’re making money on these ads – otherwise, they’d stop running them. Which means there is money to be made in your niche.

Last, but not least… How hard will it be to break into this niche?

Once you’ve found a niche and figured out that there is money to be made in, you need to determine if you can break into this niche. 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. That’s because it’s much easier to build a membership business around information vs. any other kind of product.
• The next thing to look at is the competition. You don’t want to try to break into a saturated marketing, so figure out how many people are already selling in this niche.
• Compare the size of the market versus the number of competitors. Some competition is a good sign – just make sure the market is big enough for you to join in.
• Market readiness. Are people ready to buy? Are the receptive to marketing messages? Some niches are made up of people who require lots information and have a very long lead time, and some markets are filled with people who will spend lots of money right now.

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…

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Dustin Struckman Has Written 33 Articles For Us!

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Tags: internet marketing, membership business, membership website, online marketing

This entry was posted on August 12, 2010 at 12:45 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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