In the world of E-commerce, finding a niche market is as important as making sure you have a parachute before skydiving… without it, you will plummet to the bottom! You may be experienced in interior design, construction, and cake baking but if you can’t narrow it down, you’ll soon become that infamous “jack of all trades but master of none.”
Picking out a niche can be a little tricky and it has actually been the reason why a lot of entrepreneurs businesses have not been successful… but luckily, there are things you can do to avoid entrepreneurial mistakes, especially when it comes to finding a niche market that’s right for you.
Putting that type of pressure on yourself can seemingly cause mental paralysis but it’s a very important step to create a business that’s right for you. Now, in doing that, it’s better to do things now rather than later because the sooner you get started, the sooner you get to test out your ideas and see what works and what doesn’t… it’s all about trial and error.
Business Survival Rate Based on Trial and Error
The Small Business Association states that the average lifespan of a small business is two to five years. Now, although that statistic may be alarming, it’s a fact you can’t turn away from because you have to be realistic when it comes to starting your own business.
Some of the greatest and most successful entrepreneurs you know to this day had their fair share of successes and failures but it’s those failures that helped them become a better businessman or businesswoman. The key is to learn from them and don’t give up.
As far as determining your niche, if you’re having a hard time trying to figure out which way you should go, take a look at these tips to help you figure things out and get your business started in the right direction.
1. Make a List of Your Passions and Interests
Making a list of all your passions and interests is the first step (some of you may have already done this). Start out with making a list of 10.
As a future business owner, your business will challenge you and test you. Because of this, it’s very important to make sure that you find a niche that you enjoy… if you choose a niche that you have zero interest in, your chances of quitting are greatly increased.
Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to find the absolutely perfect niche. As long as you are passionate about some area of running your business, you are more likely to see your business all the way through. If you don’t care what type of niche you have, you’re more likely going to lose your motivation.
Put forth the effort to figure out what your passions and interests are. Ask yourself these questions:
- What do you like to do for fun?
- How do you spend your free time?
- What’s a skill that you would be interested in learning?
- What type of clubs or organizations do you belong to or are involved in?
2. Identify the Problems You Can Actually Solve Yourself
At this point, you should have your 10 passions and interests; now you’re ready to start narrowing your options down. In order for your business to be successful, you’re going to need to figure out what types of problems your target customers may experience and how you can actually solve them. Here are two ways that you can help identify potential problems that your business may face.
- Research different forums. You look through different forums and discussion boards related to your niche. Look at what people are saying and the questions that are being asked. What type of problems do they have and how would YOU solve them?
- Research different keywords. This will be important to your business because it will let you know what search terms are used to uncover customer complaints.
3. Identify, Research, and Beat Your Competition
There’s nothing wrong with a little competition… in fact, competition is what really helps you know how good your business is. The key thing to remember with competition is that you want to be better than them so the only way to do that is to look them up!
Researching your competition isn’t cheating or “stealing” your competition’s ideas. It’s actually a great way to see if the niche you chose will be successful. If your competitor has a pretty good track record, then you can feel assured in knowing that your business will have some level of success.
Here are some ways to tell that you can enter a particular niche and have success even though you have competitors in that same niche offering the same product or service. Your competitors will have these.
- Content of low quality. It’s very easy to beat your competitors when the content on their site is of low quality and just poorly written. The way you can stand out from the rest is to put only high-quality content on your site. Your customers and target audience need to find your information helpful, interesting, and useful… that alone will make you stand out from the rest.
- Minimal paid competition. If you’re researching your competitor and you discover a particular keyword that has a high search volume but not a lot of paid advertising, then you have a great opportunity to outshine your competition.
4. Determine Whether or Not Your Business Will be Profitable
At this point, you should have a pretty good idea of what niche you’re going to get into. The next thing to do is to figure out how much money you can potentially make. If you search topics in the niche you chose but aren’t seeing any type of offers, then it’s a good chance that the niche you chose won’t be profitable for you.
Now, if you search topics in your niche and a decent amount of results pop up then there is a light at the end of your tunnel. Make sure to notate prices so that you know what to compete with.
5. Test Out the Profitability of Your Idea
You now have everything you need to choose the right niche for you… the next step would be to test it out! A great and simple way to test your idea is to set up a landing page for the presale of products your selling. From there, you can drive traffic to your page with paid advertising.
You Get the Idea…
These are all just suggestions on ways to find your niche. The key thing to remember is to be consistent and persistent, even when you feel like giving up. Nothing gets built if everyone just gives up!
