Matching Niche Markets With Your Skill Set

First of all, allow me to explain what a niche market is: A group of people who want something specific who's needs are not met by the mainstream market.

It is very difficult to compete in a mainstream market. Someone already beat you to it. Niche markets are another matter, since quite often no one has come up with the best solution to meet the needs of the people in question.

Examples of niche markets:

• Organic food (Although it is becoming more mainstream, it started out as a niche market)
• Alternative Health Practitioners (Mainstream doctors and insurance companies are weaker than alternative health care practitioners on prevention and chronic disease, but are generally not set up to refer out to alternative practitioners, so there is an unmet market demand both among patients and practitioners for each other)
• Personal Tech Support (Computer newbies are disappointed with telephone support outsourced to India, so a knowledgeable local tech support person can fill the need)

On the other side of the equation is one's own skill set. We know skill sets from our jobs, so we might think of them as word processing, phone skills, record-keeping, etc. But there are many other skill sets we possess that are not part of those we use for employment purposes. We have skills sets around what we do for fun, whether it is golf, attending the opera, or fishing.

Jermaine Griggs used to give lessons on how to play by ear at his local church. Someone suggested he write them up. After a year he had a whole book of lessons. Someone suggested that he advertise it on the internet. When he did so, he was soon making a few hundred dollars a week selling his book online. Then he got some coaching about how to improve his online sales. He has bought both himself and his mother new houses as a result. Jermaine was 16 when he started and is about 20 years old now. http://www.hearandplay.com/

So the trick is to think of what you already do and how that might be of benefit to someone else.

A good place to start is by experimenting with Yahoo's Overture Keyword Selector Tool:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Try typing in a word related to one of your interests and see what other people are searching for. Notice if a significant number of people are asking questions that you could answer. Just for fun, run a calculation to see if you could make money in a pay-per-click campaign.

For a specific key-phrase calculate:
The number of searches x $.10 = what you pay for each referral (base price, may be greater if others are bidding on the same terms)

288395

love poem

Example: love poem 288,395 x $.10 = $28,839.50 pay-per-click cost
Then speculate a $20 product and assume that 50% will be profit = $10
"My book of love poems"
Then calculate what it would take to break even:
1% conversion = 2884 x $10 = $28,840 - $28,839.50 pay-per-click cost = break even

Of course, there are many other factors, such as how well you pitch your product and what the actual bid prices are, but you get the picture.

The real trick is to spot emerging markets and be one of the first to provide what people need. You may find that in order to meet that need, it will be necessary to learn some new skills. More about that in the next installment.

Next installment: Spotting emerging markets and developing your ability to respond.