First – Look for Fanatics
If you want your membership business to be profitable, you have to find a marketing with fanatics in it. What’s a fanatic? It’s someone who is so excited about a certain topic that they will spend their time and money on information about it. OK, so we know what a fanatic is, but how do we find them?- Look at magazine racks. This is an often overlooked, yet extremely simple way to find niches that people are interested in. 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.
- Watch and listen for fanatics in your daily life. Pay attention to conversations, social events, TV, restaurants, public places to see what people are talking about. If people are talking about it, they are interested in it. And that may also mean they’re willing to pay money to learn more 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. Likewise, if there are enough people to hold a convention, there are definitely enough people to fill your membership website.
- Think about the things that you are interested in. If you’re interested in something, it’s highly likely others are, too. Making money is fun and it’s even more fun if you can do it in a niche you’re excited about.
- Another fantastic way to discover what people are interest in is Google Trends. 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. Hot topics that people are excited about make great niches for your membership website.
Next – Figure out if there’s money in it
OK, so you’ve got a great idea for your niche membership business with lots of fanatics. But will they actually spend money? An easy way to determine this is to figure out if anyone else is making money in this niche.OK, how do we figure that out?
- 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 lets you know there is a market (a group of people actively interested in the niche.)
- 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.
- Watch Google Adwords for a period of time and look for ads the run again and again. Adwords ads are expensive, so people only run them repeatedly if they are profitable. And to be profitable, they have to be selling products and making money.
Step 3 – Determine ease of entry
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. How do you gauge the ease of entry?- Product types. What kind of products are being sold in the niche? You’re looking for a niche that sells info products. Membership websites based on information are the easiest to start and maintain.
- 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.
- 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? 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.
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