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Niche marketing – Picking up the scraps
By admin | March 26, 2009
Baby has quickly become the smartest of the turtles. She has to be to survive in the tank. All three of the other turtles are bigger than her and most of the fish are too.
But watching her can teach you some good lessons on how to survive in the cut throat marketing arena. When one of the big turtles go digging in the gravel (still haven’t figured out why they love that but they do) she hangs nearby. As they kick up all the crumbs that have fallen and got lodged in the gravel she has a feast.
See the big guys could care less about them but those are baby sized pieces of food. Yes she does get stepped on and pushed away if she tries to interfere but for the most part she is growing quite nicely off of the scraps the others couldn’t be bothered with.
This really is the key to marketing in niches or micro niches. They are not big enough to be of interest to the big players but for a small business you can become quite well fed.
Even better as you find one it is repeatable process. One won’t make you rich but…
Find 10 that make $300 a month and you are starting to grow nicely. Just keep growing one little site at a time and get to 30 or so and you are a six figure earner. If you are working in related areas but start with the scraps pretty soon you can compete with the big guys.
For example dog training is a very competitive niche. Start with miniature schnauzers training then move to schnauzers training then to a variety of other breeds training. None of them will necessarily be super profitable but it would be easy to dominate in a lot of those and eventually you would have the potential to be a player in dog training.
In two to three years when Baby is almost grown the size difference won’t be enough that she won’t be able to compete directly. Building a network on topic is like her growth it gradually catches up to the big guys one little piece at a time.
Now the key is to do the proper research and plan out what type of niche to start . Finding Profitable Niches by Teri Champigny is a good place to start. Find a place where you CAN compete and build it up one piece at a time until you can compete with the big guys. Baby is.
The Turtle Dad
Disclaimer: Some of the links mentioned within this post or posts it may lead to are my affiliate links and in such case I will get compensated for recommending those products. However, I will never recommend something that I don’t personally believe in and I welcome your questions and feedback.
Topics: lessons | 8 Comments »
March 26th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Inch by inch its a cinch.
Earl Netwal´s last blog post..Home Staging Marketing Tactics That Will Put You Out of Business – Part 2
March 26th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Never knew how much you can learn from turtles.
But there so many ways you can learn, just observe. Don’t stare to the big picture, some of that are dreams anyhow. Look instead for the smaller niches and build from there…
Just need to learn to be more efficient in building those niches. Good resource Mike! Thanks.
Fred
Fred Lotgering´s last blog post..Multiple Sclerosis Fundraiser and Giveaway
March 26th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
I like the way that baby thinks. Starting small and working your way up to the top. That is a good analogy for starting small with your business. Sure is no fun competing with the big guys.
March 26th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Great info, Mike – and thanks for your ‘baby’ giving my ‘baby’ (Teri) a shoutout!
And your readers would be wise to heed our advice, then take it a step further… Rather than going head-to-head with the pros on the big niches, they should use your idea of targeting micro-niches to get the people into their sphere, then back-end the big niche stuff through their e-zines, download pages, etc. Once you’ve established yourself as an expert in that microniche and the person has already bought from you or chosen to get your e-zine, you have a much more receptive prospect to sell the mainstream stuff to.
And if anyone doubts your comments on tightly targeting niches, refer them to The Long Tail by Chris Anderson – his research shows why there’s more money in the sub-niches than in the mainstream.
Doug Champigny´s last blog post..Major Work-At-Home Blogging Breakthrough!
March 26th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Sage advice Mike. I think the general term is “low hanging fruit”, but I’m not sure whether turtles like fruit or not.. LOL…
March 27th, 2009 at 1:12 am
This is a very important tip that you share… something which beginners I think often overlook. They see the “gurus” going after the big niches, but unless someone has a lot of money to invest, the big niches are out of reach.
Like you said, going after a dozen smaller niches can be very profitable as well.
Joel Osborne´s last blog post..Turn PLR Products Into An Instant Cash Flow – IClickPLR
March 28th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Excellent advice Mike!
So many people tend to want to get in and compete with the big guys that they overlook those so called scraps.
Those scraps can make you a bundle when, as you said, you start creating multiple sites to pick up those scraps.
Teri’s product is great in that it can help you find those small, profitable niches so that you can begin to build your niche empire.
Brett McEllhiney´s last blog post..Niche Site Traffic Case Study – The Beginning