It all starts when some well-meaning (yet misdirected) person encourages a budding internet entrepreneur to “start in a niche they know alot about”, or base their business around “something they’re passionate about”…
As horrible as it may sound - they’ve unknowingly sent the hopeful entrepreneur down a path of false expectations, poor results and eventually - failure. In fact, the myth of “do what you love and the money will follow” has been responsible for more failure than likely any other influence - perhaps even more so than laziness or a lack of perseverance.
Because the simple truth of the matter is that the only way you’re going to make real money on the net is if your business is based around two crucial things:
1) Large Demand
2) Buyers
In other words - you aren’t going to get rich selling a $15 ebook about growing square watermelons - even though that might be a great passion of yours.
The demand just isn’t there. Maybe there’s a few searches a day on Google for the topic, and perhaps there’s some interest in the online “gardening enthusiast” communities - but you’d be hard-pressed to make even a few hundred dollars a month from ebook sales.
Similarly, you also aren’t going to have a particularly easy time getting rich by building websites about some seemingly “popular” topics like humor, jokes, funny pictures and so on. And while there are a few ways to “monetize” your site (with AdSense, CPA Offers, CPM Banners, etc.), it takes literally millions of website visitors to make even just a few thousand dollars in markets like that.
The demand is huge - but the visitor value is extremely low…
Instead, if you want to make it big online - pulling down an impressive six-figure income - you need to tap into markets with tons of demand, where the majority of the visitors are valuable.
You need to capture tons of traffic that wants to buy something. If you take this approach, you’d practically have to hijack your own order links (or affiliate links) not to make a sizeable income.
In fact - did you know that some affiliates make several thousand dollars daily just by promoting a single product in hot markets? (Just imagine what the merchant is making…)
In some markets there’s actually so much demand that the vendors are quite literally selling over a thousand units - or more - per day. Digital products, with practically zero overhead/delivery cost.
But it all comes back to tapping into valuable demand. In most cases, it takes no extra effort or “skill” to market to a valuable market than it does to struggle along with something you’re passionate about.
These two factors - demand and buying traffic - are what seperate the “wannabe” marketers from the millionaires. Because there’s no real secret - you just need to sell what thousands of people are already buying.
The ball is now officially in your court. Are you tapping into markets with massive, valuable demand?
Or are you struggling to simply make a few dollars occasionally with a business that’s based on your own passionate interests?
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Chris Rempel, author of “Confessions of a Lazy Super-Affiliate”, reveals 5 of his most effective traffic strategies and niche-targeting tactics in full detail at http://smashingblog.com/recommends/make-your-day
September 18th, 2008 at 9:26 am
I agree that tons of demand is the way to go but with that comes tons on competition. You’ll need a plan to get traffic and that could take some time unless you have money for advertising
September 24th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Lucius,
Interesting post. I agree with 99% of it, however, for many people who are floundering trying to make a living online, sometimes what they are passionate about IS in a niche with lots of competition and traffic.
Perhaps, you could elaborate on HOW they could locate the right niche to be in, WHAT is its’ characteristics and WHY would a person spend time and hard-earned money pursuing that niche.
They say “a picture is worth a thousand words”, so if you could paint a clearer picture of what a successful marketer like yourself would look for, I’m sure many would benefit greatly.
Anthony Whyms
Moving4ward Marketing
http:/Moving4ward4Profit.com
November 9th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Absolutly agree, starting online business is no different from starting any other business. What one has to think of first of all would be market and competition. It might of course happen that someones passion is the pretty hot market with moderate but yet sufficient for monetizing competition. So probably it will be good idea to test all your interests and passions for market and competition before starting online.