Niche Marketing Tips: What Is Niche Marketing?

Niche marketing is a term that gets kicked around a lot. And in most cases it's a term that is used incorrectly.

It's worth pointing out that niche marketing applies not only to the world of online information marketing and/or affiliate marketing. Businesses of every model from inventors & product developers to food service companies and fashion magazines are all very aware of the need to niche their marketing efforts.

Regardless of what business you are in, the core idea behind the term niche marketing remains the same. A niche is a tightly focused group of customers who are interested in highly specific products and services.

This marketing philosophy is all about finding these tight groups of prospects, identifying exactly what they want, and then selling it to them.

This is, of course, a simplified explanation. But it captures the fundamentals nicely and if you understand the above statement you are well ahead of most of your competition.

The majority of people who have or want to launch an online business have no real idea what a niche market is. It's common for people to talk about very broad topics such as dog grooming, health & fitness, automobiles, and so forth when the topic of finding a niche comes up.

In other words people tend to think the term niche refers to a broad market category. This is incorrect.

Dog grooming is an ENORMOUS market. If you were to decide right here on the spot to start a venture based on the idea of selling dog grooming information online you would probably be crushed by the massive competition, unless of course you are an expert with several existing contacts in this field.

On the other hand, if you know quite a bit about applying a special type of nail polish to toy poodle breeds, you might have a valid niche market idea on your hands. Can you see the point I'm making?

True niche marketing is about finding very specific consumer needs and catering to those needs. The more specific the need for a product or service, the tighter the niche is said to be. And note the key words "consumer needs".

The successful niche marketer wastes no time on guesswork. In fact he or she will not even consider selling a product or service until it's clear there is a real demand for it.

The first step in any venture is to find out what people really want. Once you have proof that people are willing and able to buy a particular product, you make arrangements to become a provider of this product.

In today's highly competitive online marketplace niche marketing is without a doubt the best practice for start-ups. At the very least you should understand the basics before spending your time and money on a new venture.

Most new entrepreneurs go about the entire process backwards: They find or develop what they believe to be a "hot" product, and then begin looking for people to sell this product to.

This results in frustration and failure nearly every time. So don't go against the true grain here; do your homework in the beginning and improve your chances of massive success by huge margins.