As an entrepreneur with a great idea, it can sometimes feel easier than you anticipate to uncover your market and begin your niche business website. However, that’s not how it works for everyone.
If you’re someone with commitment, drive, and passion, then it’s perfectly possible to find the right product niche and start a business online, it just requires some hard work.
To begin with, you’ll need plenty of research and time. But, if you put that in and do it well, you could be at the beginning of a profitable new business. One that helps you achieve all your goals.
Understanding Niche Business? What is a Product Niche?
A product niche is an item that will appeal to a group of people – large or small, but usually the latter (at least to begin with).
It could relate to a specific and popular, but not mainstream, sport. Or your product could relate to a particular need or use of another popular product, already in existence.
Examples of successful niche products include:
- Dedicated sports channels – ESPN.
- Women’s control underwear – Spanx.
- Different diet needs – gluten free.
Each of these niche markets has a specific need that at one time or another, wasn’t easily available, or available at a price people could justify paying.
With the right product niche solution, however, that group of people who benefitted from the new niche product helped popularise it and demand – in the examples above – grew pretty impressively.
Of course, not every niche product is as successful as these. But, even a tenth of their success is a great return for many entrepreneurs starting out.
How to Find Your Niche?
There is a great article at Forbes which explains how to Find Your Niche in 60 Minutes or Less With These 4 Questions?
- Identify the talents and skills you’re good at.
- Out of the above talents and skills, what do you enjoy doing most?
- Of those talents and skills you enjoy, what do people need?
- From the above needs, what will people pay big money for?
To learn more read the complete article Find Your Niche in 60 Minutes or Less at Forbes.
Where to Start – Niche Business Basics
The best place to start is by considering which industry you want to work in.
If you’re experienced in one particular industry and know it well, then this is often the one to stay in and create your niche business to serve.
After all, you know what customers want and what businesses already provide, which gives you a head start on finding a business niche you can excel in.
If, however, you’ve had an idea for an industry you’re not so familiar with, you have a lot of research ahead of you.
Whichever option you go for, you’ll need to know:
- What’s already on offer in the industry you’re considering.
- Is something essential missing from the products and services already available.
- Can you solve a problem with a product, rather than create or source something that’s more of a ‘nice-to-have’ item.
- Can you produce and provide that missing product, or service, at price customers will pay and still give you a profit.
- Is it a long-term growth industry that could spawn additional products and services, or is the product something people will only need to buy once?
As part of your research, you should also search for any surveys relating the industry you’re interested in.
They might contain valuable customer feedback on what they think is missing from a product.
Or, failing that, take a look at customer comments on popular sites like Amazon and eBay or any others that are relevant.
It’s also useful to come up with more than one idea, maybe two-or-three, so you can quiz your friends and family about which they think is essential and affordable.
That kind of feedback is important too, as it can help identify the right product or service to consider and you can start building Niche Business website.
Practical Considerations for Niche Business
Once you’ve confirmed the industry you’re targeting and a possible product – or gotten it down to a top two – the next step is to pinpoint production and shipping costs. This will require quite a lot of legwork, but it’s an essential part of your research.
Find out where you can source the product you want to market and sell – either in its finished form or through a manufacturer who can create it for you.
You might need some quite detailed plans if you’re going down the manufacturing route, but it could also end up being more profitable. If possible, try and get details and figures for both.
Have a list of questions ready:
- How much is the item from source?
- What’s the optimal order number for costs and stock?
- How long will it take for the products to be made and/or shipped to you?
- What price can you sell the product at to attract customers and make a reasonable profit?
- Will additional products or product add-ons be available/possible?
Knowing all your costs and lead times will help you understand the investment you need to make and how long it will take to receive the product yourself, before moving it on to the customer.
If you require business finance for this new venture, these details – and much more – will be required by any lender you work with.
Save time further down the line, by getting this key information early on.
Building Your Niche Business Website: You also need to build a website for niche website, WordPress is the most popular choice to build websites and blogs. You also need a good hosting provider to host your website.
FlyWheel Hosting plans allow you host any type of small and large business and personal websites. There hosting plans are starting from $15-$100/Month, that allows you to start with an affordable plan and when your niche business website grows, You can upgrade your plan.
To Promote your Niche Business Website: Get Your Marketing Right
Once you’ve decided on the product you’re going to produce/source and sell, you need to get your marketing right. It’s all well and good adding your product to one of the popular online market places and we know you’ll make some sales.
But, if your product is truly niche, then you’ll need to let that niche market know there’s a new product available, just for them, to solve a pressing problem.
Social media marketing is a cost effective option. If you are going to use WordPress for your niche business website, there are many free and paid WordPress social media plugins available to promote your content and products.
If you have the time, do some research and handle it yourself – to begin with. Of course, don’t post anything without running it past the second pair of eyes first.
You don’t want to make the wrong impression with bad spelling and grammar, or a faux pas that would upset your target market.
And, while it’s great to have a presence on a variety of social media platforms, it pays to focus on the ones that are most popular with your target audience.
Composing a killer Tweet isn’t the best use of your time if your typical customers don’t use the platform.
Have Some Patience
In some cases, success can come pretty quickly, but in reality, those instances are few and far between.
Instead, do your homework, get your product ready, get your marketing right and then have a little patience. Don’t keep checking order numbers and page views every hour.
If your product doesn’t gain traction as quickly as you’d like, take a good look at your process so far, consider your target audience and think about how you can better reach them.
Or, make use of the details from customers who have taken a look at your product and given you permission to do so. Send them a short market research survey to get more information about what your niche market wants from the product you’ve made, or how you might be able to better reach them.
Also, bear in mind that some 90% of start-ups fail, there are some common reasons why.
Do your best to avoid making the same mistakes as others and create a niche product that solves a problem, is affordable and get that information to your target market!
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