Niches to Riches in 4 Simple Steps!

What if you could optimize your marketing in a way that would allow you to save time and money while increasing your conversion rates and your bottom line?  Sounds too good to be true?  Not at all.  The secret is to identify a specific segment within your overall market and change your strategy to speak directly to this niche.  It really is that simple, but of course there are some specific steps to take to make this happen, and they’re listed below.

But first, let’s address why you would want to niche your business. It might seem strange to some people to narrow your market.  After all, don’t you want to sell to as wide an audience as possible?  While that might make sense at first glance, think about what it means.  First, you need to be able to effectively market to that wide audience.  The wider the demographics of the group, the more avenues you’ll need to take to get your business name and offerings in front of them.  For instance, Wal-Mart and McDonald’s each spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year to reach their target markets, because their markets are massive - pretty much anyone who doesn’t hate them.  They can afford this kind of marketing, so it works for them, but most of us aren’t in the same boat.  Notice also that these companies tend to be low-price leaders, taking smaller margins to appeal to a wider audience.

On the other hand, look at a guy named Fred Gleeck.  Fred is a marketing expert who had an all-around, general marketing expertise.  Somewhere along his marketing career, he recognized the power of a niche market.  He could have targeted his services at anyone in need of marketing, which is pretty much every business everywhere.  That would have meant spending a lot of marketing dollars to reach his audience in hopes of converting enough people to make a living, and it would also have meant competing with the throngs of other marketing firms, all trying to attract the same prospects.  Instead, Fred decided to niche.  He ended up targeting the self-storage industry.  He changed all his material to focus on this niche and created products that addressed the specific needs of self-storage facility owners.  The result is that Fred became the recognized expert on the topic.  He ended up as a sought-after speaker at industry events and even wrote a book about how to market your self-storage facility.   Not only that, but because he chose an underserved market, he had literally no competition, so he was able to charge considerably more for his products and services than he ever could have as just another marketing guy.

So you can see that finding and targeting your niche can allow you to stand out from the crowd, save money on marketing, and charge more for your products and services.  Now, here are the steps to niche your business:

1. Identify your big target. Who is your overall target audience?  You’re going to get more specific, but start with a wider target first.  Begin by just nailing down who your overall target audience is, from a big picture perspective.  The answer to this question might be “business owners”, or “parents”.  It’s probably a very big group and might cover a very wide age range, both genders, and a wide geographic area.

2. Narrow down your niche. Somewhere within your wider target market is a sub-group of people who have specific wants, needs and characteristics that don’t match up with the rest of the market.  For example, if your wide target market is parents, within that group is the group consisting of single mothers.  While single mothers share a lot of the same wants and needs as all parents, they also have certain wants and needs that married fathers, for instance, don’t have.  You’re not done yet though.  Within the smaller niche, there is often an even more focused niche.  In the example of single mothers, what about single mothers of teens?  Want to get really crazy?  How about single mothers of troubled teen boys?  Obviously, it can get to the point where it’s just ridiculous (southwest Indiana single mothers of troubled teen boys whose favorite color is green…), but the point is to narrow your niche down as far as it makes sense for your business and your market.

3. Analyze your niche market. Get clear on who this customer base really is.  If your answer to the first question was “business owners”, and you identified a niche market of retail clothing store owners, now’s the time to ask what those business owners really want and need.  Are there universal wants that apply to everyone in your target niche?  What are those, and how can your product or service address them?  In addition to analyzing who this group is, it’s important to look deeper and determine the habits of the market - even if it’s not related to what you’re offering.  Where do they hang out online and in the real world?  What’s important to them?  What trade associations serve this niche? Getting inside the heads of your target audience is important to be able to effectively market to them.  If you’re having trouble nailing down a niche, think of it this way:  Chances are the niche that suits you best is the group of people who you can most relate to.  For instance, if you yourself are a single mother of a troubled teen, you’re going to be able to more easily create a plan to market to that group.

4. Build and execute a plan. This is the fun part!  Now that you have identified your niche, it’s time to figure out how you’ll reach them and what you’ll offer to address their specific needs.  This step is very much specific to your business and your niche, so it’s difficult to detail what you’ll end up with.  What we can say, is that step 3 is the key to making step 4 effective.  Once you know your niche market inside and out, you’ll know how to reach them and what to offer them to solve their unique problems.

Remember, the title of this post indicates these are simple steps, but not necessarily easy.  It will take time and effort in the beginning to execute this strategy.  The payoff in the end more than makes up for the work though, so go find your niches, and then count your riches!

CPATrend: An Affiliate Marketing Network Worth Looking At

When it comes to affiliate marketing networks, you have a lot of choices - but if you really want to increase your affiliate revenue, only a few are really worth taking a serious look at.  CPATrend is one of those.  They set themselves apart from the crowd in a few important ways - all designed to help you make the most of your affiliate marketing efforts.

Customer Support

At the heart of what sets CPATrend apart is their focus on customer service.  Obviously the more an affiliate makes, the more an affiliate network makes, but not all affiliate networks seem to be as concerned about your success as your would think.  That’s not the case with CPATrend.  They have an efficient online support ticket system that actually works well, but that’s not all.  They’re also available by phone, email, and you can reach them by any all IM messengers.  Very convenient.

Payout Terms

CPATrend has a generous NET-15 payment term, but they pay their affiliates as soon as possible, not waiting to pay just because the term isn’t up.  For example, users were paid April 1^st for March commissions - 14 days early!  They also guarantee on-time payments.  If your payment through PayPal or direct deposit is late for any reason, they’ll compensate you $10 for each day payment is delayed.

Affiliate Managers

While they actively recruit quality experienced affiliates, CPATrend is more than willing to accept and work with qualified newcomers, and the fact that they assign great affiliate managers to all affiliates will make learning or improving your affiliate know-how a breeze.  Their managers use their years of PPC, SEO, banner purchasing, and PPV experience to provide one-on-one help and training to help with whatever kind of marketing you’re doing.

Etc., Etc., Etc.

Of course CPATrend offers banners and creatives for each affiliate offer, but they’re also willing to get any offer on their network that an individual affiliate would like to promote, which is easy to do, as advertisers can add their products to the network at no cost.  They also provide extremely high-paying offers and are able to bump payouts for those affiliates who get several sales or leads per day.  And if all that’s not enough, they offer one of the highest referral rates in the industry, at 5% of the lifetime commissions of your referrals.

All of these features make CPATrend well worth taking a look at.  If you’re interested in monetizing your site or adding another stream of revenue, head over to CPATrend and sign up today.

This is a sponsored post for CPATrend.

Avoid Planning Paralysis with the One-Page Business Plan

What’s the first thing most everyone says you need to do if you’re going to start a business? Write a business plan. But what if you’ve never written a business plan? Or what if you have, and the plan for your last business idea took you three months to write – and you haven’t even looked at it since you wrote it?

Depending on what you read, you might think you need to come up with 30-50 pages of meticulously thought-out, detailed material, including comprehensive financial projections, market studies, contingency plans, and more. So it’s no surprise that the very idea of having to write a formal business plan has kept some would-be entrepreneurs from taking the leap into business ownership altogether.

Of course you do have a lot of options for help if you buy into the conventional wisdom that a formal business plan is an absolute necessity. For starters, there are several hundred books on the subject, ranging from the “For Dummies” version for about fifteen bucks, to Bankable Business Plans for Entrepreneurial Ventures for $95.00 ($52.78 a pound!). Or you can download some slick software, like Palo Alto Software’s Business Plan Pro for $100-$200. If you want to go all out, you also have the option of hiring a firm like Portland Oregon’s MasterPlans to create a plan for you, for an average of $1,500-$4,000.

Let’s be clear: if you’re in need of start up financing, you will need a more formal business plan, and it might even be worth shelling out hundreds or even thousands of dollars and spending plenty of time to create one. Even then though, some bankers will tell you less is more, at least initially. When it’s time for your proposed loan to go to committee – or whoever the decision makers are – they want to see everything. But when you first present the idea to your financier, they’ll probably just want enough to help them decide whether it’s worth taking it to the next step.

If you don’t need major financing to get your business going, even if you might need it down the road, and if you’re dreading the idea of creating a formal business plan, take heart. A study undertaken a few years ago by Babson College has some good news for you. The study, entitled Pre-startup Formal Business Plans and Post-startup Performance, looked at 116 businesses started over an eighteen year period, from 1985 to 2003. Here’s what they found:

The analysis revealed that there was no difference between the performance of new businesses launched with or without written business plans. The findings suggest that unless a would-be entrepreneur needs to raise substantial startup capital from institutional investors or business angels, there is no compelling reason to write a detailed business plan before opening a new business.

Does that mean planning is unimportant? No, it does not. It means you can actually start planning to run your business… planning to do business, rather than planning to plan to do business. It has been said that a goal with out a plan is just a wish. We definitely advocate putting together a written plan. But for most businesses, that can be as little as a single page.

Welcome to the world of the one-page business plan! We believe your plan should have the following elements, all of which should be able to fit on one page:

Vision – Your vision talks about what you’re building. Whether it’s to dominate your market or simply be the best at what you do, this one to three sentence statement tells your company’s future.

Mission – While your vision tells the end result of your efforts, your mission statement talks about why your company exists. It talks, in a general sense, about how you will accomplish your vision.

Objectives – This section can simply be a list of bullet points stating your business goals. These items might be, “Generate $X in revenue this year,” or “Hire two employees by the third quarter.” Don’t worry about specifics in this section; just list end results.

Strategies – Your strategies tell how you’ll meet your objectives. Without going into great detail, list bullet points, such as, “Build a strategic alliance with Chamber of Commerce and other service organizations to increase local visibility,” or “Maximize gross profit by utilizing co-op advertising with select vendors.”

Action Plans – You’ll still use bullet points here and won’t be overly descriptive, but these list items will have dates tied to them and offer more specifics than your strategies. Examples are, “Move to Greenway Business Park office – May 1,” and “Negotiate bulk rate pricing with XYZ Supply beginning March 15^th.”

This one-page plan, like any good business plan, is a fluid document and will change as your business changes. If you do go for financing at some point, this plan will provide a starting outline for a more formal plan. And even then you don’t have to fret too much. (Check out GrowThink’s innovative Ultimate Business Plan Template software for an easy-to-use, effective way to create a professional business plan to take to any financial backer.)

Unlike the kind of plan you put together for financial institutions, the one page business plan is light, practical, and easy to refer to. You might even consider keeping it posted on the wall above your desk to remind you where you’re headed and how you’re going to get there!

When the Bank Says No, Where Do You Go?

Not long ago, if you had a need for financing and your business finances were in good shape, it seemed banks would line up to get the funds in your hands. Those days are all but gone now. Small-business lending has declined sharply in recent months, with Bank of America, the largest US small-business lender, cutting their lending in this sector by 6.2 percent during the seven-month period ended in November. Overall, US banks reduced their lending during the same period by $12.5 billion.

What this means for some small business owners can be a scenario that would keep anyone up at night. Imagine having to turn down an order from Costco or Wal-Mart because you don’t have the funds to produce the products they’re requesting. Even if on a smaller scale, it is disturbing to say the least to turn away any business due to lack of working capital for production. The good news is that, for many businesses in this position, there is a solution. A growing sector of the financial industry is saying yes to small businesses where banks are saying no.

What is Purchase Order Financing?

Companies such as Hartsko Financial provide financing to companies that have a purchase order from a creditworthy customer. The PO financer is more concerned with the financial strength of your customer than they are with that of you or your company. They will request a Letter of Credit (LC) from your customer and issue an LC on your behalf to the producer of your products, whether domestic or international. In this way, your finances aren’t as much in play, because they are facilitating the transaction at both ends. Basically, if you can prove you’ll get paid, they will send a letter of credit to your supplier. When you complete the order, the customer pays them, and they send the proceeds to you, less a percentage for their efforts.

The Price Tag

PO financing doesn’t come cheap. At Hartsko and other established firms, like Dallas-based King Trade Capital, Expect to pay as much as 3.5 percent for the first 30 days, and 1.25 percent for every 10 days thereafter. The quick math points to an annualized percentage north of 40 percent, which is obviously significant. So be sure your ducks are in a row and the order process is short enough to be able to pay the PO financer back quickly. If it’s going to take more than 60-90 days, this might not be the solution for you.

While pricey, this sector of the financial industry has grown significantly over the past year, largely because, for many small businesses, it’s the only solution that will allow them to fulfill large orders, expand into new markets, or start up in the first place. If you think it’s a good solution for you, do your research, solicit feedback from others who have tried it, and let us know how it goes.

Effective Viral Marketing For Your Business

In marketing, we all dream about achieving viral success and receiving an exponential amount of “buzz” for our individual campaigns. From time to time we hear about creative successes, such as the Moonfruit “win a MacBook” campaign on Twitter. What does it take to go viral and is it even something you can plan for, or does it just happen?

Fundamentally you need to be able to create a passion, a reaction or a significant feeling in your target audience to act as a catalyst. This means that you have to create anger, laughter, concern, surprise, need or a combination of these to ensure that your couple of seconds of product fame will turn into a focus of attention. Remember that it has to be all about arousing emotions.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make, however, is to start off by coming up with a weird and wacky idea and by focusing too much on the bizarre or the extreme. It is important to focus on emotions, but not fundamentally good for long-term image to shock, scare, repel or repulse potential clients! It is true to say that “shocking” almost always means viral exposure, as in the “guy who miraculously avoided being squashed by the out-of-control bus” video, but you want to be able to portray your business in an always powerful and positive light.

Remember that viral campaigns need not be restricted to one medium. Indeed as we know, social marketing is most effective when several different platforms are interconnected. While you may be focusing on social marketing to get your ball rolling, don’t be afraid to plan press release campaigns or other off-line initiatives to enhance and to back up.

If you believe that you have come up with a neat angle for your product, service or brand, don’t be ready to rush it out to the waiting world. Ask yourself the question – are you really ready for a viral explosion. You must prepare as if this campaign will really take off. The very objective is to make sure that you get a lasting benefit from what will effectively be a shorter term spike. As such, will you be able to capture the contact details for everyone who visits your primary website or social media sites as a consequence of this buzz? Moonfruit estimated that their US traffic (they are a UK based company) increased over 1000% as a result of their viral campaign success.

How do you plan to “go viral?”

Matthew Toren

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