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Small Is The New Big: Narrowing Down Your Focus

by Toon Chooi

Once you see the potential for making money online, it's natural for you to wonder what it would be like to corner the market on something everyone needs. Being the biggest fish in the biggest pond would be ideal, right? Wrong! Competition is the spice of business life. You won't have to wait very long before someone else grabs a hunk of your market, if you have a high profile.

Here's a big secret to Internet Marketing success: find a narrow and deep niche of buyers and earn their love and respect. This is not just a nice idea; it's a hard-nosed, practical strategy for long-term growth and stability. Niche domination is the key to creating a stream of revenue that resists economic downturns, recessions and seasonal ups-and-downs. Even if your business is seasonal (i.e. holiday related), you can make sales year round, if you "train" your customers to buy according to your schedule.

You may be asking, "Why love and respect?" First of all, I'm not suggesting you become a hippie or a doormat. You need to have an impact on people's lives that is bigger than the value of your products alone. If you develop a habit of "overdelivering" to your customers, your value to them becomes much higher. Good customer service, practical advice, sound resource recommendations and the like can "bond" you with your buyers. Allowing your personality to shine through your presentation and follow-up communication gives people a way to connect with you, beyond the commercial connection. Having a sense of humor helps, too.

A narrow and deep niche simply means a specific area of continuing interest and demand that has enough regular buyers to earn you a profit. Fad niches don't have the staying power to mean much for your permanent income. It's okay to exploit a fad, if you have the skills to react quickly and implement an action plan immediately. For the long term, seek out the products and services that people buy and upgrade as a matter of course. Get them as beginners and grow with them as they need more and better products and services.

People with interests often buy up all they can find about their interest. Information seekers are like pack rats, gathering up everything they can find on the subject that interests them. Information products offer a way to sell something new to a "saturated" market. If what you offer has a unique perspective, a better format or a new slant on an old subject, you might find that selling this market is not a chore—it's a breeze!

If you've identified a market for physical products that people buy, use up and buy again, you can build a permanent stream of revenue. Again, even in a saturated market, your unique approach that targets the particular needs of your buyers can carve out a share of that market. Take the time to identify or "profile" your buyers. Get to know what they're like in as many areas of their lives as you can. The more you know about them, the more you can meet them at their needs. Your competition could offer them a better price, but if you offer them a reason to love you, that won't matter.

There's an additional value to earning the love and respect of your niche market—evangelical customers. These folks will spread the word about your product or service to anyone who'll listen. You can't buy that kind of advertising. If your competition doesn't have the same approach to earning love and respect, they'll never be able to catch up to you!

Tan Toon Chooi runs his Internet Marketing blog at http://www.tctan.net.

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