Before you launch your internet business you absolutely must perform market research – if you have any hope of achieving success and accomplishing your goals.
How Do You Know Your Business Idea Will Work?
The problem is that so few people entering into entrepreneurship for the very first time – and for some, it’s not just the first time but ongoing launches too – haven’t a clue as to where to even start researching to validate their idea.
Before you decide on what niche you’ll focus your marketing activities on you must determine whether that niche has a market demand. If not you’ll waste your time and m
oney at every step of the entrepreneurial process you take in that niche area.
And that expenditure of time and money becomes very expensive in a situation like this.
So your first activity in the market research process is to make a list of three to five niche areas you have an interest in. Your most common market niche choices are physical products (as in barbecue accessories) and digital products (as in books, white papers and reports, and software programs).
Then you’re going to find information as to the number of people who have interests in products related to each niche along with the number of people who actually have money to buy those products and the number of people who actually do buy those products.
Create a file for each of your research niches. You want to keep them separated because you want to be able to arrange them in order of marketing success viability after you’ve completed your market research activities.
That way you’ll be more able to decide which niche is the best fit for you to start your internet business with.
How Do You Conduct Your Market Research?
Know What Terms Potential Customers Look For
You’re going to visit certain websites to conduct your market research. Those websites and the methods you need to use for your research project are what I’ll show you next.
The place to start is https://adwords.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/. It’s where you’ll get your initial hint as to whether your niche has the potential of providing you with success in your business venture.
You’ll have to create an Adwords account with Google before you can use this tool. There is no charge for this account.
After you log into your account you can take your first market research step.
What is the main word that describes the niche that you’re researching first? Say your niche is barbecue accessories and you’ve found a grilling brush that you really like to use when you’re preparing food on the grill. The first keyword that comes to mind for that accessory is “grill brush.”
Enter grill brush into the keyword search area and begin the search. The planner will show you a list of all the related terms that people are searching for when they’re looking for a product similar to a grilling brush.
A search I just did for grill brush gave me a result of 1,000 to 10,000 searches each month for the keyword. And I got a list of 575 keyword phrases that are related to grill brush – each with varying numbers of monthly searches.
So I would say that, based on those results, barbecue accessories is probably a viable niche. That of course would be for warmer areas year round and other areas in the spring and summer months.
Also, a check for the term barbecue accessories brought back 700 keyword phrases, which re-enforces the idea that this is a viable niche.
Go through each of your selected niches and find the number of searches per month for the niche. Put a list of the keyword phrases along with those numbers in each niche’s file for future reference.
What Are The Hot Selling Products In Your Niche?
Your next research step includes two different websites. Those are:
And:
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers/zgbs
These are sites where you’ll find hot selling products (the currently popular items that are high in demand) on eBay and Amazon. A Terapeak account is cost based while the Amazon account does not cost you anything.
Look through those sites for listed products that are related to your niche areas.
The more related products the more comfortable you can be that you’re on the right track toward finding a niche that you can successfully turn into a growing business.
A quick check on Amazon shows me listings for a gas grill and a couple of grilling mats. That doesn’t give you a lot of confidence for your grill brush but it does suggest that barbecue accessories is still a viable niche.
Do Potential Buyers Have Interest In The Niche Subject?
Next, go to https://www.magazines.com/. If the people you’re looking to send your marketing messages to are interested in the subject of the niche they’ll likely seek information to study about that niche.
And if the interest is there some enterprising publisher is most likely producing a magazine about that niche subject.
I searched for barbecue on the site and it took me to the page for Cooking and Food. Although there are most likely barbecue recipes and articles in some of the magazines listed there I didn’t find a barbecue dedicated publication.
That would be a debit point against barbecue accessories as a viable niche. But it’s not strong enough to discount the niche as viable by itself.
Is There A Healthy Amount Of Competition?
Do a search for websites that focus on the niche. I just did a Google search for barbecue accessories and got a return of 26 million results. I’d say that’s a lot of competition for the niche.
Competition is a good thing. If it’s there you can feel confident that people are generating incomes by selling related products.
You can also check if there are websites for sale that relate to the niche you’re doing market research for. If related sites are listing and selling, and depending on the requested prices, you can get an idea of the popularity of related products. I just checked flippa.com for grilling accessories and got zero results. A search for grilling returned one website for sell.
Not a niche killer by itself but disappointing.
Are People Talking About The Niche?
A Google search for barbecue blogs just brought me 781,000 places where I can go talk to other people who are looking for information in this niche. And when I searched barbecue forums I got a return of 704,000 sites.
I’d say that’s a great indication that barbecue accessories is a good niche to start an internet business in. Wouldn’t you?
Do Market Research – Or Risk Internet Business Failure
Proper market research gives you a secure indication as to whether your internet business idea will take you to success as an entrepreneur – or send you over a cliff to business doom.
Don’t ignore this crucial step when you decide on what niche your marketing efforts will focus on.
To your success.
