The Simple Three Steps to Finding a Hot Niche for Affiliate Marketing
Want to know how to make money online with affiliate marketing? Here are 6 ways to slash your affiliate marketing research efforts to the bare minimum so that you can get on to the fun of promoting and marketing.
One quick way to establish that people are willing to spend money promoting products in your niche is to head over to the ClickBank Marketplace and choose any category you might be interested in promoting. This will bring back the top ten most popular products in that category. Products do not become popular with affiliates unless they sell, so popularity is important if you want to find a “Winner”.
Don’t be afraid to go past the top products if nothing “clicks” for you. You might want to check the second page, too, if you don’t find something that interests you on page one. You want a product you can get behind because it’s almost impossible to fake enthusiasm for a product. Despite your best efforts your lack of interest will show through and doom your promotion to fail.
Don’t be put off when you find a product that seems so popular that you fear you will be unable to compete for sales due to saturation. Affiliate marketing is all about sleuthing out the potential customer – and maybe you have an “eye” for that market that others don’t.
After you find your niche it’s time to find out the true scope of the niche. On this one we will let Google do the heavy lifting for us. Open a new page in your browser and search for your niche. First, look at the results at the very top. These are the paid ads and what you need to pay attention to is the number of ads.
If you find only an ad or two, or all the ads are basically promoting the same thing then beware. This is a sure sign that the niche is very narrow and niches like that tend to be dominated by those who can spend the most money. Not what we are looking for here.
On the other hand if you see several different products being promoted that is a positive sign. This will give you options as well. Almost all larger companies, and many smaller ones as well, have affiliate programs you can join if the product is a fit for you. Just go to the site and look at the links usually located at the bottom of the site home page. Look for Affiliates or “Partners”among the options and click on the link.
To get a better idea of the true scope of your niche be sure to look at the search suggestions at the bottom of the page. Take a look at those that interest you and do the same with the results. Don’t get carried away or go deep diving at this point. This is preliminary research. You still need to find out “who” your target audience is exactly.
One of the best ways to “read” your market is to go where they hang out together, the niche forums, say in the Forex market. Listen to the members there. What are the recurrent questions and problems that a certain product can serve? You make sure you become a helpful contributor and then note which affiliate products can best serve those people.
Another excellent option here is to do a search for groups on Facebook. Same idea as with the forums. First, the number and size of groups in a niche will tell you a lot about the level of interest the niche generates.
Never try selling, or posting links because that will get you booted in a hurry. You’re there to learn what makes the niche tick, you can concentrate on making money after you know whom you are trying to sell to and what matters to them. Find the niches pain points and desires to zero in on a target audience.
Head to your favorite bookstore and notice the most popular magazines. If advertisers are spending money on ads, enough to support at least one magazine, then you know there’s a market for an affiliate product in that same niche.
These are just some of the easiest ways to get in the head of your market. Do you enjoy digging into the minds of potential customers to find what wants, needs or desires they have? Then affiliate marketing may be just what you want to make money from home!