our Hungry Target Market

Action:  Find a market for a product or service and your edge in that market

The first thing you have to do target a group of people you want to sell to.  This group of people is called a "market" because they're in the market to buy a product or service.

When you target that market with your product or service, it is called "target marketing."

The reason you target a market is so you can focus your marketing energies. You can't sell to everyone! It's absolutely essential that you have a market you can target online.

The other element in this section is to define your competitive edge or angle.  How are you going to get an advantage on the competition?

The MAIN strategy here is so simple it's laughable: Find people with LISTS and make friends with 'em! Yeah, that's right. Call 'em up and talk to 'em. Or buy their product and drop a note on Facebook or Twitter about how much you loved it. Send 'em a postcard.

The NEXT thing after creating a positive first impression is to make friends. Some people like to pitch right off the bat. I personally find that most of my good promoters come from friends I just naturally connect with for whatever reason.

For example, many years ago I met Jonathan Mizel by dropping him an email telling him I loved his sales letter, which was true. We became friends after that.

The other HUGE tip I can give you is this: If you help someone else sell more products, make more money or solve ANY significant problem they have, you'll probably open doors. It's amazing how many opportunities come your way when you help others and then follow it up with good marketing.

In summary, find people who have LISTS of buyers in your market. Then make friends with 'em. See if you can help 'em out. It's not high tech but it actually works!

Here are several methods of finding target markets and profit opportunities within markets.

The JV Target Market Finding Method

The goal is to find a number of web sites with high Alexa traffic that can refer visitors to you via your associate program.  This method is particularly suitable for you if you're a good networker.

You know how you can put Amazon.com books on your web site and make a commission when people buy?  That process is called an associate program. You become an associate of Amazon.com and make a commission for helping them sell books.

Having your own associate program is a great way to get traffic. In order for that method to happen, you need to have some web sites with great traffic or big opt-in lists who will sell your products for you.

a: Go to http://www.google.com

b: Type in a key word or two that describes the products you sell

For example, if you sell fuel filters, you type that word in. Look at the top-ranked listings.

c:  Look at their Alexa rankings

The easiest way to find the Alexa ranking on web sites is to install the free Alexa toolbar available at Alexa.com.  Just be aware that Alexa uses the toolbar to record data on your computer use habits.  Read their privacy policy for details.

Anyway, if you install the Alexa toolbar, then you will see the Alexa ranking instantly of every site you surf to.  Otherwise, you will need to collect a list of URL's and then type each one into the Alexa.com web site to find the traffic ranking.

Your goal is to find 50 or 100 web sites with Alexa rankings of 30,000 or less.  Alexa ranks something on the order of 3 million web sites according to their traffic.  A web site that is ranked 30,000 means that it has the 30,000'th most traffic of all the web sites ranked by Alexa.

The Alexa ranking you choose to target depends on your niche. In some niches a ranking of 100,000 might be really good. Another way to look at this is ANY website that has nice seo positioning on some keywords AND is building a list via an opt-in form is a good candidate.

Why? Because they have a list they can email.

f.  Look at the traffic chart on Alexa

You can tell a lot about a web site by looking at the traffic chart on Alexa.  You can see if the web site is ranked high only because they had a recent spurt of activity or if the web site has a pattern of traffic over a period of a year or two.

G. Contact a few web of the high-traffic web sites and get an opinion

Contact 10 of the high-traffic web sites and talk to the owner. Find out if you can even reach them by phone.  And if you can, are they friendly?  Are they open to the idea of a joint venture for your product?  Do they think it will sell?

The BEST way to contact the site owner is to look for a contact link on the website or a support link. Another way to do it is to subscribe to their email list.

You can also often find them on Facebook or Twitter.

The final option is to use the whois data. The Alexa.com search results page gives you contact info.

The data is not always current. 

The reason you want to contact owners is to see how competitive the category is.  Are the web site owners open and helpful?  Or are they close-minded to your offer?

Exploit a hole in the search engines

If you're an expert on getting search engine positioning, look at the search engine tactics used by competitive sites under your topic. 

Are the top sites using state-of-the-art methods, or are they behind the times?  Can you get an advantage in the search engines?

Look for opportunities in the pay-per-click market

Look at Google AdWords (http://www.google.com) where you get traffic by paying per click. 

What are the pay-per-click prices?  If everything is bid up so you can't get a top 10 position for less than a buck or two a click, then the opportunity is limited.

But if you find that not many people are bidding on the key words in your niche target market, then you have an opportunity.

This method is suitable for you if you have a degree of expertise in using pay-per-click search engines. What you're looking for is an opportunity. An angle. A competitive edge.

Look for opportunities in promotion via articles

Look at the web sites you find through Alexa.

Does it appear that the companies offering associate programs in the niche have provided a lot of free articles and content to the web site owners? Or is there an opportunity for you to scoop up free traffic by writing articles and offering them to top web site owners?

Look for opportunities in the associate program arena

Go to http://www.associateprograms.com and http://www.commissionjunction.com as well as the other associate program directories like the Clickbank Marketplace.

Look at the available associate programs.

What are the commissions being offered?  Is anyone offering 50%?  Are a lot of people offering 50%  Or are all the commissions being offered in the 15% to 20% range?

If you find a category where the commissions are all in the lower range, that provides an opportunity for you to come in and offer a higher percentage commission and get promoted by the best web sites.

Alternatively, maybe you can come in with a commission of 60% or 70% on a front-end product and then make your profits on the repeat sales.

Or maybe no one is offering 40% or 50% commissions on a recurring billing basis. That would open the door for you to get market share by offering a 40% commission recurring billing product.

Look for opportunities in the pricing arena

Look at the products in the marketplace. Are they all high-priced?  This provides an opportunity for you to come in at a lower price.  Are all the products lower-priced?  Perhaps this opens room for a premium product.

Target the Heavy Users and Spenders

Who are the people who spend the most money in the category?  Can you design a product or series of products specifically for the heavy users?

Target an Overlooked Audience

Who are the users of the product or service?  Is there a category of user that is being overlooked?  For example, in online marketing, you have people now providing special web sites and services for stay-at-home-moms who want to make extra money online.

Is there some demographic or segment of buyers that has been overlooked?  Maybe your niche is in catering to those people?  Of course, you have to have a way you can reach them via ezines, an online forum, magazine ads, articles, pay-per-click words or some other methods.

The Back-End Opportunity

In most marketplaces, everyone tries to make money on the front-end, the initial sale. But what if you could break even or perhaps lose money on the initial sale and make it up by having a very robust back end?

That is, if you have a number of products and services you sell as a follow up to the first purchase, and your competitors don't, then you have the advantage.

You can simply outspend them.

If your back-end is big enough, then almost ALL advertising methods work.  Why?  Because you can lose money on the initial sale and make it up on the repeat business. That is, the back end.

This is a strategy I discussed in more depth in The Amazing Formula.