Starting with the product puts you in the position of having to play GUESS marketing. Which goes something like this…
GUESS who the ideal customer is.
GUESS what their pain is (their needs, wants and desires).
GUESS how to reach them (PPC, SEO, social, whatever).
GUESS what to say to them.
Screw that!
Rather, approach it BACKWARDS.
We suggest you START with the audience (we refer to them as a POP, or “pocket of people”).
Meaning, you get to HAVE A DIALOG with them BEFORE selling them anything
SOLUTION PROVIDER
We’re not in the commodities business. That’s not what we sell as smart badass (real) marketers.
We provide solutions to problems and pains people have.
We’re solution providers.
We’re pain relievers.
MARKETS vs (NARROW) NICHES & HOW TO IDENTIFY YOUR AUDIENCE
Once you’ve identified a larger potential market — like weight loss — you then need to narrow down your audience even further.
Markets are made up of niches, and within these niches there are even smaller “pockets of people” POP with very specific needs, wants and desires.
What about weight loss for women? Better.
But more specifically … busy women?
But not just busy women … busy mommies?
But not just busy mommies … a busy mommy who has just had a kid … al la post pregnancy.
Post pregnancy weight loss is a (narrow) niche.
SHORTCUT TO MILLION DOLLAR NICHES
There are three main market categories that control like 90% of all the traffic and movement of money online. We refer to them as THE BIG 3. Our suggestion … stick to one of these exclusively.
Here they are the BIG 3:
Health & Fitness
Dating & Relationships
Business & Money
Here are some questions you need to ask yourself when trying to identify your ideal target audience:
Is the person experiencing pain and urgency, or irrational passion? (In other words … a strong emotion to seek out a solution.)
Is this audience proactively searching for solutions … and ALREADY spending money to satisfy this desire, want or need?
From the perspective of this POP, do they have few or no perceived options?
Is there potential for a long term relationship? (Meaning … are there backend opportunities?)
HOW TO FIND A HUNGRY, PASSIONATE, IRRATIONAL POP?
Type this into Google: “how to lose * fat”
Repeat with other creative search queries, like…
how to get *
how to stop *
how to quit *
how to source *
how to play *
“where to buy * for *”
“best way to *”
Another great place to be “a fly on the wall” is to join the live conversation that pockets of people are having on Twitter and/or Facebook.
Once you’ve tracked down a (potential) POP, find some conversations they are having.
And I know people are buying it (where to buy * wine).
Have a bunch of “conversations” happening. Join them. Interact. Ask questions. ANSWER questions. Become part of the conversation.
THE NEXT STEP: VALIDATION
Customers buy from you when they trust you can solve their problems.
The biggest risk for internet marketers is building a campaign around a product (solution) that your niche doesn’t want (to pay for).
Niche selection boils down to this … finding a “pocket of people” with a common (desperate) need, want or desire.
But that’s really the easy part.
The harder part is putting a solution in front of them that they will (eagerly) pay for.
That, babycakes, is the million dollar problem (for us marketers).
So essentially the key question you need to (ask) validate is…
Have I found a problem that a group of people will readily pay to solve?
The only way to validate is to build a MVC (minimum viable campaign) to test to see if you can get your target POP to spend their money on the solution you’re presenting to them.
1. Build the Foundation
find a profitable niche in the market
analyze our competition and our ideal customers
prepare the free offer that will earn us our first subscribers
2. Cultivate Relationships
grow your subscriber list to 1,000
develop relationships with big players in the industry
engage with email and social media
3. Launch
create content to attract attention
find promotional partners to launch to big responsive audience
scale to bigger traffic
4. Make profitable offers
develop, test and refine offers based on audience feedback
affliliate ventures to find more customers
webinars and events to engage
calendar of content, events and launches
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