Why Branding Is Crucial in Niche Marketing

Why Branding Is Crucial in Niche Marketing

When it comes to branding, most people tend to think of big brand advertising: Coca-Cola, McDonalds and Microsoft spend money on branding. But it doesn’t really apply to smaller businesses – or does it?

Believe it or not, branding is actually crucial to success in a small industry. In this article, you’ll learn why that is, plus several of the big benefits of having strong branding in a niche.

=> Your Reputation Precedes You

Once your site has been around for a while, your reputation will precede you. That means that before someone even lands on your website, they will have heard about you.

They’ll probably already have an opinion about you and your products. What that opinion is depends on your brand. If you did a good job, they should ideally think your products are high quality and that you can really solve their problems.

In other words, your brand can have a huge impact on your conversions.

=> Type-In Traffic

Many beginning marketers have a hard time believing that type-in traffic can be a big traffic source. In reality however, a business that’s been around for a while and has a strong brand often gets more traffic from type-ins than from paid marketing.

For example, Amazon.com gets a lot more traffic from people typing in their domain than people who end up there from ads. In much smaller markets, the same applies: people know your brand, know that you can help them and type in your domain.

This is a huge traffic source in the long run. The only way you’ll do well with this traffic source is to manage your brand well.

=> Networking Benefits

Who would you rather meet in person or do a favor: Someone in your market who you’ve never heard of, or someone who you’ve heard of who has a great reputation?

Having a reputation that precedes you will open many doors. It’ll open doors to guest blogging on other people’s sites, to affiliates, to JV partners, to speaking opportunities, to free backlinks and a lot more. You’ll even have people approach you to do brand new business deals.

=> You Are Your Brand

It’s important to realize that building your business’s brand means also building your own brand.

Not only will this open doors for your business, it’ll also open doors for you professionally. Need a book deal? If you have an existing reputation, it’s much easier. Need investors for your next venture? Want to steal a top-notch programmer from Google to work on your start-up?

Whatever it is you need in your life, by building a strong brand in your business, you’ll automatically be seen as more credible in just about anything you do in the future.

The effects of a powerful reputation can’t be emphasized enough. It’s definitely less measurable numerically than ROI or traffic, but its power is there. Don’t overlook it just because you’re in a small market.

How to Find Profitable, Low Competition Niches

Low Competition Niches

How to Find Profitable, Low Competition Niches

There are two factors that every good niche needs to have: profit potential and low competition. If you have both, then you have a good chance of carving out a part of that market for yourself.

In this article, we’ll look at how to come up with a list of potential niche markets, as well as whether or not you’ll be able to break into the market.

=> Start by Coming Up with a Broad List

The first step is to come up with as many topics as you possibly can. You’ll later narrow this down to just the one or two that have the most potential.

Start by writing down all your personal interests and passions. Come up with at least ten things that you’re either passionate about or have knowledge in.

Then take a stroll through a bookstore. Look at the magazine racks and jot down any ideas you have for niches and sub-markets.

Carry your notepad with you wherever you go for a week or two. Once you have a few high potential markets to look at, then it’s time to evaluate each niche’s potential.

=> Researching the Number of Established Brands

The first thing to do is spend some time exploring the market. Though you can do the statistical parts of niche research in a day, to really get to know a market may take a little longer.

Get a sense for what the biggest brands in your space are. Do this by doing Google searches for a wide range of terms and seeing what sites come up.

In addition, read as many blog posts and forum posts as you can on prominent industry forums. What are names of companies and people that are often mentioned? Who’s viewed as the “gurus” or the best resources in the space?

Ideally, you’re looking for a market that has a few competitors, but nobody that has an extremely strong foothold. If there are multiple strongly rooted personalities in the market already, you’ll probably have a hard time breaking in.

This part of the research is more qualitative (meaning “feeling-based”) than quantitative. It’s basically getting a sense of how deeply entrenched your competition is.

=> Toughness of Competition for Search Terms

The other part of the research is more statistical. You want to figure out which keywords you plan on targeting, then figure out exactly how much traffic those terms have and how much competition you’re facing.

Look at the PageRank, the incoming links, the domain age and the estimated traffic of the websites that come up first for your target search terms.

Are these sites established sites that are deeply rooted in the industry? Or are they relatively new sites with few incoming backlinks?

In other words, do you believe you’ll be able to beat those sites to a number one, two or three position within about six months?

For your first time, it’s best to aim for search terms that you can easily rank for. As you get more experience, aim for tougher and higher reward keywords.

The whole process looks something like this: First, brainstorm as many ideas as you can. Then cross off the ideas that clearly won’t work out. For the remaining ideas, research the quantitative/numerical traffic and competition data, as well as the more intangible sense of how loyal people are to the top brands. Then pick a market you believe you can break into and jump in with both feet.

Get to Know Your Niche: How to Research and Connect with Them

Get to Know Your Niche: How to Research and Connect with Them

In order to talk to your niche, you first need to get to know the people in your market. The more you can know their hearts and souls, their problems and desires, the more you’ll be able to connect with them.

How do you connect with a new market quickly? These are three effective methods that’ll get you up to speed on just about any market, fast.

=> Search Yahoo! Answers

Search Yahoo! Answers for questions related to your market. For example, if you’re teaching online marketing, you might search for phrases like:

“Make money online”
“Internet income”
“Online money”
“Make money from home”

And so on and so forth.

Read through dozens of questions to figure out what people commonly ask. What are questions the crop up again and again?

What kind of answers are people getting? Are there questions that are consistently going unanswered? What are some of the frustrations of people asking questions?

=> Look for the Most Replied Posts in Forums

Go to the internet forums that are most popular in your niche. Scroll to the bottom of the forums and set the forum to search by “Most Replied” threads. Set the date range to as far back as it can go.

This will give you a list of topics that people have found most interesting to discuss. These threads will often give you incredible insights into how people view current topics, what was hot in the past and what’s hot now, what kind of creative solutions others have come up with and so on.

Rinse and repeat for each category in the forum, as well as for different forums to really get a feel for where your market’s at.

=> Subscribe to Popular RSS Feeds

Find some of the most popular blogs in your industry and subscribe to their RSS feeds.

Being subscribed to these RSS feeds will allow you to stay on top of new discoveries, new techniques, new questions and other relevant news.

It’ll also give you a wide range of different perspectives, assuming you’ve subscribed to a range of different RSS feeds.

How do you find these RSS feeds?

First start by looking on the forums for blogs that are often mentioned. On those blogs, look at their blogrolls to see what other blogs they’re recommending.

You can also do a search on Technorati, the most popular blog directory online, for your market’s topic. You’ll be able to sort by popularity to find the influential blogs.

If you combine these three techniques, you’ll gain a deep understanding of your market very quickly. You’ll know what drives the people and what problems they face overall, as well as what the important topics are in the market right now.

Mastering Modern PHP Development with the Elegant Laravel Framework

In the ever-evolving world of web development, the need for efficient and scalable frameworks has become increasingly crucial. Among the standout options, Laravel has emerged as a premier choice for developers seeking to build modern, robust PHP applications. As an open-source PHP framework, Laravel provides a comprehensive set of tools and resources that simplify the development process and empower developers to create exceptional web experiences.

The Laravel Advantage

Laravel is a feature-rich framework that addresses the common pain points encountered in PHP development. It offers a well-structured, elegant syntax that promotes readability and maintainability, making it an ideal choice for both experienced and aspiring developers. One of the framework’s key strengths lies in its deep emphasis on the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern, which ensures a clear separation of concerns and facilitates the creation of scalable, modular applications.

Streamlining Development with Artisan

At the heart of Laravel’s development ecosystem lies Artisan, a powerful command-line interface that simplifies the creation and management of various components within a project. Artisan allows developers to generate boilerplate code for models, controllers, migrations, and more, significantly reducing the time and effort required to set up a new project. This streamlined approach enables developers to focus on the core functionality of their application, rather than getting bogged down in repetitive setup tasks.

Robust Routing and Database Management

Laravel’s routing system is designed to be intuitive and efficient, allowing developers to define clean and expressive routes that map directly to their application’s functionality. This not only enhances the user experience but also improves the overall maintainability of the codebase. Furthermore, Laravel’s integrated Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) system, Eloquent, provides a seamless abstraction layer for interacting with databases, empowering developers to work with data in a more natural, object-oriented manner.

Unparalleled Ecosystem and Community Support

One of the key advantages of Laravel is its vibrant and supportive community. The framework’s active development and the wealth of third-party packages available through Composer, Laravel’s dependency management tool, make it a versatile and extensible platform. Developers can easily integrate a wide range of functionalities, from authentication and authorization to real-time communication and caching, without having to reinvent the wheel.

Conclusion

As the demand for modern, scalable web applications continues to grow, Laravel has firmly established itself as a premier choice for PHP developers. By combining a robust set of features, a focus on developer productivity, and a thriving community, Laravel empowers developers to create exceptional, enterprise-grade applications with ease. Whether you’re a seasoned PHP professional or just starting your journey in web development, exploring the power of Laravel can be a transformative experience that takes your skills to new heights.

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