Finding a Profitable Subsegment of the Market

This is the first day of a multi-week course I’ll teach on developing and marketing your internet product. I’ve written extensively about affiliate marketing and why it appeals to me.

Many affiliate marketers comfortably support themselves in the five- to six-figure revenue bracket. Still, the ones that go to the next step and create their products are the ones who are reaching the seven-figure mark and beyond.

But let’s not get too far in advance of ourselves. First, I’ll discuss the process of identifying a specific consumer subset for whom your product will be most beneficial.

In addition, I’ll be launching my product around the same time as this series, which will be discussed and referenced throughout. Informational eBook on songwriting titled “How to Write a Song – The ‘No BS’ Songwriter’s Bible.”

I chose songwriting as my area of specialization since it is one of my many interests and a skill I take great pride in. After ten years in the business and some modest success as a musician, I decided to put my knowledge to good use and write this ebook.

Remember that while the product I’m teaching about is informative, the lessons here may just as well be applied to physical goods, software, or any other type of product.

So, let’s get started by discussing the importance of identifying a target market before developing a product.

Table of Contents

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Conceptualizing New Items

If you’re starting affiliate marketing, I advise you to stick to topics that interest you.

You probably have a field in which you excel because of your schooling or enthusiasm. Songwriting was an idea that came to me since it’s something I’m good at, and I knew I could write a lot about it.

Please find a way to combine your interests and people’s most common problem with them. Learning your subject can be difficult at first, as was the case for me. The trouble with songwriting is that many people either don’t know how to begin or who try to give up because they aren’t happy with the results. These issues are addressed in my eBook, which I designed to be the definitive guide to songwriting (without the fluff or rehashing of information that is already common knowledge).

Recognizing Consumer Needs

Traditional keyword research is the quickest method for determining interest.

You’ll have to take my advice and not follow in my footsteps here, as I failed to prepare adequately. I rushed into penning a book on songwriting without first determining whether or not there was an audience for such a thing.

Luckily, I have a background in web marketing, so I did some keyword research, and I’ve found a few terms that generate respectable levels of traffic every day, so I’ll do well if I can get those search engine places.

Don’t let the fact that Market Samurai returns numerous rival websites with your search terms in the title and elsewhere throw you off. Besides those engaging in internet marketing or making money online, many webmasters in these niche industries don’t know the first thing about search engine optimization (SEO). Therefore, you have an excellent possibility of ranking well.

Finding a specific audience can be very lucrative if you know how to do it. Consider the Earth4Energy initiative. This resource has been available for purchase for the past few years. It started as an eBook but has since grown to incorporate helpful video lessons.

Nonetheless, this is an educational tool that, for around $50, teaches you how to construct solar panels and wind turbines from the convenience of your home for a cost of between $100 and $200 in standard building supplies.

Using renewable energy sources like solar cells and wind turbines to power your home and reduce your monthly electricity bill might save you money.

The hitch (brought up on the Earth4Energy sales website) is that having these tools made and installed professionally would cost you several thousand dollars, making the prospect of doing it yourself relatively quickly and on a budget very appealing.

When you combine that with the “current event” that the United States has become increasingly environmentally conscious and obsessed over the past few years, you can see why this informational product sold like hotcakes and spawned a slew of imitators and spin-offs in the weeks after its release.

It continues to be one of the most profitable products on ClickBank’s affiliate marketing platform. I helped market and sell a couple of them when they initially came out. Consistently, the product’s gravity was in the hundreds, which, as I explain in my piece on what ClickBank gravity is, means that hundreds, if not thousands, of affiliates are generating money off of the sale of this product.

This is more evidence that knowledge products can be highly lucrative with the correct target audience and marketing approach in place.

There are, of course, a plethora of educational goods that failed to gain traction and never recovered. If you browse around the ClickBank marketplace, you’ll find hundreds, if not thousands, of e-books and other digital products that haven’t sold because their target market wasn’t interested or their sales page wasn’t appealing.

If you’re interested in learning how to make a product, read on to the next section of this guide.

In addition, I mentioned keyword study here. If you’re wondering whether or not it’s worth your time to conduct keyword research, I recommend reading my post on the topic, where I provide a link to the BEST keyword tool available today for free download.

linda