Target Your Niche

When you first start an online business, you probably won’t start getting any money coming in straight away. You will have to wait a few months before you get your first sale and even then, you have no idea of when the next payment from the sale of any of your products will be made. Even if you have a potentially profitable website, it will take a lot of time, work and patience before you see some monetary results, unless you’re extremely lucky!

Even if you start off with affiliate marketing, promoting other people’s products, you still need a list of subscribers to market to and building a list will also take time and patience.

The security of an online business seems to be a lot less than the security of a regular day job. Being employed by someone else gives you regular payments either weekly or monthly into your bank account. You are basically hiring yourself out to someone who is prepared to pay you for your skills, time and the service that you provide. As long as your employer stays in business and you do the work that is required of you, the money will keep coming in week after week, month after month.

If you’re reading this, you probably want to have your own online business. However, this isn’t for everyone. There are many people who would prefer to have an offline business or even just work for someone else at a regular 9 to 5 job. Some would prefer to have an online business just to get some extra cash but others would prefer to be able to give up the day job and replace it with a highly profitable business online that brings in cash month after month. So, if you’re looking to replace your day job with your own business, how can you do this? As the title of this post suggests, you could do this with a membership site.

When we think of membership sites, products such as master resale and private label rights products spring to mind. There are quite a few memberships with products such as these, all competing against each other to get the members. However, you don’t need to have a membership site based on ‘internet markeing’ as there are many other ideas you can use to create a profitable membership site that will give you regular monthly cash.

Online dating sites are very popular these days, however there are a lot of free sites about and almost anyone who wants to join can and will do so, especially if it is free. By having a paid online dating membership site will only attract those who are serious about finding ‘the one’.

Alien abduction. Whether you believe in it or not, there are a lot of people out there that do believe and also state that they have actually been abducted. This also means that they are targeted by the ‘unbelievers’ and ridiculed. This is just one example of people ridiculing others because they do not share the same views. Having a paid membership site for this subject helps those who truly believe to be able to tell their stories and discuss the subject with other like-minded people and not be ridiculed for it. This can also work with other topics that those who are involved in would prefer to be a part of a family of like minded people.

Membership sites that provide either electronic download products or even tangible products on a particular subject are a great idea for specific niches. There are many book clubs in the ‘real world’ where you can join for free, your first purchase being several books for pennies on the dollar and signing an ‘agreement’ that you will purchase one book every month on a regular basis. Taking this one step further which is beneficial for both you and your members is a membership site on a particular niche such as Gardening for example.

Members could pay a small monthly fee and have access to tangible products at a cut price, cheaper than they would get anywhere else and a forum where they could discuss the topic with others and give and receive helpful tips and ideas. If you have e-books on the subject in question, these could be placed on site as free downloads for your members. Members would also be supplying content for you by way of tips and tricks in the forum or perhaps in the form of articles.

The above are just a couple of examples; there are many more niches that you could target with a membership site. Remember that you do not even have to be selling a product, you could just sell a service.

Having a membership site where people pay you each and every month on a regular basis for information, cut price products, the freedom to speak out and not be ridiculed, the security of belonging or being able to find ‘the one’ online in a safe environment means that you are providing a service to others who, in turn, provide you with a regular monthly income that will enable you to finally give up your day job and obtain financial freedom.

If you’re getting traffic to your website and not building a list, you’re losing many potential customers.

Chances are that anyone that visits your website will leave within the first few minutes, never to be seen again.  They won’t remember where to find you and you may lose them forever.

They say the money is in the list and this is true in most cases but only with a responsive list. You could have 2000 subscribers but if they’re not responsive, they’re not worth anything.  However, if you have a list of 100 highly responsive subscribers, their worth is so much greater.

Whether you are marketing online or have an offline business website, you need to capture those website visitors.  Offering a free product is a great idea but you also need to give a lot more than that.

You can build a rapport with your subscribers by giving them good marketing advice, ideas and strategies that they can implement in their business and more freebies.  They will learn to trust you, be more responsive and maybe even buy stuff from you.  All in all, building a responsive list of subscribers is something that you really need to do to push your business, and your reputation, forward.

Although what I’ve said above seems a lot of work to do, it really isn’t.  You can set up emails in an autoresponder account, timed to go out every 3 or 5 days.  Once you have set everything up, your subscriber will automatically get those emails from you and you won’t have to do much else.  Setting up a year’s worth of content is a good idea.  This of course means that you would need to have 73 emails if you’re sending out every 5 days or around 122 emails if you’re sending out every 3 days.  Of course it’s preferable to just set up a months worth of emails every month, which would take less time.

So how do you get this content?  Well, there are different ways – you could write it yourself or outsource it.  You could even grab some PLR articles and rewrite them or chop up a PLR ebook or two, rewrite the content and use that.  An even easier way is to grab an autoresponder bundle and/or a free PLR report to give to your list from All Private Label Content, which is one company that I use as their content is extremely high quality.  Another way of doing it is to set up a blog like I have and post everything on there.  Grab your website visitors with an autoresponder and then email them each time you make a post.

Joining Giveaways is another idea but you will need to provide quality content – something you have created yourself as opposed to stuff that others are giving away and products that have been banded about on the Internet for the past 10 years.

There are also list building sites such as Your Lucky List and List Dot Com.  However, unless you upgrade, you cannot get these subscribers onto your autoresponder, especially if you are using Aweber.

One list building site that I have just found out about (maybe you already know about it) is List Inferno.  Although I do have quite a nice sized list already, just like everyone else, I’m looking to build it even more.  I’m just trying out List Inferno at the moment so I will let you know how I get on with it.  If you want to check it out for yourself, go here.

Whichever way you build your list, you cannot do it without an autoresponder account (I use Aweber).  Plus, you also need to have high quality content that you can share with your prospective customers and with which to build a professional and friendly rapport.

Since my promotional email a few days ago of IM Riches Mastery, a few of my subscribers have asked for a review of the product so, here it is:

First of all, once you get to the download page you get a couple of bonuses with the package, which is always good.  On opening the product, I was surprised to find so many videos.  You get 23 videos which have been separated into four parts with a couple of modules in each plus the Foundation video.  All of the videos have a transcription PDF file so you can choose whether to watch the videos or read the various reports.

Here’s a rundown of the contents:

Foundation Video

Training Videos Module 1:

1. Affiliate Marketing Basics

2. Affiliate Program Evaluation Checklist

3. The Best Affiliate Program Marketplaces

4. Effective List Building Essentials

5. Rapid List Building Strategies

6. Creating an Effective Presell Page

7. Crafting the Perfect Bonus Package to Triple Your Conversions

8. Dominating Product Launches

Training Videos Module 2:

1. 3 Steps to Becoming an Instant Expert in 72 Hours

2. Ways to Present and Add Value to Your Product

3. Rapid Product Creation Strategies

4. How to Get Your Sales Copy Done and Graphics Created

5. How to Collect Payments and Set Up Your Sales Funnel

6. How to Set Up an Affiliate Program

7. How to Get Your First Sale by Running a WSO

8. How to Recruit JV’s and Affiliates to Promote Your Product

9. Elements of a Successful Product Launch

Case Study Videos Module 1:

1. How an Affiliate Promo Earned Us a Lifelong Friend and JV Partner

2. SEO Business Box Affiliate Promo

3. Millionaire Book Affiliate Promo

Case Study Videos Module 2:

1. Instant Video Articles Launch

2. How We Roped in Two Big JV’s to Promote Us

3. IM Buzz Riches V1 Launch

As you can see from the above, the package covers mostly affiliate marketing, including setting up your own affiliate program, presell emails and bonuses.  It also covers the subject of creating your own product, including graphics and writing a salesletter and getting JV partners to promote your product for you.

The product covers the different marketplaces and their pro’s and con’s, email marketing and how to drive traffic to your website and squeeze page, giving you more subscribers/customers.

The case study videos were an eye opener for me and it’s great to see how the product creator contacted various top marketers (such as Ewen Chia to name just one) to successfully JV with him.

There are links to other products beneath the videos and in the PDF files – products which will help you and perfectly complement this one.  In the Training Videos Module 1, Video No. 4, you get a link to a pack of 5 squeeze pages that you can download for free.

Although there were a few strategies and ideas that I already knew, there was more that I didn’t.  I feel that this product will definitely help me with my business and has given me quite a few ideas which I will be implementing in the near future.  All in all, in my opinion, IM Riches Mastery is definitely worth having and definitely worth more than the $9.97 price tag.

If you want to check out this product again, just click on the graphic below to be taken to the sales page:

 

When I first started on the Internet back in 2007, I really had no idea of what I should be doing. Like so many ‘newbies’ I couldn’t even build a website. I got caught up in a few scams, MLM and other money making ideas and get rich quick schemes and ended up poorer than when I’d started.

I joined a few marketers lists, bought a few ebooks and started learning about email and article marketing and how ‘the money is in the list’. I was using an online website builder at the time which cost me more than it should and I was also limited on the sizes of files I could upload.

After a few months of struggling, I came across the Graphics Designer, Michelle Brouse. I found her website from an ebook that I’d purchased with MRR. Her details were at the bottom of the salespage design and I looked her up. I then got on her list to download some free header graphics. I decided that maybe I could have a go at making some header graphics as a free download to build my list.

Although I already had about 10 or 11 subscribers through article marketing, I was lucky enough to find a giveaway that allowed you to join with just 10 subscribers. As it was a Halloween giveaway, I made a few Halloween headers, designed a box graphic and uploaded them to this website (Target Your Niche) which I’d built at the time with an online website builder. During that giveaway I got 50 more subscribers to my list.

I then came across another marketer who took me under his wing and taught me how to build a website from scratch. This opened up a whole new world for me and made things so much easier, and cheaper. I had quite a few good words of advice from this particular marketer and one thing that really stood out was his comment on my blog posts at the time. He said ‘people can tell a newbie a mile off’.

The reason I’m saying all of this is that we all have to start off somewhere. I’ve seen blog posts from people whom I’ve never heard of trying to teach people how to make money online, just like I used to and yes, you can tell a newbie a mile off.

I don’t profess to be an expert in anything nor am I ‘rich’. However, I have learned a lot during my four years online and have made some good money doing what I do. I am still learning though – they say you learn something new every day and this is very true, especially where Internet Marketing is concerned.

As I said in my ‘about’ page, I am hoping that future posts will help you get started with your online business and give you a few ideas and strategies that you can use. I am also hoping that I can learn from you too by way of your comments to my posts.

If you don’t know how to build a website from scratch, you can grab my free ebook from Build Your Own Website Today. It is old and the graphics leave a lot to be desired but it will teach you what you need to know. And if you’d like to be kept up to date with posts on this site, feel free to join my mailing list to the right of this page.

Until next time….