In order to make sure your membership business is profitable, you have to select the right market. Here’s how.
First – Look for Fanatics
If you want your membership business to be profitable, you have to find a marketing with fanatics in it. What’s a fanatic? It’s someone who is so excited about a certain topic that they will spend their time and money on information about it. OK, so we know what a fanatic is, but how do we find them?
- Look at magazine racks. This is an often overlooked, yet extremely simple way to find niches that people are interested in. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to run a print magazine. So if you see one on the shelves you know they are making money, which means that there are enough people interested in what they’re saying to make it profitable. That doesn’t mean definitely that it will make a good membership business, but it’s a good starting point.
- You’ve got lots of opportunities every day to see what people are interested in. Just pay attention to what people talk about on the radio, at social gatherings, at the store or restaurants and anywhere in public. If people are talking about it, they are interested in it. Which means you can start a membership business providing information on it.
- Conventions, clubs, and organizations. Once again, if there are enough people interested in a topic to create a club or organization, then there are enough people to build a membership business around it. Conventions are expensive to hold and attend, so if one if going on that’s another strong indication of a good niche to go into with your membership website.
- Think about the things that you are interested in. There’s a good chance that others are interested in these things, as well. The icing on the cake here is that you get to build a business doing something you love.
- One simple and easy way to find out what’s hot is Google Trends. This service shows you the current most popular search terms. These topics are the hottest topics because lots and lots of people want information about them. Building a membership business around things people are actively searching for is a great way to ensure your success.
Next – Figure out if there’s money in it
After selecting a possible niche to build your membership site around, the next step is to find out if it’s a profitable niche to be in. One way to figure this out is to see if other are making money in it.
OK, how do we figure that out?
- Find out if there are blogs or forums related to it. Just search Google for “YourNiche blog” & “YourNiche forum” and see what comes up. This tells you there are people who are actively interested in your niche.
- Check Amazon, eBay and Google Shopping to find out if others are making and selling products in your niche. What you’re trying to figure out is if anyone is making money in this niche, and if people are selling products it means they are making money.
- Monitor Google Adwords to determine if people are running the same ads for weeks in a row. If they are, this means they’re making money on these ads – otherwise, they’d stop running them. Which means there is money to be made in your niche.
Last, but not least… How hard will it be to break into this niche?
Once you’ve found a niche and figured out that there is money to be made in, you need to determine if you can break into this niche. Here’s how to make this determination:
- Figure out what kinds of products people are interested in. If it’s mostly physical products, coaching and live seminars, then it will be harder to break into this niche. That’s because it’s much easier to build a membership business around information vs. any other kind of product.
- The last thing you want is a marketing filled with tons of competitors. A few means it’s a profitable niche, but too many means you won’t be able to take a piece of it.
- Size vs. Competition. Some competition is good. It means that this is a profitable market. And as long as the size of the market is large enough to support the competition, you’re fine.
- How quickly do people in this market make buying decisions and are the ready to buy? Every market is different. Sometimes people are looking for information and are ready to pay for it right now. And sometimes it takes weeks, months or even years for them to make the decision to purchase.
Summing it all up
At this point you’ve figured out what niche you’re going into. You found your fanatics, you know they spend money and you’re confident there’s room in the market for you. Now that you’ve prepared properly, you’re success is 99% guaranteed. How to actually run your membership website is the only thing left to talk about…