When it comes to niche marketing, it’s better to let business sense take over your passion because there are many things that cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Things like furniture sets, cabinets, beds and mattresses, electronics and jewelry fall under such categories. Well, they are either bulky or shiny.
Let’s say I’m going to attack the “jewelry” niche, and for goodness’ sake, you would think I’m the last marketer on earth to deal with it because I know next to nothing about it. Actually, I rather go into “home theater” but let’s see how deep I can venture into this.
So I go to Amazon which I feel is the best indicator for bestselling items. There’s a main category for Jewelry. There’s also a “Bestsellers in Jewelry” category. On the left menu of both pages, what I see are various departments of jewelry according to material, design, purpose, brand names and price ranges, which is incredible to say the least because the data is so comprehensive.
For a newbie marketer in jewelry like myself, I just need some time to let all the specifications and keywords sink in, and take good notes. Having noted the types of jewelry at Amazon, I’ll then research on those keywords with SEOBook Keyword Suggestion Tool and the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and see which of these types of jewelry are the one that Internet surfers actually search for using the engines.
If I were to setup a niche blog. I would have literally duplicate some of these categories and departments. For a start I’ll have to be selective instead of covering “everything under the sky”. You may like to dispute with me, but where business sense is concerned, price is everything. Under “Shop by Price” from the main jewelry page, I can check out all the shiny stuff from $500 onwards if this is my minimal price criteria. Of course, in my niche blog I want to have a mix of bestselling (no matter how cheap) and expensive jewelry to appeal to the power of choice in the prospects’ mind.
I’ll start with earrings. This is Amazon’s page for earrings for $500-$999. 4,879 results is very nice. I go to the AdWords Keyword Tool and type ‘earrings’. In the expanded list, I find various types like ‘hook’, ‘clip’, ’stud’, ‘teardrop’, ‘chandelier’, ‘pearl’ etc. I can go to SEOBook Keyword Suggestion Tool and repeat my search process to get a firmer idea for a slightly different set of search terms and statistics. I can also drill down each types to expand the earrings list even further at sub-levels.
I’m going to look into Froogle too. This resource is so rarely spoken of that it also slips my mind! You can sort your search results by price, relevance and ratings. There’s a “refine results” section at the bottom of the search results page. Again, note specifications like 14K, 18K, carat weight, white gold, diamond etc. and brand names.
As if it is not enough, go to eBay and click on the ‘Buy’ link at the top right corner. Holy Batman! Look for “Jewelry & Watches” and click “Earrings”. You can refine your search by looking at the left column, and I’ll stick to my price range from $500-$999. I have 737 results. Judging by the lack of bids, it seems like no one buys jewelry on eBay. Anyone like to comment on this?
Microsoft has changed the design of its page for the DOCI tool. This powerful tool reveals the “commercial intent” degree to which people are inclined to buy something. According to DOCI, what truly sells are items that don’t require much explanation, like gifts, HDTV, digital cameras and the like. Play with the DOCI tool long enough and you’ll get a solid idea what consumerism is all about.
Not only that, there is a “Demographics Prediction” companion tool. With “earrings”, I found 70% of customers are female, which is expected of course. If you drill down to more specific types of earrings the men-women ratio will be slightly different, but the majority still rules. I also know that purchasing power lies with those in the 25-34 age group. So when you sell your earrings in your blog, you write as if to address the needs and concerns of…you guess it—young professional women who wants to better project their image or look more beautiful to attract guys.
Here’s where we reach the fun part: how to be an affiliate for earrings. Type “”(earrings type)” +affiliate” in Google! Example: “teardrop earrings” +affiliate. Look around the various sites to see what they have in their online stores and judge for yourself if it’s worth signing up for their affiliate programs. If there are too few results, consider if you need to eliminate a jewelry category/department. You also don’t want to sign up with too many different programs, otherwise you may scatter your earnings and it gets harder to have your cheque mailed to you if you need to hit a minimum sum. Usually, Commission Junction has the most comprehensive range of hard products affiliate can sell for, so you want to go there first and foremost. Associate Programs is another great place to search for highly regarded affiliate programs. This is the page for earrings. Some of the affiliate programs can help you with RSS product feeds so you don’t have to manually create blog posts yourself.
Once you have all your affiliate registrations in place, you can set up your niche blog. You want to have consumer advice and education to mix with your product recommendations and descriptions, like how to maintain your jewelry shiny, the right occasions for the right jewelry, what jewelry colors go with what clothing, the significance and purpose behind different jewelry and their implications on self-image, self-esteem and relationships, who knows? You’ll unexpectedly find “crossover topics” to write about too, like fashion (don’t veer too far though).
Content creation is the biggest challenge for niche marketers because it’s ongoing, but thank goodness, Digital Point is where you can engage article writing and blog posting services. There are many other services you can engage like link submissions so check this marketplace.
What’s a great blog template to use? Try Branford Magazine. It look professional and easy to the eye.
That’s it! To summarize:
1) Get an indication of bestselling products from Amazon. Narrow down your departments. FOCUS.
2) Note niche keywords and specifications.
3) Go to SEOBook Keyword Suggestion Tool and AdWords Keyword Tool to get an expanded list of keywords.
4) Look into Froogle. Compare with Amazon and try to determine the biggest merchant sources for your niche products.
5) Get further evidence from eBay. Start with the ‘Buy’ section.
6) Play with Microsoft’s DOCI tool. Looks like you’ll get bored with it soon.
7) Search for affiliate program based on your niche keywords and products.
8) Setup niche blog. For educational stuff, search “product” +advice. Example: “earrings” +advice9) Consider outsourcing content creation. If you want to get ‘free’ service, here’s how: Get in touch with product dealers/merchants and ask them if they’re keen to blog on your site. The win-win proposal is you get content while the dealers can better expose their presence. Or if they’re already blogging somewhere, get their RSS feeds, or ask for their kind permission to publish existing corporate materials.
10) Later if you’ve a good idea for creating a mailing list, design a compelling offer to get visitors to subscribe. You would want to setup your niche blog at www.website.com/blog first.
So what else do you need? A $97 e-book? Well, I’m going to write one; so many marketers need to read this, but you know it here first. Cheers to your niche profits guys and gals!
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