For me, the best place to start an online business is to identify a niche market. Once you think you have found that niche market, half the puzzle is solved. The next important step is to ensure that there aren’t too many products and services that address that market’s need.
For example, there might be tons of software solutions available on the market geared towards a particular problem that your target market is experiencing. With all that overwhelming flood of info, it might be next to impossible to find out how best to use those software products. In such a scenario, it would be ideal to create a “how-to” guide that takes your customer by the hand and show them exactly how those software solutions work. See the sense?
Here are some critical factors to consider:
1). Look at the general price of other products/services in your area of interest. This gives you a very good idea of how price perceptive your potential market is.
2).What is the demography of your potential customers? What income level do they represent? Is there any gender bias? Where do they rank in the academic strata? Where do they live? These are relevant questions that will help you to arrive at important conclusions as to how lucrative that market will be and how to structure your message to that audience.
3). Most significantly, what motivates them to buy? An online or telephone survey or even discussion boards are good media to turn to for this fact-finding. Understand their motivation and you’ll be able to tickle their fancy!
Once this groundwork is done, then you will want to ensure that you employ the right business model for your optimum success. Some examples would include:
- The sales model: You position yourself as an online merchant and every sale turns a profit. Pretty straightforward.
- The subscription model: If you are an expert in your field with specialty knowledge and rare, desirable and useful info, this model is excellent for your internet launch. A paid subscription is ideal in this respect.
- The “click’ and mortar model where you combine an offline business with an online presence and increase exposure while expanding your market.
- Finally, the vertical portal or “vortal” (for short) model: Just think of Yahoo! And MSN and you get the picture. One entry (their front /home page) leading you to a gamut of information such as news, weather, stocks etc.
In closing, Google Adwords PPC (pay-per-click) is a great place to test and fine-tune your strategy. What is great about Google is that they virtually put you in the driver’s seat and give you the directions to reach your destination.
You have the option to run more that one campaigns concurrently, thus allowing you the flexibility to test more than one headlines and texts to see which draws more traffic. To get started only costs $5 and bids start as little as 1 cent per click. You have full control over your budget!
I wish you success!
Michael
