You can’t start a profitable affiliate marketing business until you find out exactly who you are marketing to. Finding a niche is the first in several steps that will allow you to start a reliable stream of online income.

If you’re stuck at the starting gate when it comes to find a niche, here are three ways to find the right niche – including the pros and cons of each.

Method # 1- Picking a niche that you already know a lot about.

When you select a niche that you are already closely familiar with, you will be able to identify immediately what type of content you need to create, how you need to approach the marketing and where you need to do further research.

This can save you a lot of time when you are searching for affiliate products. You’ll know instantly what type of information that your market is likely to want and you narrow down your affiliate product choices without spending a lot of time on niche research.

Additionally, if you decide to create your own product to pre-sell the affiliate marketing product, you’ll instantly know how to create it. On the downside, the topics that you may be familiar with might not be profitable or in demand.

Method #2 – Pick a niche that you are passionate about.

If you go with the passion method of picking a niche, you’ll enjoy the process of marketing to this niche. A topic you are passionate about it one that you may or may not already be knowledgeable about.

You may just have a passion for learning about it. With a niche you are passionate about, you’ll be more motivated to work on your affiliate business.
Consistent work is the key to success, so enjoying your work is important to keeping consistency. It will also be easier to write passionately about the topic if you are passionate about learning about it.

You’ll be excited to do the work involved in creating a promotional pre-selling product or a website. However, just like with a topic you know about, you may find that the product that you are promoting due to your passion is not very profitable.

Method #3 – Pick a niche that is high in demand

Finding a market that already has a high demand is a smart way to get into affiliate marketing. If the topic already has a great deal of interest and demand, you’ll be more likely to make sales and have profitable affiliate marketing promotions.

The main drawback is that high in demand topics have a lot of competition, but don’t let this discourage you. You’ll be able to make an impact in the market if you keep at it.

There is a hidden fourth method for choosing a niche – finding a niche that is a combination of all three. When you select a product that is something you know about, something you’re passionate about and something that is already high in demand you’ll get the benefits of all of these methods.

Next, Discover Here More Ways To Find Niches For Your Online Business… And Then Watch This FREE 26 Step-By-Step VIDEO Course

If you can create a profitable online business, you’re almost guaranteed of being able to leave your 9-5 job and work for yourself. Living a lifestyle where you don’t need to get up early in the morning and you have no one to answer to.

Here are 7 steps on how you can create a profitable online business for yourself.

1. Find a niche and do your research.
You need to find a niche which you are interested in selling to and do some research on the type of products that are selling.

Note down improvements you can make to the existing products and imagine how well the market will accept it.

2. Write an eBook
Write an eBook based on a popular topic you have found on your research. Make sure that the best information is given. You want your customers to be more than pleased after reading your eBook.

3. Design a professional web page
To sell an eBook, you need to have a good looking web design so that the prospects will trust you.

Having an unprofessional , awful design will hurt your sales. So outsource your web design if you’re not capable of doing it yourself.

4. A Sales Letter
You need to write a good sales letter which explains the benefit of the product to the customers. A good sales letter is hard to write. If you are not good at writing sales letters, you may consider outsourcing it to a copywriter.

This is the most important factor in marketing your product. It is what persuades the prospects to buy your product.

5. Create a squeeze page
Create a web page with the sole purpose of capturing your prospect’s email address. All your traffic generation methods should be promoting this link.

6. Develop an autoresponder series
Follow up with your subscribers after they sign up to your squeeze page with an autoresponder series.

You should give educate the subscribers with good information and promote the eBook you wrote.

7. Create more products
Create another related product and sell it to the existing customers and subscribers which you have built.

Create another eBook or an audio version of the eBook. The objective is to continue building your list of subscribers and customers so that you can sell more to them.

This is the blueprint to a profitable online business. Many people have managed to earn a consistent 6 figure income doing this by outsourcing it to professionals and taking the profits themselves.

Next, get here a FREE copy of the BLUEPRINT FOR A 6 FIGURE ONLINE BUSINESS! Best of all, I can offer it to you for being a loyal reader of this blog!

In your consulting business, chances are you have spent a lot of time thinking about the specific services you can offer to clients. You’ve probably spent a great deal of time and effort working on processes, so that when clients come to you you’re able to offer them real solutions.

Unfortunately, many solo professionals don’t put the same kind of time and thought into their marketing message. They put up a website, perhaps, that goes into great detail about how it is they can solve their clients’ problems. Then, they can’t understand why no one is buying.

It’s because they haven’t developed a core marketing message. What, exactly, is your core marketing message? It’s the message you want to get across to your potential customers. It’s the thing that will convince potential customers that you have the answer to their problem. The success of your business will, ultimately, depend greatly on how clear and effective your core marketing message is.

Introducing Yourself

One of the reasons you’re marketing your business is so that people will choose to hire you. That sound’s rather basic, but it can be overlooked. Your marketing message needs to say who you are. Making sure your name, or your business name, is included in your marketing efforts will help insure that, even if the potential client doesn’t hire you right away, they’ll remember you for when they are
ready to buy.

In the process of introducing yourself, don’t get carried away. Talking about yourself can distract your potential customers and, in many cases, push them away. They’re not interested as much in who you are as they are in what you can do for them.

In some niches, it can be useful to provide some biographical information. For example, you might say, “I am Dr. Rogers, and I am a physician at State Hospital” or “I am Jan Smith, a certified clinical psychologist.” If your niche has recognized certifications or associations, you can certainly include this information in your marketing. As a general rule, however, brevity is best.

Identifying Problems

The next thing you need to focus on in your core marketing message is a problem that needs to be solved. People buy things, and they pay consultants and coaches, to solve problems. This is true for just about any consulting business. If you’re a writing coach, your clients have a problem with their writing ability (or with selling their writing, perhaps.). If you’re a weight loss coach, your clients probably have a weight problem. If you’re a back pain coach, your clients have back pain.

It seems basic, but identifying the specific problems that your coaching solves is integral to your core marketing message. You want to reach people that have a need, and then say, “Hey! You there! I can fix that!” That is how you get clients’ attention. That’s how your potential clients know you’re talking to them, and how they know you have something that they just might want to listen to. Think about some of the most effective commercials and marketing campaigns you’ve seen.

Acne medications don’t start out their advertisements by talking about ingredients. Instead, they say, “Are you tired of not looking your best?”

They identify a problem right away: with acne, you don’t look your best. Your core marketing message should address a problem or problems of your target market. Make a list of the top problems in your target market – perhaps three to five problems – and decide which ones you can solve. Focus your marketing efforts on these.

Offering Outcomes

The natural thing to do, once you’ve identified a problem, is talk about solutions and processes. However, when it comes to your core marketing message, solutions and processes need to take a back seat.

You see, people out there who have a problem aren’t looking for methods. They aren’t looking for a process. They aren’t even looking for solutions.

What they want are outcomes.

The person with back pain doesn’t want medicine. They don’t want exercise, physical therapy or coaching. They want to be free from back pain. The person with acne doesn’t want hydrocortisone creams or UV treatments. They want to get rid of their acne. It’s not enough to identify problems; potential customers know they have problems. Identifying problems is just how you get their attention. You need to tell those potential customers exactly why they need you. You have to be able to identify specific outcomes. You need to know what your potential clients want to get out of the situation, decide if you can provide it, and then offer it to them.

As the next step in the process of developing your core marketing message, you need to consider each of those problems you identified previously. For each problem, ask yourself, “What is the ideal outcome your potential customers are hoping for?” Once you’ve identified those outcomes, they become an amazing tool in your marketing efforts.

A Note About Process

Just because the process of solving problems shouldn’t be included in your marketing message doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider it. Before you attach a given outcome to a problem, you’d better be sure you have a process in place that will solve the problem and provide the desired outcome. If you can’t create the outcome, you have to strike it from your marketing message.

Putting it All Together

So, now that you have identified the various components of your core marketing message, it’s time to actually formulate and articulate that message. Your core marketing message says something along these lines:

“I am _____. I work with _____ who have this problem_____. I help them to _____.”

So, you might say, “I am John Sebastian. I work with older men and women who have lower back pain. I help them to manage their pain effectively and lead normal, productive lives.”

Establishing a coherent core marketing message that identifies who you are, identifies the problem you can solve and gives the potential customer a look at what life looks like after their problem is solved is key to success in your consulting business.

Writing an effective web copy begins with an understanding of what the goals of your website are. Are you trying to get your visitors to purchase something or have them sign up for your newsletter? Remember you are trying to get someone whom you can’t see and have never met take a step towards building a relationship with you or your company.

1. Create a customer profile—Who is exactly your target audience?

• Are they young, middle aged or senior?
• Are they primarily male or female?
• Are they financially secure or budget-minded?
• What gets him or her excited?
• What are his or her most pressing concerns?

2. Create a Unique Selling Position (USP) — Find out what are the needs and desires of your visitors. Brainstorm a list of topics that might interest your target audience. Then based on these evidences, propose a statement of 2–3 sentences that explains why you are different from everybody else. This is the unique factor that sets you apart from your competition. Make this the first thing your visitor sees when they arrive on your home page.

3. Focus on benefits — Most web users want to find the information about the product or service they need as fast as possible. If they land on your site, they want to know how they will benefit from buying your product or subscribing to your e-zine. You will need to answer that question as clearly and concisely as possible or you will lose that visitor.

4. Use headlines — Provide a summary of your information by clearly communicating the main purpose of your copy. Use informative headings and subheadings with a paragraph of 4–5 lines that supports them. You only have a few seconds to grab your visitors’ attention. Most will simply scan for the information they are seeking.

5. Use bulleted or numbered lists, boldface or colored font to emphasize the points you wish to make.

6. Include links within the text to direct visitors to other pages of your site for more in-depth information. Effective navigation also helps visitors easily find the main sections of your site.

7. Write in an informal or personal style — It is your own unique way of differentiating your presence from other small businesses in a similar niche. It doesn’t have to be too elaborate or super-creative. You simply provide a style that gets the attention of your visitors.

8. Keep your sentences simple — You are not writing to impress. You are writing to communicate. Make it easy for a 13-year-old to understand why you want to sell your product or service.

Don’t use large words but opt for strong verbs over weak ones. Use the active voice instead of a passive one, i.e. instead of “a good score was achieved by the team”…say “the team scored a season high”. Speak “to” but not “at” your visitor. Keep your sentences short and snappy. Sometimes straight-forwardness is all it takes to bring results in the shortest time.

9. Include searchable keywords — Use targeted keywords in your web copy that will allow the search engines to find your site. Include these keywords in your meta tags, links and file names.

10. Eliminate the fluff — Don’t waffle on in your writing. You will only bore your visitors and they will click elsewhere. Try to remove filler sentences that contain phrases like “for those of you” and “all of you”.

11. Proof-read your web copy — Errors in your web copy give the impression of being unprofessional or sloppy. Read the copy aloud to yourself or get someone else to proof-read it. Often they will find more errors because they are more objective.

Use the spell checker but don’t rely on it. Often it doesn’t pick up grammatical or vocabulary errors. Print a copy of your content. It’s easier to find such errors on a hard copy this way.

12. Take a break — Revise your web copy after taking a break from it for several hours or a few days. This allows you to see it from a different viewpoint. You may find a better way to say something to further improve your copy.

13. Use images sparingly — Images should only be used if they relate and support your web content. If not, they will only distract the visitor from reading your web copy. Too many images will slow down the time it takes for your visitor to load your site in their browser.

Writing an effective web copy is the key to converting visitors into buyers. Getting thousands of visitors to your website doesn’t guarantee sales. The types of words you use and how you combine and string them together is absolutely crucial to pressing the hot buttons of someone who would finally say, “Yes, I MUST get it!” Once you achieve this, your website will become very profitable.