A niche market is a focused market of individuals who have the same specialized interests and needs. They have a strong desire for a product or service that meets their needs. Niche marketing saves time and money. If you have a niche market, you can focus your marketing efforts and increase your profits. Often times, you can charge more for a niche product because the services you are offering are customized to your customer's specific needs. Many things are profitable to a number of people. You don't have to offer all things to all people. The more narrowly you define your market, the easier it is to cater to the specific interest of that market.

The key is to pursue a niche that is growing in popularity. Zero in on your target market and understand its needs and its demographics. Are you marketing internationally or just in your own community? Is your market made up of mostly women or both genders? Do they have children? What are they most concerned about? Determine their lifestyle, social class, opinions, activities and beliefs. You can gather this information by conducting surveys. Remember not to ask too many questions in a survey. Keep the survey at 5 to 10 questions.

Once you've determined who your customer is, research the competition and find out how your market responds to their products. Determine how you can make your product better and serve the market's needs in a more complete way. Create a unique selling proposition (USP) that will enable you to stand out from the crowd. The benefits that you promise from your product must have a special appeal to your niche. Using your findings from your surveys, you should be able to identify the market's unique needs so you can fill them.

You should develop your own product, rather than market others? products, so you can make more money and have affiliates who promote for you. When creating your product, keep in mind that consumers purchase a product for one of three reasons; they either need to fill a basic need, solve a problem or they want to feel good. Your product can be a solution to one or all of these. If you are marketing to businesses, their purchases are based on three separate reasons; either to increase revenues, maintain the status quo or decrease expenses. Speak the language of your customers throughout your mini-site and product. Understand what their ?hot buttons? are and use this to communicate as an insider.

Once the product is finished, build and promote your mini-site. You should create informative pages that attract visitors and move them toward a purchase. Provide as much information as possible and include links to related subjects. Make sure to promote only one product per site. As a measure of good customer service, provide multiple ways for customers to order your product.

After you establish your first mini-site, develop other products and mini-sites that cater to other needs in the same niche. Using multiple website that promote individual products for the same niche will help you establish yourself in that niche as an expert. Encourage questions on your mini-site so you can become more valuable in the eyes of your customers. All of this will work toward making you an expert in your niche and provide a narrow focus for your marketing success.