Test Time
You know you want to be involved in niche marketing, but how do you know if it is worth taking the next step? It is time to test your ideas! Taking the necessary time to assess the scope of opportunity for your niche ideas allows you to minimize uncertainty and risk. Testing your ideas and making a decision is the right step to start branding. When verifying your niches, there are two elements to pay attention to demand and commercial intent.
Demand shows you how much people are interested. If there is low demand, you will not sustain your niche marketing. By assuring there is high and current demand, you know you will make the money necessary to be sustainable (especially with a great brand identity).
A free resource available to determine the demand for a niche is Google Keyword Planner. This tool comes with a Google AdWords account and will tell you the estimated number of searches for search terms. By entering a relatable keyword to your desired niche, Google Keyword Planner will show you how many searches occur for that keyword, allowing you to see the popularity of the niche as a potential startup branding. This tool will also provide other related keyword suggestions and search volumes.
How many searches make a niche viable? While bigger is better, we recommend that your main keyword generates at least 10,000 searches a month. This offers a large market for you to target and confirms that your niche marketing has a high enough demand.
The second factor is commercial intent. Commercial intent is whether potential customers are completing the call to action of spending money in your niche. If your niche has high demand but low commercial intent, you will not be able to make the money needed to make your brand last. The ideal niche has both high demand and high commercial intent with the ability to promote physical and digital products. There are several websites to validate commercial intent:
- Amazon.com provides information to see how many products are available and the number of reviews for the best-selling products. While it may not be an exact science, one review typically means that at least ten people purchased the product, with the potential of as many as 1,000. The likelihood of individuals reviewing a product is low, so if there are hundreds or even thousands of reviews, it is a good sign of commercial intent. As a baseline, sell products with at least 100 reviews.
- Clickbank.com is an affiliate marketplace that shows how many products exist and their gravity, which indicates recent sales. We want a large number of products being sold based on our keyword, and we want products that have a gravity of 20 or higher,
- Google Ads are the advertisements seen when you search for a particular product or word. Advertising costs money, and advertisers only want to spend if they know they will make money from their efforts. When you search for your keyword and see several ads, then this may indicate good commercial intent. The competition column in the Google Keyword Planner will also tell you if advertisers are showing ads. If it is high or medium, you can be sure that ads are present for your niche keywords.
- Some other resources to determine commercial intent include affiliate websites like Commission Junction and Share a Sale and groups on social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn.
The goal of testing your niches is to develop a small list with a lot of potential for success. From that list, see if one matches your interest or personal brand. Now that you know what you are targeting, you can move to develop the necessary means to start your niche marketing.
The Edge Agency is ready to bring your branding ideas to life. Whether it involves revamping your brand or starting from scratch, we will offer the best branding packages to get your feet off the ground. When we understand your niche, we can understand your intent and develop your brand.
