Before you start selling information products online, you need to make sure that you are targeting a market niche that will be profitable in both the short and long-term. The term niche simply refers to your target audience.
Some niches, you will quickly discover, are not as profitable as others. You need to put a lot of thought into whether your target audience is both willing and able to spend money for the solutions to their problems.
For example, golf is a very expensive sport. Typically golfers have money to burn if they believe you can help them improve their score or beat out their friends (competition) on the links.
On the other side, a target market of single moms on a budget may not be willing to let go of $67 for your eBook on how to get organized. Sometimes, though, it depends on which of their problems you are trying to solve. They would like to get organized, but they need more money. Targeting this exact same niche of single moms, you might find that many are willing to pay $47 for your eBook showing them how to make more money working from home.
One good place to start is with online groups and forums. You can go to iVillage or Yahoo, Google groups, or Boardtracker and see what kind of groups garner the most posts. Men’s groups such as AskMen might give you insight into what kind of information products this portion of the population might need that help you generate a handsome profit.
You’re not just looking for a broad group of people to cater to – you’re looking for those with a lot of problems. When you start creating your information products, you’ll want to build an empire of products that all focus on the same niche, allowing you to market to existing, loyal customers who buy from you time and time again.
Sometimes, you’ll find one large niche and then realize you need to build your information product line around a more targeted, narrow niche of people. For instance, parents in general have many problems you could address, such as raising smart kids, dealing with discipline, and saving money.
You can then narrow things down further to moms or dads and it is no stretch to dig even deeper and focus on something like parents of multiples or parents raising kids with physical ailments. Remember – your information product isn’t really a product at all. It’s a solution, and it needs to be marketed as something that will improve lives