Where do you find where people are Hanging out Online?
Once you have decided what market or niche you want to serve, how do you find the people that would be interested in the same niche? Where do they hang out online - or possibly offline as well? - if you live in an area that may cater to that certain market.
For the online market, search would be the obvious choice to find where likeminded people may congregate online.
But an area that I think would be even better would be to find other marketers in a similar niche as you're looking for, and contacting them about advertising in their ezine. It's a fast and easy way to let people know that you're out there and ready to get to know and do business with them.
The secret here is to have a product that would supplement what the current webmaster is offering them. Most won't send out advertisements or messages that would undermine their customer base if the product or service wasn't unique from theirs; but instead - complementary.
Forums are another great place to hang out with people of similar interests. You need to abide by the rules and guidelines and not be too pushy. Offer something of value to the community before trying to push anything on them. In reality, just having your URL and business name at the bottom of your comment is the best way to let people know that you do something else that they might want to check out. Check the forum guidelines before you do anything.
Even though they've been in the media for quite awhile, social networking sites are still relatively new, and still cater to more general audiences. That's changing pretty quickly, so if you are fortunate enough to find a community that lines up with your niche, it's a great opportunity to engage other members as people are looking for friends and seem more open to being chatty in their areas of interest.
Another area that a lot of people don't think about is looking up online retail sites and looking at what people are buying. Many people will leave comments with links that invite conversation and exploration of their interests. You could choose to look up the area or areas that you're interested in serving, and you'll find a number of potential contacts that you can begin to build into a customer base.
The ways of finding people online are endless. Start with these and think of places that people would hang out online that would fit in with your interests.
Other Niche Marketing Resources:
Niche Marketing: Targeting the Best Prospects
The Two Faces of Niche Marketing
Niche Marketing - How to Find Your Perfect Niche Market
Niche Marketing: One-Page Wonders and Microsites
The Perfect "Niche Marketing" Example
Microsites and Niche Marketing
Make More Money Marketing to Niches!
Niche Marketing and Keyword Selection: it’s Search Marketing Heaven
» Lessons Learned from the Slowing Growth of Social Networking Web Sites from TheAlphaMarketer
What's happening with the social networking space, as advertising numbers are projected to fall short of expectations for 2008, and overall growth starting to plateau; especially with market leaders MySpace (NYSE:NWS-A) and Facebook?The answer is t... [Read More]
Tracked on: June 14, 2008 10:26 PM | Permalink to Trackback