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I’ve Been Wrestling With Underwater Kickboxing
By Mike Mindel | August 6, 2007
All Niche and No Market
For the past few hours I’ve been mulling over what Mike Mosby said in the thread he posted yesterday on the forums.
Mike pointed out that in an earlier version of my spreadsheet my niche markets smacked more of service & product than niche markets. And you know what… he was right.
He clarified niche markets beautifully with:
A niche market simply means a smaller subset of a large market that is not being addressed by mainstream providers.The ideal market is one where there is an interest from a small but sizable group of individuals and no one is fulfilling their needs.
It’s such a good explanation that I went and clarified my earlier articles. I’ve also since updated the spreadsheet to reflect the niche markets more clearly.
But it’s really got me thinking…
Who’s For Underwater Kickboxing?
In the third day summary Ed gave specific examples for:
- speed reading
- underwater kickboxing
- sausage making
Something was bothering me. I’ve been thinking about it all morning (yes I do have a life – honest) and here’s what I realised.
Speed reading, underwater kickboxing and sausage making are not niche markets. They are actually sub-niches.
- Reading is a niche, speed reading is a sub-niche of reading. There are those that read. There are those that read fast.
- Kickboxing is also a niche. Underwater kickboxing is a sub-niche of kickboxing. Some like kickboxing. Others like to kickbox under water.
- Preparing food is a niche. Sausage making is a sub-niche of preparing food.
Do you see the pattern here? It’s all niche but no market. Just activity.
But this is good. This is the output you want. Niche markets help you find niches.
Speed Reading Breakdown
Lets take ’speed reading’ – the sub-niche of reading.
It looks like a great niche with lots of keywords & searches from Wordtracker and some decent competition in Google. But know it for what it is – a sub-niche.
Now I want to step back and think about how we could have arrived at the ’speed reading’ niche ourselves.
The niche is reading – hobby, general area of interest. I’m happy with this.
The market is people who need to save time.
So I believe the niche market is actually time conscious readers.
The sub-niche of reading is speed reading.
Do you see the difference?
The niche market contains the market need & benefit – saving time. Otherwise why would readers want to read faster?
But the niche market helped us discover the niche – speed reading.
Ask The Question: How Can I Help Time Sensitive Readers?
Think about the problems that people who want to read faster have?
Well. We could teach them to read faster – i.e. speed read. Notice that we dropped straight into the sub-niche there.
But I’m not going to stop there. I’m going to plug ‘readers who want to save time’ into Google and see what I come up with:
The News & Observer has an article on ‘alternative story form construction‘. A new trend in journalism designed to streamline communication between newspaper and reader. That’s saving time isn’t it?
Ooh. Shiny.
I also see:
Saving time with Excel is an interesting niche idea. It’s not directly related to readers. But who’s counting?
I also saw:
Web writing for people with various degrees of interest.
Then there’s this one:
Thanks giving dinner preparation tips. Again. It’s not readers. But what an interesting niche.
Niche Markets Help You Discover More Niches
I think our brains just love to play at helping people solve problems in unique and interesting ways.
So I think discovering the niche market first helps you figure out better sub-niches than just trying to figure out the sub-niches from scratch.
That’s my point.
It’s All A Bit Circular
I know it all seems a bit circular. But I think this is actually quite helpful.
Bear with me now – the ride is a little bumpy.
I have a saying ‘the opposite of the opposite is not the opposite’.
This isn’t just some mental paradox.
It’s meant to illustrate that when we start from one place, go on a journey and arrive back we aren’t in the same place we started.
No. I haven’t gone all Zen.
Think hard.
If we start with a niche and a market, find a niche market and then return to the niche – the niches or sub-niches we get back are more unique, unusual & plentiful than the one we went in with. Why? Because we know what the market’s problem is.
Here’s the example.
You’re looking at property buyers (market) and you think of spotting unusual buildings (niche) and this creates your niche market (unusual property buyers).
Then you think of the problems you can help this niche market solve. How can property buyers find unusual properties e.g. houseboats, lighthouses?
This leads you to your sub-niche ‘buying unusual property‘. But by dwelling on the the niche market you can generate several sub-niches from the niche market:
- Buying unusual property
- Unusual property surveys
- Castles of the world
- Insuring unusual properties
- Solar powered heating for castles
Do you see how sitting with the niche market helps you churn out lots of niches!
I hope the clarity will help your sub-conscious throw up more and more interesting and unique sub-niche possibilities.
Plug In Your Sub-Niches
Make sure you plug in the various sub-niches into the Wordtracker free keywords tool.
Why don’t you type in the niche market?
Well. People don’t search for their niche market in Google. Say I’m a theme park junky and I want to find reviews of rollercoasters – would I type in ‘theme park junkies’ or ‘rollercoaster reviews?’
Seems obvious when you think about it.
-Mike
Technorati Tags: all niche, no market, niche market, niche, market, mike mindel, underwater kickboxing, sausage making, speed reading, save time, time saving readers, readers, saving time with excel, web writing, various degrees of interest, sub-niches, interesting niches, anal retentive
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Topics: Key Concepts | 12 Comments »
August 6th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
What an awesome post! Your explanation and example were perfect.
Identify a group of people who have something in common, determine their needs and fulfill that need!
I am attempting to take people through the thought process behind each day’s assignments on my blog. I just wish I could be as eloquent as you.
Keep up the great work!
Mike
August 6th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Thanks Mike.
Actually I have you to thank for it.
-Mike
August 6th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Thanks for the clarification Mike. This one really removed any confusion that I had with the “What is a niche” question.
Paul
August 6th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
This was exactly what I needed to read. Very clarifying.
I was also thinking (and I also have a life! LOL): but is my market too big? is my niche a real niche or too big? etc. This article will help me wrangle it in! Shimmey it down! Whittle it down..whatever.
Thanks so much for your teamwork sharing!
30DC’er Kelly
August 6th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Mike
Thanks for partially clarifying the niches thing, but I must correct you on one point of detail, you said that Underwater Kick Boxing was a sub niche, I would say it was more of a SUBmersible niche !!
August 6th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
This post goes to 11.
Really. What I have been most confused and lost with is the lack of understanding how “niche” and “market” came together. Now Ed makes even more sense!
Thanks!
August 7th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Huh, I love this. This post joint all the dots together and make more sense.
August 11th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
[...] I mentioned this in my blog post I’ve Been Wrestling with Underwater Kickboxing. [...]
August 12th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Thanks Mike, I just made another comment on a post on your blog about needing some steps like these. Then you directed me here.
You had it all along! How did I miss this post? This is excellent. Just what I wanted to hear. Thanks
August 12th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
I want to ask a question about the results on WT.
When a result comes back that doesn’t really make sense, like the words are jumbled in bad English, is that the actual order people are putting in to search? Or do we need to put it the correct way, then have it be our niche phrase?
Thanks,
August 13th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Hi Mike
Thanks for your posts, they are incredibly helpful.
Just a thought as I was reading your explanation of niches – would it not be better to list the niche first rather than the market? When you explained “speed reading” you mentioned reading is a niche. If I think of the action, ‘reading’, it is easier to think of the market ‘people who need time’ and therefore the sub niche ’speed reading’.
What do you think? Would this be an effective way to discover sub niches?
August 13th, 2007 at 8:43 am
Maybe I stepped over the line. Is this a trial and error thing? If so, man I am sooo much up for the
challenge, if you’ll tell me all about it.
PS Did you hear/read my previous question?
What about the order of the words? Some of them seem weird… not normal sounding. You can’t possibly tell me people ask questions “”how can i get rid of my pimples?”
what if they said
”pimples be gone”
or… ‘ i don’t like my pimples”
”please make my pimples go away”
”my life will be so much better if you
just make them go away”
My life would be so much better if You just
let them grow an their own. (not pimples, i’m talking about hydroponically grown food
David