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That Magic Feeling When You Find a Niche Market
By Mike Mindel | August 4, 2007
My heart went out to Dare on this thread in the Thirty Day Challenge. She said:
I’m REALLY CONFUSED. What should I write down in day 2, niche markets, niches or markets ?????? So I’m totally confused now. What should I write down on day 2, niches, niche markets or markets? Can SOMEONE post at least 3 (niches, niche ideas or markets) to see what exactly I need to research? This thing with niches is really becoming very confusing.
Dare, I really get your frustration. It took me a little while until I got the knack too. If you haven’t already, please read my updated article entitled ‘So What is a Niche Market Anyway?‘
In answer to your question: You’re trying to brainstorm lots of niche market ideas and then whittle them down to 7 niche market ideas. How you get there is entirely up to you.
There’s plenty of people on the forums telling you to try this tool & that tool. But I can’t see anything about the mental process that needs to take place to generate those ideas.
My spreadsheet approach is just one way of doing it. It’s not THE way or Ed’s way. It’s just how I approach it. It may be useful. If so, great. If not, throw it away and try something else that works.
AN EXPLANATION OF THE SPREADSHEET
The reason I’ve got three columns in my spreadsheet is to help me find some niche markets. Niche markets is the goal.
I put ‘markets’ in column one. Then I thought about possible markets I was interested in.
I put ‘niches’ in column two: Activities or hobbites I was interested in, or interested in learning about.
In column three I put ‘niche market’. This is where the magic happens. I looked at the other two columns and ran them against each other to try and generate a creative spark that results in an interesting niche market.
Note: There are no hints of products or services in this list. A niche market simply means a smaller subset of a large market.
By combining a market with a niche we hope to find a market that is not being addressed by mainstream providers. We want to find smaller markets whose needs are not being served properly by anyone.
So we can serve them!
(Thanks to Mike Mosby for the last clarification)
AN EXAMPLE
So say I like the market ‘property buyers’.
I bought my first house 18 months ago. I know what it’s like to be a property buyer & I’m aware of the needs of that market in the UK. Mainly because I was in that market myself.
I can think back to my desires (space, location, value) and my needs (get out of rented property).
I have empathy for the market.
But the market by itself does nothing for me. I can’t do anything with ‘property buyers’ by itself. Apart from empathise with how it felt to be looking for a property - I can’t do anything with it.
Then I thought about a niche that had some loose relation to property. e.g. looking at unusual buildings.
But the niche also didn’t do enough for me. I wanted more from my niche…
You see that’s the problem with coming up with ideas that are just markets or just niches. They’re not inspiring in and of themselves. They’re static ideas and they don’t contain any ‘magic’.
Looking for a property is a real pain and it does not inspire me.
Looking at unusual buildings - yeh - sure if I see one I like - I’ll go hey - that’s an unusual building - I like it!
But in and of themselves: looking for property & looking at unusual buildings do NOT inspire me.
I WANT MORE FROM MY NICHE
I started thinking about unusual places to stay. That last one was the real kicker. I thought about how cool it would be to stay in a windmill by the sea. I looked through my travel file and found a snippet about West Usk Lighthouse
.
The blurb says:
‘Wake to the sound of waves lapping against the shore when you spend a night at West Usk lighthouse, built in the 1820s to guide ships safely through the Bristol Channel. Some of the services on offer are as unusual as the B&B. You can book an Indian Head message, learn belly dancing, have your astrology chart done or tape your own song in a recording studio. And a life coaching session is included in the room rate. The lighthouse has its own life-size Dalek owned by John Pertwee and there are several red telephone boxes. A stone staircase winsup to the wedge-shaped rooms, one with a waterbed, others with four-posters.’
(So I’ll definitely be going there to chll out after the thirty day challenge!)
WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS
These two loosely related ideas - the market (property buyers) and the niche (unusual buildings) started to play with one another.
Suddenly I got an intuitive flash. I thought hey - when I was in the market for buying a property I would love to have known about unusual properties to buy. A lighthouse, a flat in a refurbished church, a houseboat.
That’s when the magic happens. You get a slightly woozy feeling and your brain flashes - incoming alert -
Property buyers searching for unusual properties to buy in England.
and then it’s shorter form:
Unusual property buyers
(It could be an ebook, a service. Doesn’t matter. Forget about the product right now).
There it is. The niche met the market and they created: a niche market.
It really does feel like magic when that happens.
-Mike
Technorati Tags: niche market, niche, market, mike mindel, the magic, property buyers, unusual buildings, usk lighthouse, the magic feeling, niche frustration, confused, spreadsheet
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August 4th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Hey, btw I’m “He” not “She”
. Thank you for your help, I got this clear while ago. I found your approach to creating niche markets quite useful, my primary concern was do I need to write 7 “nices”, “markets”, or “niche markets”. And I realized I need to brainstorm 7 “niche markets”. I usually learn from examples (like you provided these examples) and the Wikipedia article about niche marketing (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niche_market) was very useful. And I get your logic: Niche + market = niche market 
. Very smart approach. Anyway, after a few hours of researching I finally “got it”. Thanks for helping once again.
August 4th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Sorry dude! Don’t know why I thought that.
August 4th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Glad it worked out!
August 4th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Another awesome article. It really helped clarify. Much appreciated.
~Shannon
August 4th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
The picture of the lighthouse caught my eye…
We get a great real estate show here in Canada from the UK… can’t think of what it’s called off the top of my head, but a male and female host try to find 2 properties for the episode guests, one in the city and one in the country…
Anyway, in a recent episode they showed this lighthouse… or one very similar to it anyway… I thought it was a pretty cool idea for a residence
As far as niche ideas, that show is quite popular over here… Apparently Canadians love seeing the quaint British countryside and beautiful old homes… I know my wife and I do
August 4th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
[…] Speaking of “Ed Said…”, he mentioned the blog of Mike Mindel on the podcast. Mike is one of the founders of Wordtracker, and is posting notes daily about the 30 Day Challenge content, but he expands the concepts with more details and examples. He has a great post up today called “That Magic Feeling When You Find a Niche Market“. Well worth taking a look. […]
August 4th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Your spreadsheet and formula for defining niche markets certainly clarified things for me. Thanks Mike.
Herb
August 4th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Wonderful Article!
I found myself in the same position…”Wait! Do I have this down to a niche market or still “a market”…” What does Ed want us to have…a market or niche? …etc.
This article was full of clarity and I appreciate your help/tips to fellow TDC’ers like myself!!
Best wishes for your continued success!
Kelly
August 5th, 2007 at 10:08 am
Thank you. Explained niche markets clearly.
August 5th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Hey Mike,
Thank you for all this!
BTW, What are you this smart for the fun of it?!
Thanks again,
Ed
August 5th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
[…] I loved this post Mike Mindel on how to think of niches “Finding Niche Markets” […]
August 10th, 2007 at 1:09 am
I’ve since reached the conclusion that creating a niche market is one step along the way to finding that great niche.
You need to create the niche market first. Then you can generate many sub-niches as you contemplate the problem of the niche market.
The niches are what you plug into Wordtracker.
-Mike
August 12th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
[…] We’ve dealt with this at length in my two earlier articles, So What is a Niche Market Anyway and That Magic Feeling When You Find a Niche Market. […]
September 2nd, 2007 at 9:53 pm
This post is of 5 star value to anyone! There is no fluff and is practicle advice.
There is a decent tool available now that definately helps find long tail keywords for niche markets. Check out my review of this easy to use Keyword finder at my squidoo lens. There are also some videos showing the software in action.
www.squidoo.com/long-tail-keyword-generator/
September 3rd, 2007 at 6:55 pm
[…] terry56 — This post is of 5 star value to anyone! There is no fluff and is practicle…On That Magic Feeling When You Find a Niche Market […]
February 7th, 2008 at 12:33 am
[…] Mike Mindel posted a fantasitic explanation, including examples on his blog. However, you must ignore the spreadsheet examples (more on this later). The example he uses of “property buyers of unusual property in England” is a great example. Utilizing the concepts in Day 3, he would simply do a keyword search for those unusual properties in England to find out how many people are looking for lighthouses, churches, houseboats, etc. […]