Making Money in Niches: So, What's Your Niche?

Everybody believes in something. Examine your background, your beliefs, and your demographic. Note everything that you do. Include hobbies you like, TV shows you watch, music you listen to. Everything that makes you - you! Don't worry so much about "But I'm weird! How am I going to make money catering to people in my tiny little group?" The Internet is here, and no matter how quirky you are, other people who think just like you do are only a few clicks away.

You can find your niche in a number of ways that works for you:

BE BORN IN ONE.

Obviously, if you're from India and have an interest in cuisine, you're all set up to start a curry business. You're an instant expert in whatever field you currently occupy. Being a member of a generation is another key. Clearly, if you remember the sixties, then you have a good chance to be a hit with the Baby Boomers. Maybe you're a member of Generation X - if so, you can talk to them with a voice that will ring true. Likewise for social and financial class.

ADOPT ONE.

All through our lives, we discover new things that interest us. Take any pastime that you pursue, concentrating on what is associated with that hobby or pursuit that you spend money on. Even better, imagine what you could buy, if only someone sold it. What better way to corner a market than to create one? So, if you already have a niche that nobody caters to, then cater to it yourself! Others who are also looking for that business will find you.

INVENT ONE.

Well, after all, look at all the niches that are around us. Each interest originated with one person who began to follow it. Somebody had to do it first. Think of the first person who put a "9/11 We Will Never Forget" sticker on their car. The first Seattle teenager to call their style "grunge." The first adult who posted pictures of their life-sized Lego models on the Internet. Every fad and "meme" started as an idea in just one person, who spread it around. In some cases, that person found a lifestyle.

STUMBLE UPON ONE.

Niches are waiting all around us to be discovered. Here is a story (within my own 'computer geek' niche) to illustrate this point:

Back in the 90's, I played with the "QBasic" programming language that came installed standard on the Microsoft Windows 3.1 operating system. I even saved a few floppies of little toy programs I'd done. A whole ten years later, I unearthed these relics from some basement box when I was moving, and, now having the Internet handy, decided to try searching for a modern day compiler for this language. Little did I expect that in fact, fans of QBasic were a vast crowd, with websites and clubs devoted to it.

On my techie blog, I mentioned the obscure computer role-playing game "Nethack," almost by accident. It's in a similar vein with Dungeons and Dragons, Blizzard's Diablo, etc., but it's about a thousand times as deep and incredibly difficult to win. Well, a few days later, the first of the search hits for this absolutely esoteric game began trickling in. From the search queries, I could tell that people were looking for help about how to solve problems they'd encountered in some dungeon corner. The more I wrote about it, the more hits came in. In the video game realm, Nethack will never be as popular as the Sims or Half Life. But since almost nobody publishes about that game, 100% of the search traffic based on it is coming my way. My site traffic may rise and fall, but the Nethack hits stay steady every single day.

Sometimes niches are obsessions, or hobbies, or fanatical followings of an art category or subculture. Movies that are known as "cult classics," lifestyles on the fringe, subcultures within cultures; they're all rich hunting grounds for the niche marketer. The difference between niche markets and the mainstream is that niche markets contain high concentrations of passionate followers. Marketing to them will translate into a passionate customer base and a growing income for you.