Khan Amin Million Dolar Niches

provide lists of affiliate programs

- also known as associate or referral programs - which enable Web site

owners to earn money.

For example, if you have a Website, which is about vacations in Greece, you
can go to an affiliate directory, look under "Travel", and choose appropriate

affiliate programs to join.

When someone clicks on a referral link on your site and goes to the travel

company's site and makes a purchase, you earn a commission on the sale.
It's also possible to be paid per click, and per lead. Affiliate directories make it

easy to find such programs.

As part of the mushroom growth of affiliate programs, your directory
serves as an authentic and valuable source for helping people
announce, and join affiliate programs. What's so DIFFERENT about

you that made your business so popular?

I do something really unusual. I allow affiliates to submit programs to the

The Unfair Advantage Book On Winning The Search Engine

directory and I publish THEIR referral URL - if they

are the first to submit the program. If someone clicks on that link and buys
something, the affiliate earns the commission, not me. A lot of people have

told me I'm crazy doing that, but it's a great way of winning friends.

Also, I live in a little fishing village without a shop in sub-tropical Queensland,

Australia, and run the business from a pole house by the beach. That
intrigues people and helps make me memorable.

I'm a loyal subscriber of your Associate Programs Newsletter, which

is one of my favorites, what is the secret behind its success?

I work very hard to provide original, useful content in the newsletter. As long

as I do that, people stay subscribed. I keep asking myself, is this USEFUL for
affiliates? How can I help them earn more money?

I also like to inject a bit of personal info. Right now, my wife, Joanna, and I

are in Dunedin, New Zealand, staying with Joanna's parents, who are in their
eighties. We've bought a block of land overlooking a beach here and plan to

build a summer house. People like to know that there's a real person
behind the words.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Hhmm. Time to ask an important question. How do you drive qualified
targeted traffic towards yours website?… Any specifics, Allan?

My three favorite ways are:

1. Optimizing pages for the main search engines. Excellent sources of

advice on that are these books: "Make Your Site Sell" –

Make Your Site

SELL!

and “

Wars

2. Pay-per-click search engines. They're a good way of getting highly

targeted traffic. You can find some very detailed, helpful articles listed
at:

PayPerClickSearchEngines.com

3. Submitting articles to e-mail discussion lists and occasionally to

message boards. Another good way is writing articles for other
people's newsletters, but I hardly ever have time to do that.

I've been fortunate enough to make some wonderful friends who recommend

on their sites, in newsletters and in e-mail discussion

lists.

While it's been said that poorly defined niches are common, whereas
unfilled niches are rare, how did you find yours? Tell us something

about how you got started?

I was having fun selling Jim Daniels' Internet marketing book and loved

receiving a $10 commission for each one I sold. Because I live Down Under, I
really was making sales while I was asleep, or walking on the beach. I wanted

to join similar programs and looked for a directory of them. When I couldn't
find one, I started my own. (Apparently one affiliate directory already existed,

but I couldn't find it.)

-----------------------Sidebar Note by Amin-----------------------

Pay close attention here. Nearly all success stories that I
hear online, comes out of frustration.

Allan created his affiliate programs directory when he
couldn’t find one. Since there was great “need” for this type
of resource back then, as (like Allan) people wanted to have
multiple streams of income with referral programs, Allan took
action at full speed. As a result, his affiliate programs
directory quickly became talk of the town.

-----------------------------Sidebar Ends---------------------------

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Being a prime mover helps enormously. As Al Ries and Jack Trout say in "The
22 Immutable Laws of Marketing", the first law of marketing is the law of

leadership: Create a category you can be first in. That's what I set out to
do with

PayPerClickSearchEngines.com

and it's what we're doing with

Pay-per-click search engines were being discussed more and more. I looked
for a directory of them and couldn't find one, and so I started my own.

One way to find an unfilled niche is to carve a little piece off an existing niche.
Danny Sullivan already had a really good site about search engines -

SearchEngineWatch.com

. What I did was concentrate on one little part of that

niche, pay-per-click search engines, which he was almost totally ignoring.

In the affiliate marketing field, people are carving off lots of little sub-niches.

Directories have popped up just for UK programs, there's a site for
submissions to the directories, there are sites such as

AffiliateBlunders.com

AffiliateHelp.com

to help affiliates, and sites to help affiliate program

managers.

In fast-expanding niches, there's always an opportunity to slice and dice, to
chop off a little bit for yourself and aim to be THE expert in that small section.

When someone announces an affiliate program, or tries to find a good

one... the very first thing they do is hit your website. What is the
magic behind your business that drives people like crazy towards
your site without giving a second thought?

Here are some things that help:

1) A memorable domain name,

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/search/guide.shtml

, which tells

people what the site is about.

2) The site is fast loading and easy to navigate.

3) It's a little unusual in design - very simple and it's not like a thousand

other sites. That helps make it memorable.

I've also worked very hard to build trust and credibility.

–

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You seem to promote a lot of good affiliate programs yourself. In your
personal opinion, what is the most important thing that should be

considered before signing up as an affiliate?

Look for an excellent product - one which you can feel proud to promote.
Everything else is secondary. There are many other factors to consider…I

cover them here:

What is the best way to market an affiliate program, and how to avoid

the affiliate gluttony?

Build a web site on a subject about which you are passionately interested,
and then carefully choose a small number of affiliate programs, which suit

that theme. If possible, buy the products and review them and write
personal endorsement.

Themed sites are search engine friendly, and they will become more and
more important as the Web becomes even more clogged with millions upon

millions of trashy pages.

The Search Engines are getting better and better at finding useful sites, so...
Build something USEFUL - so useful that people will provide links to your site.

Talking about carving off a sub-niche from an existing niche, I've just
launched a new affiliate directory for affiliate programs, which pay lifetime

commissions. It's called, appropriately,

LifetimeCommissions.com

These programs don't just pay you for one sale. The customer is "yours" for

life and you earn a commission every time "your" customer buys something.
A lifetime commission program pays you EVERY TIME the customer buys

something from the merchant, not just for the first purchase.

A residual commission program pays commissions on RECURRING FEES, such
as monthly web hosting fees or auto-responder fees. In these programs, the

merchant recognizes the lifetime value of a customer, and pays you
accordingly.

It's not like sending someone to buy a book at

Amazon.com

and earning one

commission. In a lifetime program, you earn a commission the NEXT time

that customer buys, and the next...

For example, every time Ken Evoy of

SiteSell.com

launches a new high-

quality product, such as "

Make Your Knowlege Sell

” - or "

Site Build It!

" -

affiliates like me, receive a bunch of new commissions as loyal customers
grab the new product. You can find the directory here:

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

LifeTimeCommissions.com

. Ken Evoy describes in detail - about 100 pages -

how to build a themed affiliate web site in his free "Affiliate Masters" e-mail

course. To get it, send a blank e-mail to:

tamsniche1@sitesell.net

We are currently seeing tremendous growth in the area of affiliate
marketing. Companies like Refer-It.com, AffiliateAdvisor.com,

Associate-It.com and a handful of some other companies are already
in the battlefield. In such a situation, do you think the small guy can
make a difference, and comes out as a winner?

It's getting harder, but I think there will always be room for the little guy who

is fast on his feet. I wouldn't recommend starting yet another affiliate
directory. I hope your readers are a bit more original than that. It makes

more sense to identify a growing sub-niche and aim to be the first and the
best in it.

How do you see the future of Affiliate Programs? Do you think these
programs will further be augmented in terms of popularity?

Many thousands of affiliate programs are competing for the attention of

affiliates, who can quickly switch to something new. So affiliate program
managers are going to have to work harder and harder to stand out from the

crowd. Only the best will survive.

The best will do many of the 22 things I describe in this article:

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/search/affiliate-loyalty.shtml

They'll have to work much harder at seeing things from the affiliates' point of
view. That means they'll provide better support, pay performance bonuses,

and generally do all they can to ensure that affiliates' efforts are well
rewarded.

OK! That’s all I wanted to ask. Thanks for this great interview, Allan.
It is indeed a powerful lesson for anyone seeking success with

affiliate programs.

You're welcome, Amin.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Success comes to those who dare and act... It seldom goes to timid

- Nehru

A Niche Can Make You Rich

By Marcia Yudkin

Do you market to just about anybody who might want to buy what you sell? If so, you
miss out on a dynamic that multiplies profits when you market only to chiropractors, pet
stores, adoptive parents or real-estate office managers.

According to Richard Weylman, author of Endless Prospects: 301 Tactics to Reach
Hard-to-Reach People, concentrating your marketing efforts on a specific category of
people who interact with each other means that whatever you do to make yourself
known to those in that niche has a heightened effect.

When you focus on one group of people, you'll find it easier to land business with them
because you'll come to know their quirks, preferences and lingo backwards and
forwards. By concentrating on the publications, conferences and trade shows in just one
industry, you can build a reputation quickly, so that prospects come to you instead of
you chasing after them. Likewise, word of mouth gets going sooner and more powerfully
within a niche than in the world at large.

To select a promising population segment or occupational group, use these criteria:

The niche is growing, not shrinking.

Members of the niche have the ability to pay what you'd like to charge.

Individuals in the niche are relatively easy to reach by phone or e-mail.

The niche communicates amongst itself through publications, associations,
conferences and schmoozing.

They already understand the need for what you sell.

Few of your counterparts have discovered this niche yet.

You enjoy interacting with those in this niche as people.

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Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Mike Bayer, a PR specialist in Laguna Beach, California, suggests the following steps to
achieve market penetration within your chosen niche:

Track industry trends by reading the niche's publications and attending relevant
conferences and seminars.

Identify the top decision makers and trend setters in the niche and schmooze
with them.

Research the key editors and reporters in the niche and stay in touch with them
on a regular basis.

Join and become active in the niche's associations and networking groups.

Contribute articles to the niche publications and arrange to speak at the industry
powwows.

Publish tips booklets or white papers of value to those in the niche and make
them available for free.

Seek out other opportunities to get your product or service in front of members
of the niche repeatedly.

Identify and schmooze with professionals in a position to recommend your
produce or service to members of the niche.

Bayer, whose niche is public relations for attorneys, says it takes an average of three to
five years to penetrate a niche. Patient efforts are essential.

I should add that the advice here falls into the category of "Do as I say, not as I do."
Instead of choosing a niche in which to concentrate my efforts, I enjoy working with an
attorney in the morning, a software firm in the afternoon, a holistic practitioner another
day and a publishing company the next. On the whole, though, niche marketers earn
more than generalists. What's your choice?

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Interview with

Terry Dean

Introduction

Terry is considered one of the top small business Internet consultants in the
world today with over 75,000 subscribers to his Internet training newsletter

WebGold from 47 different countries.

He currently earns well into six figures a year while living what he likes to call

the "Internet Lifestyle" (working only 20 to 30 hours a week). His entire
business runs almost completely on autopilot.

He currently runs this worldwide company, Business Systems 2000, out of his

home office alongside his beautiful wife Julie. They live out in the quiet
country among the peaceful landscape of Indiana.

If you have heard about Terry you know how much you could learn from him.
If you haven't heard about Terry Dean you'd better start knowing him now.

So let's ask him about how he manages more than a dozen successful

businesses on the Internet.

Terry, how would you define info publishing, what's so HOT about it
right now in your opinion?

Info Publishing is simply the business of selling information such as books,
ebooks, CDs, videos, audiotapes, seminars etc.

The reason that it's so HOT right now...and the reason it's been one of the

best businesses for small businesses to get into for decades is that
information is foundation that everything else is built upon.

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Million Dollar Niches!

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•

You can't build an Internet business until you have the right
information.

•

You can't be a successful entrepreneur without the right information.

•

You can't develop a good golf game without the right information.

•

You can't buy a good car without the right information.

•

You can't find the job you want without the right information.

…I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

It's an easy business for anyone to get into. It has huge markups... Let's take

a book for example. You can sell a book for $15 to $30 quite easily and it only
costs $2 to $3 to print. That's a 1,000% markup.

eBooks don't have to have any physical cost so all "markup" percentages lose

value once you count them.

Plus, everyone reading this knows something other people would like to
learn...or at the very least, they know someone else who has information
people would like to have. So it's a "ready to go" business for anyone.

You've taken time to brand yourself as one of the most respected

marketers on the Net. Probably, that's the major reason for your huge
success. If someone has to brand him/herself, what would be your

advice?

Here are the steps to brand yourself…

Step One: Be a real person. Have opinions. Tell people how you think

about something and don't be afraid of rejection. The more well known you
become, the more "enemies" you will have who are jealous of you and want

to attack you. Get over the rejection and be yourself.

Step Two: Be honest. I'm not an overnight success. I've been online for
years...and I'm just getting started. Be careful that you treat everyone with
honesty in all your dealings because your reputation will get around...good or

bad.

Step Three: Do something. A lot of my "brand" is the fact that I'm always
doing something. I'm writing articles, running ads, creating products, and I

always have more projects in the works.

Even though I probably rarely work more than 30 to 40 hours a week total,
it's a regular comment that it seems like I'm everywhere online. This didn't
happen by accident. It occurs from weekly taking action.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

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As far as I know, you keep a vigilant eye on unfilled niches in the
info-product industry. As a result you have a number of exciting info

products in your business portfolio. Can you share with our readers
your strategy on how you go about it?

I listen. I know you were probably expecting something bigger and more

grand of an answer…but that's simply it. I listen to my customers, my ezine
subscribers, and my

NetBreakthroughs

members. Most of my own product

ideas come from things they tell me they want.

Here's another "secret" formula. An awesome place to look that most people

never think of is in the letters to the editor section of your favorite
magazines. These letters are from customers in that niche market...and they

tell you exactly what kinds of frustrations they're experiencing. Look for
frustration in any marketplace, and then create the answer to it.

Terry, as you know it's becoming increasingly difficult to achieve
success on this hyper-competitive Internet. However, it’s now a

known fact that people who find small unfilled niches always comes
out as a winner. Can you tell us why?

I would disagree with you that it's more difficult now to succeed. I actually

think it has never been easier for someone to get started.

------------------Sidebar Note by Amin----------------

Terry is talking in terms of ease and flexibility that
new e-commerce software packages, and services provide
for starting and running an e-business from home.

----------------------Sidebar Ends-----------------------

Almost 5 years ago when I got started, we didn't have anywhere near the
automated tools we have now. For example, look at

NetOfficeToolBox

, it has

everything in one easy to use package. I would have loved to have this when
I started.

The mistake people are making is that they are focusing on the wrong
market...probably 60% or more of the people I contact with want to do

"Internet marketing" as their subject. Well...of course it's difficult if you want

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

this niche...you have to compete with established companies such as my own
and the 10 or so other ones who are very established in the marketplace.

Go after something you love to do and build a business in that area...Focus

on a hobby, an interest, or something you already have experience in. Don't
try to sell a "How to Make a Million Dollars Online" ebook if you haven't done

it.

Our readers would like to know your success blueprint. Can you share

with us your journey from rag to riches?

In the beginning, I was delivering pizzas for Little Caesars. I had over
$50,000 in debts and NO assets to show for it (nothing).

I didn't have an overnight success, but I did start making a profit within 3

months. My first step to success was really when I bought reprint rights to a
hot selling CD product at the time... and owning my own product like this
really started me on the path to making money online.

I didn't have the experience or even the knowledge at that time to create my

own product...I saved up everything I could though and bought the rights to a
product. Then I was able to sell it and keep 100% of the money instead of

having to share 50%, 75%, or more with affiliate programs or other
companies. The additional profits from owning your product opens so many

more doors.

The biggest key to my success...and the one I tell everyone they have to

do...is the day I started my opt-in email list. From that moment until now, my
income has increased every single quarter without exception. As my list

grows, so does my income. This is true in any niche business you can think
of. “The list is the Money”.

What's the biggest challenge you think is in front of a newbie
entrepreneur in this information age?

The biggest challenge is MISINFORMATION.

There are thousands of voices out there now telling you they know the way to

sell online. Only a small percentage of them have any clue to what they're
talking about. The rest of them are simply copycats who are trying to make a

quick buck.

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Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

For example, every Webmaster out there thinks "traffic" is their primary
problem. THEY’RE WRONG. “Web Site Traffic is NEVER the problem”. The

real problem they need to focus on is on their selling system. If you can
get your web site to the point where it consistently generates $1 to $5 per

visitor, then you can BUY traffic...or you can simply start an affiliate program
at that point and share the profits.

Everyone who's in bondage to this misinformation (that traffic is the cure to

their problems) will spend the next few years working, laboring, and constant
trying to increase their traffic...but in 99% of cases it won't even matter.
They'll get no closer to their goals than a dog chasing its own tail.

Which promotional techniques have been most successful for your

online business until now?

Ezines...First off, my own ezine is the key to everything I do online. It is the
catalyst to most of my profits.

-------------------------Sidebar Note by Amin-----------------------

That’s the key. Your ezine can make you far more money than you
could possibly make with any other form of online promotion. But
making great money with ezines is a bit tricky. Not much people
really understand exactly how to make thousands of dollars with
ezines.

Fortunately, there are two exceptional ezine resources I’m aware
that are proven to make you money with ezines. One is Terry
Dean’s own much famed Paperless Newsletter, and the other is Lee
Benson’s Amazing Ezine Tactics. The success of my own ezine
“The LASER” attributes to the premium information contained in
these two resources. I highly recommended them.

----------------------------Sidebar Ends----------------------------

After that, I've had hundreds of articles published in other people's ezines,

which constantly drives sales at my sites.

Thirdly, I start every new campaign with a deluge of new ezine ads (especially
solo ads whenever available) because if my new product offer can't earn

money through ezine ads...then it doesn't stand a chance anywhere else.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

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We see a lot of competition building up these days especially in the
info publishing industry. How far do you think an average joe can

keep up with this challenge?

Specialize. Let's take Internet marketing for example. You would get killed if
you come out with an Internet marketing product...but you could very easily

come out with an Internet marketing for real estate agents or Internet
marketing for chiropractors.

Specialized products such as this not only sell better, but they can also sell at
prices double or triple what a general version of the exact same product

would sell for.

As a home business, you don't need a 1,000,000 customer. You can do quite
well with 1,000 to 5,000 good loyal customers who you constantly create new

products for and service to the best of your ability.

That's the biggest advantage you have over large companies. You don't WANT
1,000,000 customers. You have low overhead, no employees, and will have
the best lifestyle by developing a small niche group of loyal customers.

One thing that's worth watching on your site is its simplicity. Exactly

how long it took to roll in BIG money after you launched your site,
BizPromo.com?

It all depends on what BIG money is to you. When I started, making a $1,000
in a month was BIG money to me because it was more than I made delivering

pizza. I reached this goal in 3 months.

For some people, $5,000 in a month may be big money, but we hit there
pretty soon after. Today, we have days a lot larger than that at times.

One mistake people make is thinking that Content is the key to success. It's

not. If people visit

BizPromo.com

, my goal from the over 70 free articles

there is not to keep you there reading. It's to convince you to "steal" my
articles and post them to your site.

They're there to generate more free traffic to all of my other projects and web

sites. If you take a look at

NetBreakthroughs

, you will find that this site has

NO content outside of the paid membership section, yet it earns a much

higher amount per visitor than

BizPromo.com

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

-----------------------Sidebar Note by Amin------------------------

This is primarily the reason why savvy marketers are switching
towards private Websites. This is NOT to say that content has
lost its significance, but it can be used in a variety of ways
to attract traffic, as well as to generate sales, as Terry
mentioned above.

----------------------------Sidebar Ends---------------------------

If I were starting from scratch with my first site, I would copy the selling style
of my

NetBreakthroughs

site before the content style of

BizPromo.com

It's been said by many experts that selling "digital products" via two

page Website is the way to make REAL money. Sounds great! But
amid these good sentiments, why is it becoming practically difficult

for most entrepreneurs to effectively sell their DPs online? Is there a
solution to it?

I'm not going to beat around the bush, which isn't my style anyway. Digital

products are becoming more difficult to sell now than hard products because
MOST digital products are worthless...and the marketplace is beginning to see
this, so the sales for all digital products are hurting.

In my own business, we're actually moving many of our future products back

to delivered products...such as audio tapes and videos because they have a
much higher perceived value than online delivered products.

PLUS, they have a much lower customer support time factor. Delivering

products online is cheap and requires no time for delivery...but you will find
that some of your customers will need help, re-downloading the product,
figuring out how to open it, etc.

When you ship out an audio or video, no one loses it when they wipe out their

hard drive and they all know how to open and use it. DON'T ignore the time
cost of customer support. It is a much bigger number than the cost of

delivering a product will ever be.

Time is your greatest asset. We all have the same amount. Besides that,
we've had hundreds of requests from customers who bought digital products
for audiotapes they can listen to in their cars, books they can hold in their

hands, and videos they can watch while they relax on the couch. Listen to
your customers.

Thanks Terry! Thanks so much for giving us your expert opinions.

You're welcome, Amin. Hope your readers find it useful.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Be Special, By Being Specialized

By Michel Fortin

Are you an expert by design or by default?

In other words, do people consider you to be an expert because you have a number of
years of experience in a specific field? Do they consider you to be an expert because
you have a degree or an educational background in a particular subject matter?

Or do they consider you to be an expert simply because you are a NICHE MARKETER -
- i.e., you are unique in, or focused on, a specific audience, product category or
perceived benefit?

These days, competition is fierce. On the Internet, it's even worse since many are
competition not only for your clients but also for their attention. Additionally, since the
Internet is overloaded with information, a new competitor is emerging -- the indifferent,
ignored or highly desensitized prospect.

Therefore, NICHE MARKETING HAS BECOME VITALLY IMPORTANT and an
essential component of doing business, especially online. The more general you are,
the more competition you will have. But the more focused you are, the more unique you
will be.

When you start an offline business, you may have to deal with the diversion that a
competing neighbor may create. (You may also be lucky enough to have the nearest
competitor be so far away from you that it doesn't pose any threat.) Once online,
however, millions of competitors have become your neighbors.

The solution? DON'T BE THE BEST. If you're the best (or trying to be the best in any
given field), you will have to fight for (or maintain) your position, as most of your
competitors will try to outsmart or outrank you. Trying to be the best in such a saturated
market is quite challenging if not impossible.

Instead, BE THE FIRST. Everybody knows who's the first in some category, but rarely
do people remember who's second or even who's the best. If you promote your
business as a better firm with a better product at a better price, all you are doing is
helping to remind others of your competition. Not good.

You might be asking: "What should I sell (or what sells well) on the Internet? How do I
become the first? How can I find a niche that will buy my chosen product or service?"
YOU'RE NOT ALONE. These are the most common questions that people ask me.

From canned pet food to complex legal services, everything can be sold online in some
way. Even products that cannot be sold on the Internet, or those that can only be
transacted offline, are at least being promoted or serviced through the web.
IT'S NOT WHAT YOU SELL but to whom that's important. Don't try to find a market for
an existing product. Instead, try to find a market with an existing problem and a desire to
solve it (in other words, they not only have a need but also *want* to fill that need), and
then find a product that will solve it.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

In short, find a niche and fill it. Look at it this way: if the niche exists, it is because it has
not yet been filled. By filling it, you will therefore be the first. But if there's no niche in
which you can be the first, simply create one out of a general category or existing niche
by narrowing your focus.

Having your own niche -- a manufactured one, if you will – is enormously effective
because it is IMPOSSIBLE FOR COMPETITORS to beat you. Being the first, your place
is guaranteed and you will thus be perceived as the best. There's no competition!

You can be the first to cater to a specific market, the first to offer an alternative to an
existing product, or the first to cater to a market in a unique way -- such as by offering
an ordinary product or service, but with a unique twist or angle. You can also tailor a
general product for a specific market.

As Hugo Boss once said, "Don't imitate, innovate!"

The reasons niche marketing works so well, especially online, are many. Beyond the
lack of competition and the perception of leadership, prospecting on the Internet is a
challenge. There is no visible target market or marketplace in which to work, but an
unlimited, invisible and un-definable marketplace.

Granted, you can FIND PROSPECT ONLINE whose characteristics may potentially
qualify them as candidates for your offering. But nonetheless, it is immensely more
efficient to market in such a way that causes those kinds of high quality prospects to
come to you -- not the other way around.

Niche marketing helps to MAGNETIZE AND MAGNIFIY your business -- i.e., it
magnetizes qualified prospects to your door and, at the same time, magnifies your
expertise in their eyes.

Rather than prospect for clients, you can position your firm as unique in a particular
category or for a specific audience. And by being unique you will become, as a natural
byproduct, its leader. Thus, the goal is to be different and not better.

Don't compare your business to others. Isolate it from them. Don't duplicate,
differentiate. If you find a niche and fill it, you will carve your place in it as a byproduct.
You become a specialist. You become an expert... an expert by design.

If you offer a customary service or if the competition offers the same thing you do,
catering to a niche helps to project an aura of uniqueness and superiority
instantaneously about you by virtue of the fact that it doesn't appear as customary.

For instance, if you required brain surgery, would you choose a dentist? Would you
choose a general, medical practitioner, or even a general surgeon? Of course, you
wouldn't. You would choose a neurosurgeon -- a specialist in brain surgery.

It's the same thing for most other products. If you owned an imported car that needed
new brakes for example, would you choose any general mechanic? Or, if one existed
and you had the choice presented to you, would you choose a mechanic that
specializes not only in brakes but also in imported cars?

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Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

An accountant specializing in car dealerships will have more clients than a general
accountant will. An advertising agency specializing in home furnishing stores will sell
more ads than a typical agent will. A photographer specializing in weddings will get
more bookings than a general photographer will.

SPECIALIZATION HELPS to project an aura of uniqueness and expertise, which
simultaneously narrows the choices that a customer faces. If you can fill a need more
precisely than anyone else, chances are that you will be chosen first.

Take the mechanic, mentioned earlier. Rarely would you call a general mechanic an
"expert mechanic," unless she has invested a considerable amount of resources in
educating herself deeply in the world of mechanics backed by many years of
experience.

On the other hand, however, it would be easy to dub a mechanic (even one without any
education or experience whatsoever) that specializes in imported car brakes as an
"expert mechanic." YOU CAN BECOME AN EXPERT by design and not by default.

Jim Banks started selling carpets online in 1998. He admits that, at the time, he knew
*nothing* about it. Says Banks: "I thought that it would be a non-competitive market
('who would want to sell carpet on the Internet?' I asked myself) and it would allow me to
learn about this whole new Internet thing."

But at first, Jim floundered. "I showed carpet on the website, sent out samples, and
used a wholesaler in Georgia to deliver the goods. I made some money, but it was a lot
of hard work. In fact, a lot of handholding of customers was required, and my time was a
limiting factor in how much money I could make."

But then, Jim had an idea.

"I had read one or two of your articles at the time where you stressed the
IMPORTANCE OF NICHE MARKETING. And after thinking about that, and applying it
to my industry, I came up with the idea of selling carpets and area rugs with children's
designs (e.g., animals, letters, game boards, etc). Today, things are going very well!"
(See Jim's site at

http://kidcarpet.com/

BE SPECIAL. But more importantly, be specialized. Your chances of achieving success
in this hyper-competitive electronic world will be much greater if you are. In short, be a
niche-picker!

--------------------------------------------- About the Editor -------------------------------------------------
Michel Fortin of

http://successdoctor.com/

is a highly sought-after consultant whose

http://successdoctor.com/pp/

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Interview with

Joe Vitale

Introduction

Joe Vitale is an explosive "results only!" marketing consultant. He has helped
over 200 authors and publishers write, publish and promote their books. Joe's

clients include small presses to large publishing houses, such as Doubleday
Books in New York. He has also helped large companies, from The American
Red Cross to Hermann Children's Hospital in Houston.

Joe is #1 Best-Selling Author - "Spiritual Marketing", and author of far too

many other books to list here. Visit his site at:

http://www.mrfire.com

for

some exceptional copywriting and marketing information.

Let’s ask Joe, how he found his niche.

You have successfully carved out a prime niche in today's huge, and

ultra competitive writer's market, how did you find your path to
success?

Hard work. Everyone thinks a major success "just happened" or that he or

she was "lucky." Forget it. I acted on every impulse, idea, lead, and
opportunity I could find or create. Most people don't answer the door when

opportunity knocks. I do. I found writing articles a great way to get my name
spread around the net. It was early viral marketing.

When I first heard about your book "Hypnotic Writing", I immediately

had a clear picture in mind that this book must be all about
persuasive selling, labeled by a catchy title. Can you tell us why you
choose this title, and what exactly does it take to make a winning

title?

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Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Most good titles choose me. That is, something about them snares me and
won't let me go. They come from the inside and I test them on the outside. I

felt Hypnotic Writing was a good title, but didn't know it for sure until people
would line up to buy it at my talks in Houston. Titles need to be short and

catchy. The more unusual, the better. The more they imply a benefit, the
better.

Where did you get your inspiration from, and how would you advise a

wannabe entrepreneur to go about achieving success?

I've always simply done one thing: Follow my enthusiasm. When I was
interested in Bruce Barton, cofounder of BBDO, I ended up writing a book on

him. When I was fascinated by P.T. Barnum, I did the research and wrote my
book on him.

Again and again, all I've ever done is follow what interests me. A business

mentor once told me that whatever business you go in will be a dog fight, as
someone else will already be there, so you better do what you love to make
the fight fun.

You're among a few successful online marketers who have taken full
advantage of the personal branding concept to its fullest, "Mr. Fire".

What discrete steps have you taken to brand yourself as the first
"Hypnotic Marketer" on the Web?

I "seed" my articles and books about who I am and what I do. In other

words, in my books you will find small references to me being the world's
first cyber-copywriter. And in another book you'll see mention that I'm the

world's first Hypnotic Writer.

And lately I've been planting the idea that I'm the world's first Hypnotic
Marketer. Next I'll be known as the world's first Spiritual Marketer. I've done

this subtly but powerfully. You'll find the mentions in my signature files, bios,
and in my articles and books. I'm my own press agent.

---------------------Sidebar Note by Amin--------------------

Wonderful point here, by Joe. Personal branding is an
essential ingredient for success online. By blending your
business theme on top of your personality traits into the
minds of prospects, or customers makes BIG DIFFERENCE.

I’ve been practicing this very same technique with great
success. Being the “The Laser Marketer

™

”, tells people right

off the hook, that I’m here to help them in getting them a
laser sharp focus in finding their niche on the Internet.

-----------------------Sidebar Ends--------------------------

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

We know that information is a hot selling item. But since the plethora
of ebooks, courses and other similar material have sprung up in every

nook and cranny of cyberspace, there now exists some confusion in
the e-publishing industry. Could you tell us what has been your

strategy to deal with this problem?

You're being forced to pay attention to the customer. Instead of trying to be
all things to all people, you need to find a niche. There are numerous

groups that need help, or solutions. Instead of writing a book on "How to
Raise Money," which there are many titles, write one for a specific market,

such as "How College Students Can Raise Money."

Give us your random thoughts about being a prime mover in a
particular niche?

Hhmm. Do surveys to find out what people in that niche have as their primary

problem. Let them tell you what to write next. I did this recently and
discovered my audience wants me to write a book on Hypnotic Selling Stories.

Well, that's now my next project.

Do you have the cure for traffic, through your writings, besides article
submission? In other words, how do you promote your material?

I let others promote my material. I've found that affiliates are the key to gold

in cyberspace in today's world. Get others to sell for you by providing them
with good information they can sell and profit from every time they do.

I see so many people selling their products aimlessly to the masses,

without having a clear focus. As a result, they get nowhere near
success. In your personal opinion, what is the best way to define a

market, and what really makes a winning product?

Markets are everywhere. My advice is to serve a market you already belong
to. Are you into tennis? Find out what they need. Are you into yoga? Find out

what yoga practitioners, or teachers, need. And then give them something
that supplies that need. A winning product is any one that sells. The market

must love it, or it wouldn't fly.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

We understand that you're fast and a very competent copywriter
having a number of bestseller titles at Amazon. How could you write

so fast…and get your product rolled out in record speed?

Easy. I don't edit as I write. I've taught this secret for decades: When
you're writing, just write. If I had to edit AS I wrote, this process would be a

nightmare. Mark Twain said if we were all taught to speak the same way we
were taught to write, we'd all stutter. I find writing fast and editing slow later

makes me the most productive.

------------------Sidebar Note by Amin------------------

Excellent tip! NEVER edit as you write. Besides being
a nightmare, important ideas may slip down from your
mind if you edit your copy as you write. So don’t make
this costly mistake.

-----------------------Sidebar Ends------------------------

Since the Web is mainly a written medium, your niche is quite large
compared to others. How do you protect your business, or deal with

competition...what’s your unique selling edge?

I don't worry about competition. That's a belief from people who think the
world has a limited supply. I wrote a book called "There's A Customer's

Born Every Minute." Well, there is one born every minute. And there's
enough for you, me, and everyone else. As for my unique selling edge, it's

probably that I'm the world's first and only hypnotic writer.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Interview with Ruth

Townsend

Introduction

Ruth Townsend found her "niche" by creating the Net's first resource of ezines
that accept advertising with all of the information needed to place classified

ads in ezines. She named her business

LifeStyles Publishing

Although the road wasn't easy for what she intended to do, but she has a

passion for what she did and are doing online.

She had her dreams, she had her own goals, and a vision to go nowhere but
up! And you too can follow this path to success. Believe in yourself, and the

world will believe in you.

Lets ask her how she got started, and what made her so popular and her

business so profitable in the ezine world. You'll notice that after she identified
her niche, she automatically got herself set on the roads of success.

OK! Let’s start.

Tell us how and when you got your business started on the Internet?

Give us a brief history and a little bit of background.

My story is located at the below mentioned URL. It's a bit long, so I suggest
you to have a look

here

What is your business model?

The same way that I would like to be treated by a business or by an
individual...treat others as you would like to be treated. Having compassion,

understanding, and the willingness to help those, that in turn, are willing and
want to help themselves. Customer service is what makes you successful.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

How do you see your competition? And more importantly, how do you
deal with it?

Competition is good and that is what democracy is all about. Dealing with
competition can eat up a lot of your valuable time if you let it...unless there is
outright plagiarism, I just visit the site and make notes of what I feel I may or

may not offer to my clients in the future.

Before starting your business, what were those things that you

considered as of prime importance?

Status, material things, money.

Your ezine directory LifeStylePub.com is the best resource on ezine
advertising, publishing and broadcasting on the Internet, how did it

all happen?

Out of frustration!

It wasn't until I was promoting one of several business opportunities that
ezines were sprouting up on the Internet. At that time I had no idea this

would be my "calling." After doing my due diligence in checking out what
ezines were, I knew this was the vehicle to get my message out to the world

about my latest and greatest business opportunity.

However, I soon found out it was also a lot of work, because back then, there
was no directory of ezines. I spent more time gathering and compiling

information on ezines to place my ads, than I did actually placing my ads. The
time I spent finding ezines took away from promoting my business and

making sales. However, this was a good thing!

I had found my "niche" and I had a business,

Lifestyles Publishing

. I created

the Net's first resource of ezines that accept advertising with all of the

information needed to place classified ads in ezines.

I saw the need for advertisers to have a tool to assist them in placing their
ads in ezines and also saw the need for publishers to be found by these

advertisers looking for ad space.

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Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Did you ever think you would get this level of success? How do you
measure your success?

No, but then I think a lot of people think that. I knew I was going to have a
business and make a living from it, but I never dreamt that it was going to be
this successful.

Success is the financial freedom, but more importantly is people looking to
you for help and guidance.

Tell us something about Ruth Townsend in her personal life?

Not much to tell...I basically work on my business 7 days a week, 12-16

hours a day. All I have is my cat, Sara, who by the way is the Office Manager,
so I have lots of time that I can devote to the business.

Yes, I work long hours now, but to reach my goals in the 5 years that I had

set, it's just in a days work for me. I have another 2 years to go and it won't
be long before that is here!

Thank you once again Ruth, for the interview.

You’re welcome, Amin.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Interview with

William Bontrager

Introduction

As the Internet grows with it's lighting speed every single day, making a

prominent position in online business is getting even harder and harder.

However, for some people it's a challenge. They accept this challenge and
profit immensely by carving a neatly defined "niche" using their own personal

skills and passion.

In other words, they accept the

niche challenge

, and in return they get what

they always dreamt of.

One such person is William Bontrager. William has been amassing trust and

credibility by rendering personal services to his customers all over the
Internet. He's the owner of WillMaster.com, a company responsible for

providing topnotch server side CGI scripts and utilities.

Will is also the publisher of the popular ezine on practical, do-it-yourself
Internet programming,

. His Website offers numerous

helpful CGI programs for Webmasters, netrepreneurs and online publishers.

I've had a chance to interview him lately. In this special interview, Will
highlights his strategies, experiences, skills and vision that earned him a

fortune.

OK! Enough said, here’s the real scoop…

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Hi Will! Thanks for agreeing to do this interview. Let's start with some
good intro. When and how did you first feel that you have the ability

to make hi-tech commercial Server Side programs for Webmasters?

Well, I've been programming for over two decades, starting with BASIC and
migrating through Pascal to C and C++. So when I "found" the Internet

several years ago it was a natural enough thing for me to try my hand at it.

I studied JavaScript, Perl and CGI and found I had a knack for those. I
enjoyed working on the Internet so much, in fact, that I decided to focus

almost exclusively on programming for Webmasters. The sales and accolades
we receive tell us the decision was correct.

I've learned that you're passionate about what you do...Do you think

everybody seeking success on the Net should do the same? And if so,
is there an easy way to identify your hidden talent?

You find your talent by following your feelings of excitement - your true inner

feelings. Not personal shoulds or what others think, but those feelings that
lighten your step and perk up your eyes and make you feel like climbing a

mountain would require only the merest effort. If you have no passion about
your work, there is no sense being in business for yourself.

Creating and sustaining a small business requires long hours, personal

dedication, and tight focus. Without passion, you will quickly feel burnout and,
unless soon thereafter become another "small business failure" statistic.

How would you define your business niche? And how far do you think

your defined niche have paid back to you? In other words, what is
your success rate after identifying and fulfilling the needs of your
target market?

When we first started our business, the niche was custom Perl CGI
programming and site design for small business sites. We had several free
CGI programs and personal sites that demonstrated our skills. That is a broad

niche, possibly too broad to be called a niche.

We did not identify the needs of our target market before going into business.
We just did what we liked to do -- I liked programming and Mari liked

designing. Once we became known for our quality and for guaranteeing our
work (not just in words, but active guarantees by fixing anything that wasn't

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

functioning per specifications), we became very busy. We are so busy that we
have to pass on a job every few days.

We are in the process of redefining our niche. The focus now is on selling and
supporting off-the-shelf CGI programs. We're doing this because I would
much rather write my own programs to sell than rely on others to bring work

to us. We're shifting the focus slowly, but it seems to be working. Although
the demand for custom programming has not abated, we are beginning to sell

more and more of our off-the-shelf programs.

You edit and publish a very popular newsletter on Do-It-Yourself
programming by the name of "Willmaster Possibilities", that provides

a super easy way to install, use and manage your solutions for
Webmasters. Is this the primary vehicle for your success?

subscribe-possibilities@willmaster.com

is focused on a narrow niche -- small business

Webmasters who want to learn a bit about how they can themselves make
their sites more interactive, more automated, more visitor friendly.

For those who think they might benefit, the subscription address is this:

. Once, the ezine gained popularity, we

suddenly became busy with custom programming projects.

Folks in the ezine's niche are our ideal off-the-shelf software customers, too.

is one of the major avenue used by new customers to

find what we have to give.

Generally, being a programmer it's hard to build brand recognition,

but you made it. What would you say about that?

Probably, a major reason it's a bit of a struggle for programmers to build
brand recognition is because programming skills and site design skills rarely

reside in the same body. With me as the programmer, and Mari as the
designer, we built a site that's user friendly and speaks of our competence. It
is a requirement to have a well-designed site.

Programmers tend to design sites with a techie feel. I think webmasters who
are not programmers feel better at sites that have a personable feel. The
WillMaster Possibilities ezine helped, too. I have been blessed with some skill

at writing clear instructions and that has presented me as a professional who
cares.

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Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

People like to have things explained in a way they can understand and they
like to be cared about. It fosters camaraderie. People like to do business with

folks they feel friendly toward.

What is that "single" competitive edge that you feel is responsible for
bringing you to a position where you currently stand?

My passion for what I do. Without that, the other major factors would not

have been as effective as they have been and, in fact, might have been
failures.

Do you think there are still plenty of opportunities for people like you

(as a technical hand) on the Net?

Oh, yes! But it requires focus and dedication and passion for your work. It
might also require realizing which areas you do not excel in and either finding

a partner with those skills or hiring someone with them.

What is your success secret? Give me that one "word" or a sentence.
Only if you like it to get revealed ;-)

Well, considering the other answers I've already provided, the secret's out :-)

It's passion. Without passion, life and business alike are dull. Dullness is not
a prime state for enjoying life. And it is life enjoyment, after all, that is the

prime measure of success -- the more you have of whatever it is that
enhances your enjoyment of life, the more success you are experiencing.

I've noticed that almost all of your Breakthrough Master CGI scripts

series are Free. How come you're able to offer so much of your
refined work for Free?

While

WillMaster.com

was focusing on custom programming, the free

programs were demonstrations of our skills. Giving them away brought
business. Now that we're refocusing toward off-the-shelf program sales, the

free programs will serve as introductions to how easy our products are to
install and use.

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Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

With hands-on proof of the value of what we offer, it is hoped that a
reasonable percentage of users will think of us when they're ready to buy

titles not freely available.

What are some of the things you've done to promote WillMaster.com

... Anything unusual?

Master Recommend was the first freely available Perl CGI script for letting
visitors recommend the site to their friends. Master eBook Compiler is still the

only program of its kind (or, at least I haven't seen anything like it). Those
things have helped, to be the first on the block to do something. They got
noticed and written about on sites and in newsletters. And that's one of the

benefits of passion -- it tends to inspire new ways of doing things.

But probably the greatest boon to our business is the fact that we provide
courteous service to all who use our programs, free or paid for, even though

we have a support center at:

http://MasterCGI.com/

We don't grovel or go out of our way to please everyone. But we are
professional and courteous and honest in our communications. People

remember that; and it gets talked about.

Okay, one last thing Will, would you like to convey any message to

our readers?

Personal service is a key to being remembered and gaining repeat customers.
Servility is not required. But courtesy and honesty are necessary. If you don't

know an answer, say so. If you know where an answer might be found,
directions would be appreciated. There is no need to write long, detailed

personal emails.

You can be succinct and yet provide a caring touch. It seems everybody is in
a rush and personal service is rare. Providing your prospects and customers

with a rare treat is bound to make an impression.

Thank you once again, William. It's a pleasure talking to you, and
getting so much of valued expert advice.

You're welcome, Amin.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Interview with

Shawn Collins

Introduction

Shawn is the Director of Affiliate Marketing for a very popular Web site
ClubMom (

www.clubmom.com

), where he launched the affiliate program in

March 2000.

His book, "Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants"
(

www.affiliatemanager.net

) is the best selling book in the space.

Shawn is a co-founder of the Affiliate Summit (

www.affiliatesummit.com

), the

industry conference for affiliate marketing.

He recently published the AffStat 2003 Report (

www.affstat.com

), a research,

analysis, and benchmarking report for the affiliate marketing industry.

Additionally, Shawn served as the President of the iAfma (International

Affiliate Marketing Association) U.S. chapters for 2002-2003.

Let’s start.

Shawn, you own and operate a number of niche sites including
BabyLounge.com, BallFourBook.com and MommyRx.com, why do you

think niche sites are the keys to success on the Web?

It all comes down to the pre-sell. With a niche site, you naturally promote
products that are targeted to the audience of that niche. This contrasts the
popular, but unsuccessful shotgun approach of trying to sell random products

to an unspecific demographic.

As one of the world's most successful affiliate manager, what's been

your best strategy that earned heaps of revenue at a given time,
using the power of affiliate marketing?

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

The simple act of making things personal has been the best strategy. In
affiliate marketing, it is essential to generate loyalty amongst affiliates,

because you cannot sustain success if you have to constantly recruit new
stars.

The little things make a difference, such as writing a personal note with each

check, sending customized reporting, and writing copy for anybody that
requests it. At the end of the day, it's all about relationships.

Since Clubmom is a highly successful and focused niche site on the
Web, of which you're the affiliate manager, what exactly

characterizes the site's success in your personal opinion?

The success comes down to a number of things. I find that it goes a long way
to make myself very available seven days a week via e-mail, AIM, and phone.

Also, the success can be attributed to a willingness to create a wide variety of

tools and resources to educate affiliates. And the use of

auto responders

http://www.affiliatemanager.net/article42.htm

follow-up e-mails is key to activate and engage the

Clubmom

affiliates to

promote

Clubmom

Finally, the fact that our offer is compelling - a good conversion rate and
reputation for timely commission payments is helpful in retaining talented

marketers.

If someone is to thrive in the crowded affiliate industry as a

merchant, what would be your one word of advice, and why?

Under promise and over-deliver. Higher payments and more frequent
personal contacts to the best performing affiliates is the key to become a

successful affiliate merchant.

Suppose Mr. Smith have a niche site that arranges travel cruise in

Florida under $1000, and he pays out 15% commission to his
affiliates per sale...can you devise a plan for Mr. Smith, to help him

find and recruit affiliates that fits his target market?

There's a great online tool called the

Internet Success Spider

. With this

product, Mr. Smith can determine which sites (and their level of popularity)
are linking to his competitors. Then, Mr. Smith can contact these sites by

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Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

telephone to make a case for why they will be able to earn more with his
offer.

What is the biggest challenge for the manager of a niche site in

managing his/her affiliate program?

Time management is the toughest obstacle. Too many companies do not
understand the potential of an affiliate program, and they do not allocate
proper resources.

The affiliate marketing model is very scalable, but the power can never be

realized without a proper investment of personnel and funding.

In coming years, how do you foresee the future of affiliate programs?
Do you think they're going to be more challenging in terms of
attracting and retaining affiliates, and if so, can you think of any

measures that can safeguard the interests of merchants before they
get knocked out?

There is a trend of downsizing affiliate programs, so that only those sites that

actively promote a program are being kept in the program. I think this will
continue with programs keeping their size in the hundreds, if not the

thousands. So long as merchants keep an eye on quality over quantity, they
should be fine.

You use BeFree for Clubmom, and Clickbank for your own niche site at
BabyLounge.com for affiliate management, can you give us some

details as to why you choose these two networks, and what's the
major benefit of outsourcing?

I left

BeFree

in December 2001 for

Kowabunga

. You can find details of this

move at

. Neither program is

outsourced, but the major benefit to outsource a program is that it will be in
the position to perform right from the start. If somebody is running an

affiliate program with no background in the space, there's a fairly heavy
learning curve.

If you had one piece of advice for a merchant of a niche site for
setting up an affiliate program, what would it be?

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Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Use the best technology you can afford - it's a big headache to buy up to a
better solution after the program is off and running.

------------------Sidebar Note by Amin----------------------

If you to have complete control, flexibility and ease in
managing your own affiliate program, there is no better
affiliate solution than

”Kowabunga”, as mentioned by

Shawn Collins.

----------------------Sidebar Ends--------------------------

You carry and dominate a rather tough niche on the Web in the area
of affiliate marketing as a noted affiliate merchant, can you share

with us how you crossed this difficult river?

There's really no golden bullet - I've worked hard to make my own breaks.
I've been branded a shameless self-promoter in more than one person's
feedback after I've spoken at conferences, but that's a risk you take when

you very actively put yourself out there.

I've written dozens of articles, spoken at every industry conference since
1999, started up a discussion board of affiliate managers, and I am never too

busy to chat on the phone with somebody new to the industry.

These things boomerang into other opportunities - a book deal, name
recognition to write and sell an industry statistical report, and the president of
U.S. chapters for the International Affiliate Marketing Association.

Thanks Shawn, that’s all I wanted to ask from you. I know these

answers are worth hundreds probably thousands of dollars.

My pleasure, hope your readers benefit from this information.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Interview with

Eva Almieda

Introduction

Eva is really on top of the electronic book world. And she works hard to stay
there. She knows what she's about. And you can count on what she says. She

has a refreshing openness, often lacking on the Web.

She lives with her husband and two children in Kitimat, British Columbia,
Canada. And to be sure she keeps busy, she practices community pharmacy

as well. It was her love of books and people that brought her to the Web in
1998. She now manages several sites, all related to electronic books.

OK Enough intro. Now let’s find out what Eva has to tell us about her

profitable niche.

Eva, can you tell us a little bit about your niche sites, mainly
Http://www.ebooknbytes.com, and how it makes you money?

Certainly, Amin! I run a collection of sites related to ebooks. First and

foremost is

ebooksnbytes.com

, since it is my most popular and longest

running site in the network. My main income comes from recommending

marketing and how-to ebooks to my visitors, as well as e-publishing
software, such as ebook compilers, through affiliate programs. I run a

popular ebook review site at ebook-reviews.net that generates traffic,
but not come for me at this time.

Additional income comes from Platinum and Premium listings in my ebook
directory at ebooksnbytes.com, although I may discontinue this form of

advertising (it isn't profitable enough for the amount of time I spend on it.)
My future plans include more joint ventures with selected authors, writing

more ebooks, consulting, and possibly conducting e-classes on ebook
publishing and promotion.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

The Ebook market is rather huge and competitive, however, in spite
of this major challenge, you stood out from the crowd, and finally

made your way toward success in this particular niche. How did you
get to the point of making it your personal territory?

Ebooks are a passion of mine and I guess it shows! :-)

I've watched and listened to many people's questions regarding ebooks and

I researched specific answers to solve their problems.

I wrote articles on these topics and eventually created sites around those

niche topics such as ebookcompilers.com (my site where I review and list
various software for publishing ebooks.) I never paid close attention to

optimizing my sites for the search engines, yet I was lucky enough to
be ranked high by Google for many of the keywords I was focusing on.

That led to more traffic, more questions, and more work finding solutions.

My honest reviews and advice seemed to have attracted a following of fellow
authors and ebook enthusiasts - not that I mind helping them out.

You're a strong supporter of niche sites, and have practically

demonstrated the power lies within them. What does it really takes to
build a successful niche site? Is there a set path which one needs to

follow, or does it vary depending upon the nature of the offering?

Yes, I am a huge advocate of niche marketing. I wrote a paper in University
on niche marketing in pharmacies and that fueled my interest in this
particular version of marketing. Ebooks seemed the perfect niche to focus on

since it was my passion.

I wouldn't consider myself a true expert in niche marketing, but what has
worked for me, is having a real interest in the product or service you are

selling. That would be one of the most important factors to consider in
addition to whether there is actually a large enough need, to make a living

from it. I couldn't say there is a set path you need to follow.

I usually research and write the content first, then choose a perfect domain

name to match. A good idea is to start an ezine of tips on the topic, in order
to keep in touch with past customers and attract new visitors. I try to focus

on one topic per page on my sites (ie. ebook covers, ebook contests, ebook
compilers and other ebook-related topics; each have their own pages or even

mini-sites.)

Lastly, try to be very specific when choosing a topic to focus on. "Health" is
way too general...but "health recipes" would give you a better chance in the
marketplace.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

It’s been said that the best way to start with a niche site is to identify
the passion within yourself, and look for an unfilled need in the

market that goes hand-in-hand with your passion. But in many cases,
people find it difficult to make the transition towards their advantage.

What would you say?

Perhaps it is because people don't realize that they can profit from their
experiences, interests, or hobbies.

Yes, I absolutely agree that you should identify your main interest or passion.
As long as there are people interested in the same topic and there isn't too

much competition, there is always some way of profiting from a well-selected
niche.

Whether it comes from selling advertising (effective on high-traffic hobby

sites), ebooks, software, tangible goods such as posters, or affiliate
programs, there are numerous ways to earn money from your niche. I can't

guarantee that everyone will be successful at it, since it does involve a lot of
work to become popular in any niche. Just don't give up your day job right
away. :-)

Ebooks, no doubt, are exciting and rewarding stuff to sell on the Web

right now. But there are a couple of challenges, too, such as: the
content of the ebook should be of quality, written preferably on a

focused theme, with a killer sales letter, and MUST over-deliver.
Keeping in view these challenges, what is the fastest, best way (in
your personal opinion) to go about success with ebooks? I'm talking

in terms of writing and promoting ebooks.

Yes, those are definitely important factors to consider and I agree with every
point. Write about something that you know a considerable amount about or

research something that interests you that is in demand.

Here are a couple of pointers:

A. Write your manuscript in Microsoft Word (or its equivalent if you own a

Mac.) Convert to the most popular format right now which happens to be
PDF. There are plenty of free or low cost alternatives to Adobe Acrobat.

Authors are welcome to contact me for a list or visit ebookcompilers.com.

B. Be sure to include bonuses that go well with the topic of the ebook.

C. Promote to your existing list, joint venture with ezine publishers and focus
on the search engines for free and low cost traffic.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

When you started off with ebooks, did you know your numbers? Did
you perform any market research activity, i.e., focusing on your

perfect customer, her needs, demographics data etc?

No, I didn't do any statistical analysis or examine the demographics. I just
watched my web site stats and noticed that the hits to my ebook pages

soared compared to other pages of my marketing site. This led me to focus
more and more of my online time toward ebook niche sites.

One of the biggest advantages of niche sites are that they get
referrals faster than anything else. Since the visitors are highly

targeted in niche offerings, they are *very likely* to tell their friends
and associates about it, having similar interest. For you, Eva, how did

word of mouth work?

Yes, this is definitely true in my case.

People recommend me as a reliable resource for ebooks. I am very touched

by all of the people who have emailed me great comments and testimonials
about how my resources have helped them. When certain ebook-related

questions popped up in the forums, several sites of mine were recommended
over and over again. It's very gratifying to see that I am offering a valuable

resource that generates free traffic through word- of-mouth advertising. This
is actually one of my main sources of traffic for some of my sites, that is how

powerful it can be.

OK! Here's something I'd like to know in greater detail, with absolute

clarity. One of the astonishing facts about your primary Web site

ebooksnbytes.com

is that it's ranked 6th out of 770,000 positions for

the highly competitive keyword "ebooks" on Google. I'm more than
sure, that you haven't optimized (or outsourced) your pages for this

keyword. Would you be kind enough to reveal this MILLION DOLLAR
secret to our readers?

Can you believe it used to be ranked number one at one point last year? Yes,
I haven't optimized my site other than using the standard META tags and

focusing on getting my title just right which took quite some time. I
discovered that you should try to focus each *page* on one particular topic

(ie. ebook reviews, health recipes, romance novels, or another specific topic.)

Then, you would include those keywords in as many places as possible
without overdoing it. Examples would be your title, meta tags, image tags,
header tags, content, and especially outgoing links. Make sure your links are

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

descriptive words that are related to the keyword and not "click here". I am
working on changing all of my links to more specific phrases instead of the

usual "click here" phrase. Also, have people linking to you use specific key-
word rich phrases for another boost in certain search engines.

Honestly, it wasn't anything that I have done purposely. I just try to develop

very focused, content-rich sites on a particular niche topic and this strategy
has worked time and again for me for sites like ebooksnbytes.com, free-

ebooks.net, ebook-reviews.net, and ebookcompilers.com

What different forms of site promotion (advertising) do you use, and

how effective have they been for you so far? Is there something you'd
warn for, or highly recommend when it comes to promoting a niche

site?

Search engine advertising takes the largest chunk out of my budget...
specifically pay-per-click SE's like Overture.com, Kanoodle, Ah-Ha.com and
Findwhat. Getting a high ranking on the major SEs like Google helps too.

Link exchanges help boost my link popularity with some of the search

engines. I have linked up most of my ebook niche sites to other sites I own
like marketingedgedesigns.com This does seem to help boost my rankings for

certain pages of my sites in addition to linking to sites owned by others.

Writing articles is another major form of free advertising that has brought me
consistent traffic when other sites post them. Linking with other related sites
boosted my SE rankings and has attracted new visitors as well.

Other methods that I use include word-of-mouth marketing, viral marketing

method such as free ebooks (free-ebooks.net), and joint ventures on several
projects such as the eBook Basics Video Tutorials at ebookcreate.com.

Reviews and interviews are another method that I use frequently. This can

work both ways — either as the interviewer or interviewee. :-)

I definitely find banner advertising to be my least successful form of

advertising — I have wasted too much on that method in the past. Therefore,
be cautious with any money spent on banner ads. I have spent literally

hundreds of dollars on this form of advertising with very low returns.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Another site of yours, http://www.ebook-reviews.net/, is a sub-niche
of your existing ebook niche, and is focused on ebook reviews. How

successful has this site been in terms of generating revenue?

The most time-consuming, and ironically, my least profitable site is eBook
Reviews Weekly (ebook-reviews.net.) I have plenty of great volunteers

reviewing ebooks in a variety of genres and topics for eBook Reviews Weekly.
I do enjoy providing the service, regardless of its low profit margin, since I

really want to show people that there are some very high quality ebooks out
there and to also point out the ones to avoid!

But, it would be great to find some way to generate revenue from it... at this
time, I wouldn't call it profitable. On the other hand, ebook-reviews.net pays

off in other ways — increased traffic, respect, trust, free ebooks, and it allows
me to build a better relationship with authors and epublishers. As you can

imagine, I do think those are all worthwhile endeavors for me to cultivate.

Thanks, Amin, for asking me to do the interview and I hope it will help show
how successful niche marketing can be.

Excellent!

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Interview with

Corey Rudl

Introduction

Discover the secrets of an Internet millionaire in this exclusive interview with
online marketing guru Corey Rudl. Corey is the author of the #1 best-selling

course, "

The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet

" and

is probably one of the most recognized names in Internet marketing today.

In the following interview, Corey reveals how he grew his business from a
one-man show in his parent's basement to four online businesses that

generate over $6.6 MILLION in online sales per year and attract over 1.8
million visitors per month. Corey reveals exactly how he did it, and details

precisely what entrepreneurs need to be doing TODAY to be successful online.

Hi Corey, and thanks so much for agreeing to do this interview. Maybe
the best way for us to begin is for you to tell us a bit about yourself
and your company, The Internet Marketing Center.

Sure. Well, first off, I am the President and CEO of the Internet Marketing

Center, which you can find online at

www.marketingtips.com

. We specialize in

showing people how they can drive tons of targeted traffic to their web sites

and how to turn that traffic into sales and profits. We provide all the
information you need to learn how to market your business online in the form

of home-study courses, books, video and audiotapes, and more.

What really sets us apart from all the other marketing courses, though, is that

we give you the concepts AND the software tools you need to promote and
automate your business on the Internet. And we do all of this based on our

own real-world tests and experience, not just theory. In other words, we do it
and prove it BEFORE we teach it. This is how we are able to guarantee your

results.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Actually, that brings up a good question: Why, exactly, is your
"Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet" course

so successful? Aren’t you leading this market space?

Yes, we are by far the leaders in educating our Small Office/Home Office
audience in how to make money on the Internet.

The reason the course is so successful is because we practice what we

preach. We generate about $6.6 million in business every year, all online. And
that's not to mention the tens of millions of dollars we have helped our clients
generate. We have over 60,000 affiliates and we get over 1.8 million unique

visitors to our sites every month, all on a shoestring budget and all from
scratch. So we are actually using all the methods that we teach.

Would you hire a poor Stock Broker? Of course not, if he cannot make himself

rich, how's he going to help you? Would you hire a personal trainer that is not
in good shape? No way! If they can’t do it themselves, how can you be sure

that what they are teaching you is not garbage?

People know our reputation and they know that the stuff we teach in the

course actually works. We walk people through every single step they need to
follow to be successful marketing their business on the Internet -- even if

they don't have an online business yet.

We also have a few big Fortune 500 corporate clients. They're attracted to us
because most of them are so caught up in red tape that they don’t get to see

the guerilla marketing tactics used to generate immediate revenues like small
businesses do. We're just now starting to see the big corporations picking up
some of the things we were recommending 2 years ago!

So the key to your success is practicing what you preach?

Exactly. Another big reason we're so successful is that we take all the risk.

Our guarantee is simple -- if you don’t make money from what you've learned
in the course, then you pay nothing. You can return it anytime for a full
refund for any reason. Even if you decide you don't like the paper it's printed

on, we'll give you all of your money back. And you know what? We get nearly
zilch returns -- and that speaks for itself.

Don’t take my word for it, check out the

testimonials

at our site. We publish

only one percent of the testimonials we receive, but you can see that it's not
people saying “Oh, it was great,” but people saying they “Made an extra

$70,000 already this year," or “Traffic increased by 400% in 30 days.” That's
what counts -- results. That is scoreboard at the end of the day.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

And we really do cover everything in the course you could ever imagine. We
teach you everything from A to Z; everything from starting up from scratch

with nothing to how to drive traffic to your site, right down to setting up your
site to convert visitors to more sales.

You'll learn how to maximize your exposure on the search engines, how to

automate your entire business, how to build pop-up boxes, and hundreds of
other things. We even give you templates and ideas to copy from us to

ensure that nothing will go wrong!

That reminds me of a funny story... A couple of years back, I thought of

trying to get my course on the reading list for an Internet Marketing program
being offered by a top university. I had some meetings with a few of their

senior marketing professors, hoping to get "

Insider Secrets

" into the hands of

all their Internet Marketing students.

They finally came back to me and said, basically, "Thanks, but no thanks."

Now, I was shocked! Why wouldn't they want their students to have the #1
Internet marketing course as part of their education? I wouldn't let the
professor leave my office until she told me.

It turns out they were actually scared that if their students read my course

and found out that it cost less than two hundred dollars, they would feel
ripped off by the school, which was basically charging them thousands of

dollars for the same information!

That's quite a story! It just goes to show that "traditional" education

isn't always the best way to get the BEST information. Corey, could
you tell us a little bit about your own history and background? How

did you get started marketing online?

Well, I won't go too far back as I don’t want to bore you, but my first online
venture was way back in 1994. I had written a book called "Car Secrets

Revealed" and had been trying to market it offline. After wasting a lot of
money on magazine and print ads, I took a friend's advice and decided to try
selling it over the Internet. Those magazine ads had eaten up most of my

cash, but I did manage to scrape together enough to get my first web site up
and running.

I did everything myself -- built the site in HTML 1.0, learned how to use FTP

programs, figured out how to build a banner, and things like that. Those were
the days when Netscape 1.0 had just come out and there was no such thing

as secure real-time online ordering. It was all so new and exciting!

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

I was glued to my computer 24 hours a day testing all kinds of wild and crazy
marketing ideas to see which ones worked. And I can tell you that 95 out of

100 ideas failed, but the ones that did work, worked like crazy! Within 18
months I had the #1 best-selling car book online... and it's been #1 ever

since!

When people started seeing that my counter had logged over 1,000,000
visitors at

CarSecrets.com

, they started asking how I was marketing it. They

wanted to know how such a simple and basic site was generating so much
traffic, and if I could teach them how to do it. Before too long I realized that I
wasn't able to teach people everything I knew during a one-week consulting

contract.

So I decided to "brain dump" everything I knew into a course, which I called
"The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet." It taught

just about everything I knew with real-life examples of exactly what I had
tested, what worked, and what didn't. That was what set my course apart

from every other Internet marketing course out there -- that I had actually
tested and proven my techniques. Other courses were just teaching fluff and
theory.

By promoting the course with the exact same techniques I was teaching, it

became the #1 best-selling Internet marketing course online within 3 months.
Since then, it has been through three new versions -- it needs to be updated

regularly as the Internet changes so fast! But through all this time, it
continues to be the #1 best-selling Internet marketing course online.

Because we're so far out in front of the curve as to what's working and what
isn't, we have also been able to develop some of the world’s leading Internet

promotional and automation software. Basically, we developed software that
we needed for our own business. We made sure it was the best and then

made it available to our clients. This has helped us become one of world’s
leading Internet Marketing companies helping small to medium businesses

drive traffic and make more sales.

So, what specific suggestions do you have for someone interested in

getting started marketing on the Web?

Wow! That's a huge question and, to be blunt, there's no way I could answer
it in just a few minutes. In fact, that's why I wrote a 1,000-page course in the

first place... There are literally hundreds of tips and suggestions for building a
successful presence online. There is just so much to know if you want to do it

right the first time. However, there is one tip that is more important than any
other...

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Get educated. Don’t think you can put up a web site and have traffic appear
from out of nowhere. It does not work that way. Spend the time to educate

yourself about how everything works. Research your market or idea and learn
how to identify a niche market on the Internet. Create or market products

that solve other people’s problems.

Another thing to look at is your competition. How big are they? What are they
doing right and wrong?

Learn from people who practice what they preach -- find people that you
KNOW are successful on the Internet and model yourself after them. Don’t try

to re-invent the wheel and don't listen to people who cannot prove that they
have done what you are trying to do.

There are so many "wannabes" out there who write books on web site

promotion but don't even have a successful Internet business themselves.
Find someone who you know is successful and use “them” as a mentor --

that's what I did. I had mentors, too.

Why do you feel that so many people who attempt to create an

income on the Internet fail to do so?

Whoa, another loaded question! There are so many reasons, but here are the
main ones. Bear with me, this will be a long answer:

Deciding on a product before finding a market is a big one. This is probably
the most common mistake. If you are asking “What is a good product to sell

online?” you are making this mistake right now! You need to decide on a
market first.

The Internet makes it very easy to find people interested in a specific

category like gardening, hunting, aeronautics, accountants, or any other
interest group. Just about any group is easy to locate and target online

through web sites, newsgroups, e-mail discussion lists, e-zines (electronic
magazines), etc.

You have to make sure you have a captive audience, then find out what they
are having a common problem with. If you can come up with a product or

service to solve that problem, you have a guaranteed successful business. It's
really that easy -- that's how all my businesses were built.

You don’t even really have to “sell” it, because you already know they want it

before you launch your web site. And since you already know exactly where
your customers are, it's easy to target them. I mean, it’s a no-brainer once
you think about it.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Now, let’s turn that situation around for a second. Say scientists had found a
cure for the common cold. You'd become a millionaire selling it online, right?

Well, not necessarily! How do you find people that are sick online? You would
have to market to the general Internet community to try and find the 1 out of

10,000 people that are sick that day. It would cost a ton of money to market
to 10,000 people just to find one qualified buyer!

And to make matters worse, if you are selling this over the Internet, by the

time you ship them the pill through the mail, they'd probably be over their
cold! So by choosing the product instead of the market, you can actually fail
no matter how great your product is.

Your course has a lot of information about generating traffic. Is that a
big hurdle for online businesses?

Many people think they can build a web site, submit it to the search engines,

and the buyers will come. The logic is that there are hundreds of millions of
people online surfing around and that some of them are bound to stumble
onto your product. Wrong! Search engine ranking is more competitive than

ever.

Yes, there are secret ways to get high rankings in the search engines and we
spend close to 40 pages in our course showing you how to do it. It is probably

one of the most complex marketing techniques out there. There are lots of
different options for grabbing high rankings. You can do it all yourself, or you

can buy really good positioning software, or even hire specialized companies
to do it for you.

The course even recommends which positioning software you should be using,
as there is a lot of junk out there! The same with Search Engine Optimization

companies -- most have no idea what they're doing. So my course shows you
how to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

The real key is to know what your potential buyers do online. Are they

searching online for a specific term? Are they visiting specific web sites all the
time? Are they subscribed to topic-specific e-mail lists or e-zines? In other
words, you need to know where your target market is “hanging out” online. If

you can find where your potential buyers are, this is where you should spend
your marketing and advertising money.

That is why I said before, spend your time getting educated, learning

everything, and researching your market and product or service. Spend your
time and money driving them to your site and then show them how your

product solves a problem they have. Marketing is everything online! You could
have the best product in the world selling for half of your competitor's price,
but if you cannot get the word out, you don't stand a chance.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

What are some of the big psychological obstacles for online
entrepreneurs?

Number one in that department is definitely procrastination. I cannot tell you

how many people I've met who have really great ideas and plans, but so few
of them actually do what they say they are going to do. So turn off the TV,

stop using your new baby as an excuse, stop going for drinks after work with
friends, and take the time to get serious about your business! You will have

plenty of time for all the rest when the big income starts rolling in.

Let's be honest here... We're all good at justifying excuses to ourselves. I've

even done it a few times myself! But there really is no excuse for not
following your dream. You're only hurting yourself.

The second biggest psychological obstacle is fear of failure. Never fear failure.

Heck, we fail every day. The key is to fail small. In fact, your ticket to success
is failing regularly! Every time you fail, you're eliminating bad ideas and

getting closer to the things that work.

If you aren't failing, you are not learning. We test new ideas, new prices, new

marketing strategies, new looks, new products every month! Most of them
fail, and we expect that. And we don't call it failure, we call it testing.

We are just looking for the 5 winners out of every 100 small failures we have,

because what we learn from the winners we apply to everything we have.
Here's a perfect example: We don’t even send out an e-mail to our opt-in list

without testing at least 4 versions of the e-mail to see which one performs
the best -- that is how much you have to test. Some pull in 200% better
results than others with small changes, so it's definitely worth it.

Speaking of results, what kind of results should people expect when

they are just starting out?

Don't get discouraged if you don't see immediate results. This is another huge
psychological barrier faced by many new entrepreneurs. Some people expect
their business to be successful immediately and their dreams to come true

overnight. It usually doesn't happen that way.

An Internet business is like any other business -- it takes work. The only
difference on the Internet is that you can automate a lot of repetitive

chores... and you can test and roll things out WAY faster than an offline
business could.

Things generally start slow -- that is to be expected. But when it snowballs, it
snowballs VERY fast! And you really have to be prepared, because the

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Internet moves at 7 times the speed of offline business. If you do things
right, you can easily grow 700% faster than any offline business just due to

the speed of business on the Internet.

Think of it this way: if you had just 30 people a day sign up for a newsletter,
that adds up to over 10,000 subscribers in a year.

------------------Sidebar Note by Amin---------------------

Corey is absolutely right. And to demonstrate how number
works well with targeted niche sites, Corey has recently
released a 92-minute confidential recording session on
tapes, called Mr. H. Tapes. This amazing tape features a
niche site that's making $3,500 a day with only 100
visitors per day, selling a product that costs less than
$150! That's over $1,277,500 a year in pure profits!

This totally brilliant marketing strategy has proven that
the small business owners having a well-defined niche can
earn huge profits consistently! And it's blown the
gimmicky theories of those "so-called" marketing experts
right out of the water! Check out this site’s amazing
money making secret here.

-----------------------Sidebar Ends--------------------------

This means that your company now has a database of 10,000 highly targeted

leads to market your products to. If you were to purchase a list of 10,000
targeted leads (who have never even heard of you before and may not be

receptive to your product), it could easily cost you up to $5 per lead.

So just by attracting 30 new people a day, you've created an asset that is
worth around $50,000. Sometimes, even if it seems like things are moving
slowly, you're actually building something great! I hope that makes sense.

If you could tell someone just one thing about how to be a success in

marketing on the Web, what would it be?

That’s easy! Learn how to drive targeted traffic to your site inexpensively and
the rest will all come. Once you've got the traffic, you can change the design
of your site, you can test different prices, and you can even change products

if your product isn't selling well. Without traffic, nothing you do will make
your online business a success.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Now, don't get me wrong! You still have to sell a real product to real people
for real money. You can't just build a site, promote it, and try to think of a

way to make money after the traffic comes. That was what killed all of the so-
called "dot-bombs" a couple of years ago.

So simply attracting lots of general traffic isn't necessarily a good

thing?

General traffic is fine, but traffic targeted to your specific niche market is

much, MUCH better. In my experience, finding a niche and selling to it is the
single easiest route to profitability online. If you are trying to sell books

or CDs online, forget it -- Amazon.com will crush you. Those markets are
gone.

However, if you target your market to a specific interest -- say gardening,

hunting, cars, or whatever -- it's easy to find people online with an interest in
those things. All you have to do is find what that market wants and give it to
them. I have a lot of clients that make hundreds of thousands of dollars a

year who just started their businesses a short time ago and almost all of them
make their money by having specific products that go over well in a very

targeted niche market.

Check out a newsletter I have called

SecretsToTheirSuccess

-- your readers

have got to check this site out. It is cool because it shows how people that

were in low-paying or dead-end jobs are now making it huge online now,
working their own hours and making profits they couldn't even dream of
before. We interview 2 new people every month that are making between

$30,000 and $2 million in profit online each year.

Check out the site and you'll see what I mean. You can learn so much by
reading about how they started their businesses from scratch not too long

ago and made them successful by targeting a specific niche market. For
example, one interviewee makes over $1,500 a day selling a plan to bald

guys on how to re-grow their hair. And another guy sells tools to make wire
jewelry and makes $40,000 a month!

These products would be a flop if you sold them at a local storefront because
the market in a local area is way too small to support them. But on the

Internet, you have access to a global market that can support extremely
obscure products and ideas… and be very profitable!

Corey, I wanted to ask you about search engines. How important are
they to the marketing beginner?

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When you are starting out on the Internet, search engines are a very cost-
effective way to drive traffic to your site. But as your business grows, a good

advertising campaign, joint venture, or affiliate program will outperform your
search engine rankings every time -- guaranteed.

To start with, you have to make sure that people are actually looking for your

product or service online. I hate to see people starting out on the Web who
automatically put all of their time and resources into search engine

submission when, in reality, their target market isn’t even looking for what
they have to offer in the search engines.

If you want to find out if the search engines will be worth the effort, there are
a few great services online that I show you in my course that will actually tell

you approximately how many visitors you will get if you have a top ranking
under your keywords in the major search engines.

I tell people to type five of their top keywords into one of these keyword

popularity services and if your keywords are not getting more than at least
1,000 searches every single month, it is probably not worth your time.

Also, you should never make the mistake of relying on just the search
engines to drive traffic to your site. Although they can be an extremely

valuable source of traffic, they are constantly changing their rules. If you get
into a situation where you rely solely on a couple of good rankings in the

search engines for all of your traffic, and then one day the search engines
drop your ranking, you could be out of business literally overnight. Believe

me, I've seen it happen more than a few times.

Make sure you have multiple sources of traffic to your web site so that if you

lose one, you are not out of business!

Pay-per-click search engines seem to be a great place to test market
products on the 'Net. What should people know about using a pay-

per-click strategy for their site or product?

The pay-per-click search engines can be a great way to get traffic to your web

site but, once again, only if your target market is actually looking for you in
the search engines. They're great for testing your offer, testing your site,

testing your price, even testing your product to see if it will work.

Success through the pay-per-click search engines is all about basic math. If

the traffic they drive to your web site makes you more money than it costs to
buy those clicks, then they are a great investment. Unfortunately, many

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beginners pay way too much for keywords, never actually calculate how much
they can afford to spend, and end up losing lots of money.

I should also mention that you can't expect to enter a couple of your top

keywords into the pay-per-click search engines and start making money --
that is very rare. To be successful, you need a list of at least 100 - 500

keywords and phrases. You can really make pay-per-click search engines pay
off by bidding on lots of less popular keywords that are actually more

targeted than general search terms.

For example, do a search for "mortgage" on the most popular pay-per-click

search engine and you'll see that to get that top listing, you'd need to pay $7
per click. That's WAY too much. Instead, bid on lots of less popular terms like

"discount mortgage" at $0.51 per click or "Internet mortgage" at $1.15 per
click.

What is the most important thing someone needs to do when starting
out with a marketing project?

Test, test, and then test again. Never stop testing everything. You want to

test your advertising, styles, colors, etc. Test your offer, test your price, test
different types of advertising. The key is to test small. If it works, apply it to

everything you know.

Start small and test. It is pointless to spend all your cash on a huge ad
campaign when you have not proven that your web site can sell a product.
And you must be able to track what is going on with your web site. I'm

shocked by how many people don’t know their "visitors-to-sales ratio" -- how
many visitors you get daily compared to how many sales. If you don’t know

this, how can you try different things to see what improves your sales?

Can you give an example of this?

Sure. Let's say that your site gets an average of 500 visitors a day and you

sell an average of 5 products a day. Your "visitors-to-sales ratio" would be
100 to 1. (In other words, for every 100 visitors, you can expect to make 1

sale.)

Now that you know this, you can start testing different things. Let's say that
you decide to test a new headline and find that you now sell one product for

every 50 visitors to your site. You've just doubled the profit potential for your
site! And you never would have known unless you had taken the time to track

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the activity at your site. I teach this in much more depth in my "

Insider

Secrets

" course.

Listen to this: Back in the early days of marketing my "Car Secrets Revealed"

book online, I decided to try out a couple of new slogans. I had a hunch that
the one we had been using wasn't targeting the right people. Anyway, after a

couple of days of testing, I discovered something that literally changed my
life.

I had been marketing the book to car owners, assuming that most people
who owned a car would be interested in the book. Well, one of the slogans

was targeted towards people who were thinking of purchasing a new car, not
to people who already owned one. I just about hit the floor when I saw the

results from the test on that slogan! Our sales had literally increased 400%
overnight!

If I hadn't always been testing things, even back in the early days, I would

never have realized this. That's the power of testing. It has allowed me to
build an incredibly successful business.

Based on your experience, testing probably thousands of different
strategies, what are the two most powerful ways to market your

business on the Internet?

The answer is very simple... affiliate programs and opt-in e-mail marketing.
First off, affiliate programs are the single most cost-effective, least risky way
to do business on the 'Net. Affiliate programs are like having an army of joint

venture partners out there working for you twenty-four hours a day.

With an affiliate program, it's easy to recruit hundreds, thousands, or even
hundreds of thousands of people to promote your product, and you do not

pay them a penny unless they make you money! I started one of the very
first affiliate programs on the Internet, even before Amazon.com, and I

currently have over 60,000 affiliates, so I'm speaking from experience here.

For those who don’t know what an affiliate program is, this is how it works:

Basically, you get other sites that share your target audience to link to you.
Those links are tracked by special software so that if anyone clicks through

the link and buys your product, you give a commission to the referring site.

The great thing about affiliate programs is that they are pure profit machines.
Because you only pay your affiliates when they send you a visitor who
actually buys something, it's literally impossible to lose money! Even if they

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drive 10,000 visitors to your site, you don't pay them a dime unless someone
buys.

That sounds great! But managing a large affiliate program is a huge

job, isn't it?

The best part is that if you are using the right tools you can completely
automate the entire process. You can be running a multi-million dollar
company with only a few staff in the office. We have over 60,000 affiliates

promoting our products on the Internet and it literally only takes us a couple
of hours every month to manage our program using our

AssocTRAC software

At the end of the month we hit a couple of keys, it prints out the commission
checks, and we mail them to the affiliates.

There are no overhead costs, no employees, and no hassles. You only pay

your affiliates when they bring you business, and the software does all the
work for you. And the whole thing only costs about $45 a month to run! This
would be absolutely impossible offline, but the speed and scope of the

Internet allows us to do it at almost no cost.

When we built the second generation of

AssocTRAC software

, we compiled

over 5 years of first-hand experience so that our customers could apply this

powerful strategy to their business without having to spend the hundreds of
thousands of dollars and months of time it took us to develop it.

I could talk about affiliate programs all day as it is a huge topic but since we
only have a limited amount of time, I'm going to recommend that if you are

interested in learning more about how affiliate programs work and how you
can start one of your own, visit our

AssocTRAC web site.

There you will find

over 50 pages of killer strategies and ideas that will help you get your own
affiliate program started right away.

Could you tell us a little about the second strategy you mentioned:
opt-in e-mail marketing?

The second marketing strategy that every e-business definitely needs to

employ if they want to be successful is opt-in e-mail marketing. And to get
started building an opt-in e-mail list you NEED to be collecting e-mail

addresses at your site. I can't stress this one enough. If you aren't doing this,
you need to start right now!

Here's how it works: “You need to offer every single visitor to your site a
reason to leave you their e-mail address”. It can be for a free newsletter, a

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free report, a demo version of your software, a contest... Any reason you can
think of to get people to leave you their e-mail address.

If someone visits your web site and actually takes the time to subscribe to

your newsletter by giving you their name and e-mail address, this obviously
means that they are interested in what you have to offer.

Congratulations! You have just captured an incredibly hot sales lead!

By simply following up with these people and e-mailing them quality
information and facts, you will instantly build your credibility by developing
the rapport that is needed to close sales.

The bottom line is this: Most people are simply not comfortable shelling out

money the first time they visit your web site. Unfortunately, the Internet is a
big place, so the chances of them finding you again once they leave your site

are pretty slim. By capturing their name and e-mail address, you can
guarantee that they will not forget about you.

What are some things that people should keep in mind when sending
e-mail promotions?

First and foremost: The names and e-mail addresses you collect on your web

site should be treated like gold and never abused. If you constantly e-mail
these people with blatant advertisements and plugs for your products and

never actually send them any valuable information, you will ruin any chance
you have to sell to them in the future.

Also, opt-in e-mail is impossible to manage unless you have the right tools
and information. In my "

Insider Secrets

" course I have almost 100 pages of

cutting-edge information on this topic alone that will show you how to build
an extremely responsive opt-in list very quickly and then show you how to

follow up and sell to these targeted customers again and again and again.

We use a powerful e-mail automation tool called

Mailloop

that automates all

of our e-mail promotions. I personally started using this software over 5 years
ago and it quickly became such an indispensable part of my business that I

actually bought the rights to it from the developer so that my customers
could benefit from all of its powerful features.

This software is so cool… It is like having your own personal e-mail secretary

-- but it does not take any breaks, does not talk back, does not ask for
vacation, and did I mention that it works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

It handles almost all of your e-mail: It subscribes and unsubscribes people
automatically from your opt-in lists, it merges your orders into your customer

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database, it automatically sends out your promotions, it automatically
responds to your customers' commonly asked questions, and much more.

It just leaves you with the e-mail that you need to handle personally -- it

takes care of the rest. We use it every day to automate our business and stay
in contact with our clients; it is solely responsible for generating over

$100,000 a month in new business for us. You can check it out at

www.marketingtips.com/mailloop

Rapid growth and expansion can be a “good” problem for businesses.
How can you handle your company's growth?

You automate. That is the beauty of the Internet. It is the first environment

where you can truly automate your entire business. You can even run it from
anywhere in the world -- as long as you have a laptop and a phone line, you

are in business.

I'll never forget the day I was on a beach in Hawaii, drinking a Corona, when

I decided to log on to the 'Net for a few minutes and check my sales. I
discovered that I had made over $37,000 that day! This could only happen in

today's online age!

When you are first starting out, keep it simple so that you can get up and
running fast, but also realize that you'll need to automate soon after you

start. We use software to automate most of the daily tasks like processing
orders, managing e-mail, and such. Not only is the cost savings huge (one
piece of software can literally replace at least 1-2 employees!), but the real

benefit is that you don’t get caught up working IN your business instead of
ON your business.

If you don’t automate soon, you will find that the mundane work will become

overwhelming and you will be filling orders and reading e-mail all day long
instead of growing your business. Be careful, because this is a real trap for so

many people.

We teach a ton of ways to easily automate your business without a lot of

work. We've tried a lot of things, and we show you what works and what
doesn't -- and where to spend your time and money for the biggest growth

and the biggest profits.

Unfortunately, we don’t really have time to go into this today during this short
interview. But remember that you need to automate so that your business

can run automatically whether you are there or not. It sounds complicated --
and it was 3 years ago -- but now there are inexpensive software programs
and simple techniques that allow anyone to do it easily.

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Million Dollar Niches!

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I go through a lot of this in the course, as it is a fundamental key to success.
You need to automate before you can really grow.

Just as an example, my

CarSecrets.com

site practically runs itself. It

automatically takes and fulfils orders, deposits the money in my bank
account, takes care of most of the e-mail by auto-responding to customers,

automatically promotes its affiliate program, and so on.

It generates hundreds of thousands of dollars in yearly revenue, yet I have an
employee who spends less than 10 minutes a day running it. I have not
looked at the site myself in over 2 years and it still generates a ton of money.

That is the kind of business you want.

How do you stay up-to-date on an industry that is constantly
changing?

We have a team of people who are cranked up on coffee at their desks,
testing new ideas every day; we have to be ahead of the curve. We have to

update our information and products constantly because the Internet changes
so quickly.

The key to really exploiting marketing techniques is that you have to be using

them before they become popular, because once people know about them,
your audience becomes saturated, and they are not as effective anymore.

Pop-ups are a perfect example. We were using pop-ups way back before
anyone else -- they were EXTREMELY profitable back then. As soon as people

found out how great they worked, everyone started using them. Of course, as
soon as every site had them, their effectiveness fell off quickly. I should say

that pop-ups are still a great tool, but they are 50% less effective than they
used to be.

Our job is to find the hot marketing techniques before everyone else picks up

on them -- and let our customers know so they can use them and profit.

So, where do you see the Internet taking us in the future? How much

additional business will be conducted on the 'Net and how important
will the Internet be to the business ventures that our kids will be

involved with?

Here's a fact: The Internet is becoming part of our lives more and more each
day. Just about everyone uses e-mail now. If you want to know the weather,

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you check the 'Net. You check the 'Net for movie listings in your city, you use
it to pay bills, you can use it to educate yourself on just about any subject.

Today there are university classes being held online for people around the

world that cannot get to a classroom. There are pay-per-view movies that can
be delivered to your computer in DVD quality anytime you want through a

broadband connection. I mean, it might not be too long before we all say
goodbye to the video store!

Nowadays, your sales force can access order and inventory data from their
wireless handheld computers while at a customer’s location. Your fridge can

automatically order your milk from the local grocery store for delivery when
you are low. (I've actually seen this -- it weighs the area where the milk goes

in your fridge and determines when to order more.)

The dot-com days are over, but the Internet has just begun! It will become
more powerful and more useful as time goes on. It offers an entirely new

level of communication and convenience, which gives home businesses the
ability to compete with large corporations, not to mention the ability to run a
business from anywhere in the world with next to no overhead or risk.

I personally know janitors and waiters that are making $100,000 a year now

with their Internet businesses working only a few hours a day! If they can do
it, you can too -- no excuses!

Any last words?

The only thing stopping you from making more money is YOU! You may read
this interview and say, “Wow, that sounds great!” But unless you actually do

something and take action -- at least get your feet wet -- you will stay at the
income level you are at today. Do you think my first site looked great and

worked perfectly? Of course not!

If you're thinking about starting a small business, just do it! Get your feet
wet, make some mistakes -- once you've started, you'll never look back! And
you don’t have to be a computer geek to figure it all out, you just need

common sense and the determination to get it done.

And take the time to educate yourself. Heck, if nothing else, sign up for a
copy of our free newsletter at our site. Of course we save the best stuff for

our course, but we still reveal tons of killer tips in the free newsletter. We
distribute it every two weeks or so. Just go to

www.marketingtips.com

http://www.nightcats.com/cgi-bin/track/tracker.cgi?ace

enter your first name and e-mail to receive it.

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Interview with

June Campbell

Introduction

June Campbell is a self-employed writer and the owner of her online
business, Nightcats Multimedia Productions. June's work has been

published internationally in a multitude of print and electronic
publications.

Most recently, she authored the script for an audiobook, "Ace That All-

Important Job Interview and Land Your Dream Job" (

June makes her home in beautiful Vancouver, Canada.

What originally made you decide to start an online business?

I did not actually start an online business. I started a home-based
business, which evolved into an online business over time. In 1995-96,

I spent a year studying multimedia production at a local college. When
I wasn't able to find a job in the field, I started freelancing, designing

web sites and doing a bit of writing for my local computer paper. In
time, that evolved into a web design and writing business.

Before long, I realized that physical proximity was not needed for

either of these services so I began marketing myself on the Internet.
Time passed, and I realized I was having better success marketing my

writing than my web design, so I said to myself, "Well, if that's what
the market wants, then that's what I will offer." Today, I do very little

in the way of web design, but I sell writing services and products along
with doing some affiliate marketing for other merchants.

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What did you find was the hardest part when you were starting
your online business?

The hardest part was my lack of business skills. I had natural writing
ability, and I had computer skills due to my year studying multimedia.
However, I knew nothing about bookkeeping, marketing, writing a

business plan, etc. Good grief, when I think back it is almost
embarrassing. The first time a customer asked me invoice him, I didn't

know how to do it! Things took a turn for the better when I finally
enrolled myself in a program offering training to new entrepreneurs.

How long did it take for your business to start making a profit?

How quickly did your profits increase from that point?

From 1996-1997, I worked at part-time jobs to subsidize my business.
In 1998, business reached the point where I was able to devote myself

full time to the business.

Like many others, I enjoyed a boom during the time that the dotcoms
were throwing money around. (They threw some of it my way and I

had an excellent couple of years). Also, like many others, I find that
the 2001 terrorist attacks and the resulting downturn in the economy

is taking its toll. Business is definitely slow this year, and I must focus
myself and make wise choices if I am to stay afloat. I think this is true

for most businesses these days, whether online or bricks and mortar.

What sort of things have you changed in your business to cope
with the current downturn in the economy?

To stay afloat, I have made a few changes in the way I do business.

For one thing, I rely more heavily on email marketing than ever
before. That is, I give away free lessons, free ebooks, free software in

exchange for people agreeing to receive marketing emails from
myself. At one point, I did very little of this. Now I do a lot.

I have also taken steps to decrease expenditures. I have stopped

upgrading my computer and my software every year, for example. I
seldom subscribe to services that have a monthly fee. Instead, I find

scripts that I can purchase for a one time fee and run from my web
site. I have become more aggressive at collections and I'm much less

likely to "give up" when payments are slow to coming.

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And, because doing business in a slow economy is stressful and at
times discouraging, I have developed a program of nutrition and

fitness to help me keep myself in good physical and mental condition.

Those are all great ideas that anyone can use in their business!

What has been the biggest mistake you have made in your
online business so far? What did you learn from it?

I have made many mistakes. The way I see it, operating a business,

especially an online business, is an ongoing learning procedure. One of
the mistakes that I have made in the past ... and continue to make
from time to time, is to underprice my services or underestimate the

amount of time it will take me to do a project. When this happens, I
end up working hours without pay, since I do not revise a quote to

a client unless the client asks for additional enhancements.

Another mistake I made in the beginning was to do custom work for
clients without collecting a down payment. After being burned a few

times, I had to implement a policy of at least one-third of agreed-upon
price paid up front before I begin working on a project. Possibly I lose

a few clients who do not agree with this, but that's the way it goes.

What is the best thing that has ever happened to your online
business? Was it intentional, luck, or "made luck"?

The best thing was a mixture of luck and "made luck." In 1998, I got

the idea that I could sell guides to writing business plans, business
proposals, joint venture contracts, and similar other documents from

my web site.

Remember, in Internet years, that is a long time ago. At that time,
info products were rarely sold on the net, and the word "ebook" had

not yet been coined. So, I was working in virgin territory with this
idea. The immediate problem I encountered was handling the financial

transaction.

I did not qualify for a merchant account through my bank, and soon
discovered that while a relatively few number of third party processors

were hawking their wares, they did not provide
service to Canadians (because Canadian banking regulations are very

stringent).

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After a time, I discovered Internet Secure -- the first, and at that time,
the only third party processor from Canada. I thought I'd struck gold,

but then found that Internet Secure was not excited at my idea of
selling what I described as "little documents and pamphlets" from my

web site.

Various forms of begging and pleading took place, and finally they
agreed to set me up with an account. Well, the rest is history. The

documents sold very well indeed and I still use Internet secure
services. (

http://www.nightcats.com/sales/list.html

)

Today I am bombarded with UCE from companies urging me to "accept

credit card payments online." Back then it was a radical idea.

What part of your business earns you the most income - your
ebooks, writing services, affiliate commissions, or something

else?

It varies depending on where I am focusing my efforts. Overall, I
would say my writing services bring in the largest portion of my

income, although online sales of my business guides quite often meets
or passes this amount in a given month.

You have been running your online business for over five years
now - how much has the Internet changed in that time? How
have these changes affected your business, and do you think

these changes have made it easier or more difficult for
someone starting a new online business?

The Internet has changed dramatically since I first opened my

business. These changes make it easier in some ways, and more
difficult in some ways.

First, it is easier to conduct credit card transactions from a web site, as

mentioned above. Secondly, many web hosts are offering one-stop
shops were the newcomer can get everything s/he needs to set up a

web business. I had to hunt and gather and figure out what I needed
as I went along. Thirdly, the Internet has gone mainstream and

Internet shopping doesn't scare people the way it once did.

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On the down side, services that were once free now come with a price
tag. Once, it was possible to get a good search engine ranking merely

by writing good code and watching your keywords. Now, pay per clicks
are the way to go, and most Webpreneurs can't count on much search

engine traffic unless they've reached for their wallet. Secondly,
competition is much stronger.

Once I could write a free article and send it to publishers with the

assurance that a good percentage of them would use it in exchange for
publishing my resource box or ad at the bottom. Now, so many people

are distributing free articles that this method of no-cost marketing is
almost useless.

And lastly, the today's newcomer is bombarded with so many

competing products and services that separating the wheat from the
chaff is difficult. Many of these products/services are worthless, and/or

complete scams. It's possible to spend a huge amount of money and
time on products and services that are ineffective.

Experienced Webpreneurs get taken in from time to time. I can only

imagine how difficult it must be for a newcomer to determine what is
worthwhile and what is garbage.

What sort of things can someone new to selling do to make

their product stand out in such a crowded market? How do you
go about it in your business?

Sometimes I think aggressive marketing is the key rather than the

type of product. Some of the best selling products and services out
there are far from being the best available in terms of quality -- but

they are the best marketed. It's unfortunate. But I've gotten off track
a bit here.

My advice to a newcomer is to find a niche market and/or develop a

USP (unique selling position). Then, of course, develop a product that
is worthwhile and price it accordingly. Not long ago, I was asked to
review an ebook that had a rather unique focus. I get a lot of these

requests, and I seldom agree unless there is something unique about
the product or service. Otherwise, I could suck up my entire week

reading yet another tired, rehashed book on Internet marketing, for
example.

Anyway, this person had a unique concept so I agreed to the review. I

was disappointed to find that the while the concept was unique, the

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product was poorly written, provided little or no valuable information
that the reader could actually use, and was grossly over priced. I told

the guy that if he proceeded to sell this ebook as it was, he could
expect to go broke issuing refunds and paying credit card chargeback

fees.

I'll give you an example of a newcomer who is doing very well selling
to a niche market. This man used Ken Evoy's Site Build-It (

http://www.nightcats.com/cgi-bin/track/tracker.cgi?buildit

) to develop

a site selling juggling supplies. Within a few months, he was enjoying

good site traffic and substantial sales. Who would that thought there
were that many jugglers in the world?

What is your main method for gaining new customers? What

have you found to be a waste of time and/or money for
attracting new customers?

At the moment, I still send out free articles, but this is becoming less

effective. Most of my new customers are found through placing (or
swapping) ads in other people's ezines and web sites. I also do viral

marketing. That is, I distribute a few pieces of freeware and encourage
people to give copies to their friends and customers.

Naturally, all of these items contain links to my web site or links to

affiliate programs. For example, I create and give away a weekly
interactive, jigsaw puzzle showing Canadian scenery. Each puzzle

contains a link to a web site that I have chosen. (

http://jigsaws.nightcats.com

)

With the benefit of hindsight, if there was one thing you could

go back and change since you started your business, what
would it be?

I would smack myself in the head every time I became tempted to

work for free or to donate my services to some product that promises
payment if and when it succeeds. I have yet to make one red cent

from one of these work-for-free offers. Nowadays, I 'Just say no' to
anyone proposing one of these deals.

I do NOT refer here to distributing free articles in exchange for my

resource box at the end, or of joint venture arrangements in which two
merchants decide to work together and share profits on an endeavor.

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What is next for your online business?

Next is to hang in and survive the slow economy. I also intend to

spend some time trying to improve search engine placement. I have
been among those who benefited from Yahoo's and Google's recent
affiliation, and am hoping to tinker with my site to improve my ranking

a bit more.

Finally, what advice would you have for someone who was

starting out in their own online business?

I can offer three pieces of advice. The first is the old standby: "If it
sounds too good to be true, it is." You'll be presented with endless

'opportunities' to get rich quick and make money while you're lying on
the beach, etc. The only one who will make money from this stuff is

the person who sells you the opportunity.

My second piece of advice to newbies is to purchase a decent Internet
marketing course and use the information you'll learn from it.

You either spend the money up front to learn the ropes, or you spend

ten times as much on wasted efforts and products that don't measure
up. There's a list of marketing courses and other services that I both

use and endorse at this link:

http://www.nightcats.com/directory/index.shtml

And my third piece of advice is to keep your integrity (or develop

some, if it's lacking :-). Competition is tough right now, and
businesses are slow all over. The ones that survive and last are the

ones that embrace ethical business practices.

That means no scamming, no spamming, no endorsing products or
services unless you mean what you say.... in other words, strive to be

the type of merchant that you would like to do business with yourself.

Thank you for doing this interview June - I really appreciate it.

Interview conducted by: Jason.

Jason is the editor of Achieve Net Profits, where he interviews successful
Internet marketers each week. Save yourself time and money by learning
marketing directly from the pros! -->

http://www.achievenetprofits.com/

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Interview with Pamela

Heywood

Introduction

Pamela Heywood is probably best known online for her successful
TuCats-Design.com, which she created in 1999 to capitalize on her 20

year+ business and accountancy background in the UK and her new
skills in Web publishing.

In 1992 she escaped to the Canary Islands, Spain and, being fluent in
both Spanish and English, began working from home, translating and

reporting for the local English language press, until the Internet got
there, late in the 20

Century.

Let’s start…

What did you find was the hardest part when you were starting

TuCats Design? Was it your first online business?

Time is always my enemy. There never seems to be enough of it to
get everything done; to implement ideas and so forth, even though I

do work at this full-time.

I'm fairly disciplined, being used to accounting and newspaper
deadlines, but there IS only so much one person can do and, I'm going

to say what hundreds before me have already said -- that business
online is like any other.

You have to W-O-R-K it to make it a success.

Yes, it was my first attempt at a web site designed to make money.

Despite my previous experience, there was – and still is -- much that I
needed to learn about various technology, online culture and so forth.

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How long did it take for TuCats Design to start making a profit?
How quickly did your profits increase from that point, and what

did you do to achieve that increase?

I launched the site in October 1999 and started to make a little money
by mid-2000. It took around 18 months for me to earn enough to be

called a living. (At Tenerife rates.)

Just the fact that I did earn something was self-fuelling motivation.
Once I knew I could earn $100, I worked out what I got right, set

myself a new target and achieved it.

That makes it sound easy. It wasn't!

Growing a list, publishing useful information, becoming known and

trusted and getting to know what other people actually WANT and will
PAY for -- none of it is *overnight success* stuff, but they are the
things that increase earnings.

Apart from you starting to earn some money, was there any

particular turning point for you and TuCats Design? Anything
that you can point to and say "things started to go right from

then/when I did that"?

It has mostly been a general and cumulative process.

Getting articles published enough times and in some fairly prominent
ezines, ebooks, etc., so that people started to recognize my name,

helped more than most things and, like all *breaks*, they don't find
you, you have to make them.

What has been the biggest mistake you have made in your
online business so far, and what did you learn from it?

I've done a LOT of things wrong, but they've all been parts of the

learning process. One simply has to be willing to accept that, track,
tweak, analyze and try again.

And laugh at your own faux-pas! :-)

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I'll agree with that!

Even a *sure fire* technique from a *guru* might not work for me,

nor for you. At best, it needs to be adapted to the circumstance,
tested, tweaked ... I don't believe there is an alternative that does get
it all right first time.

Hoping I could save money on list hosting was one of my major
downfalls. That lead to some wasted money and a lot of wasted time. I
now use

, which although it isn't the cheapest, is certainly is

the best value for money.

The one thing to remember is that the list is one's biggest asset, so
economy here is definitely going to be false.

Having just looked at the various options for sending out

Achieve Net Profits recently, I can relate to looking at all the
options available! What sort of features made you decide to

host your list with Aweber, as opposed to using other methods?

Well, I think it foolish to send a lot of email via my ISP and most
wouldn't allow it anyway. Nor would I want to wait while a script sends

out 16,000 + emails, so most DIY methods were scratched off my list.

Of all the third-party services I've looked at and tried, the usual
problems are that they have a limit on the number of subscribers, then

you have to pay MUCH more.

is a set price and handles

unlimited email and subscribers.

Some simply don't have the technology to handle more than a 1000 or

so on a list and messages simply don't get delivered. They may not
mention this anywhere.

also has some features you don't see elsewhere, like the

ability to queue messages in advance. You can set them up to go out
on a specific date and go on vacation.

Now the big questions is the service *clean*, by which I mean is their

record good. Do they handle bounces correctly and will mail from their
IP address pass the SPAM filters?

If a service has other users that, through their abuse, have got them

onto any blacklists, your ezine may never arrive.

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is perhaps a bit ruthless at bounce handling and some days I

want to cry at the losses, but it is essential. Yahoo and others brought

in measures this year that can get you blacklisted if you continue to
send mail to dead addresses.

Their reasoning being that if you send to lots of bad addresses then

the chance is that you have purchased one of those CD's full of
harvested addresses and ergo, you must be a spammer to want one of

those in the first place!

AOL now insist on bounces being removed the first time and I know
from personal contact with the CEO at

http://www.tucats-design.com/revenew

that they have worked

with AOL's techs to ensure that they comply.

Many smaller services simply will not have the clout to be forming
these relationships. Many services will give three chances to bouncing

addresses and that used to be the *industry standard*. Now this is
suicide.

That is very important information to know - thank you for

sharing it with us! Changing topic, what do you get your most
income from online - affiliate programs, reselling other ebooks,

etc? Do you expect that to change much in the future, and if so
why?

Most of my earnings are currently from affiliate programs. A proportion

comes from reselling ebooks and I shall continue to offer both as part
of my overall strategy: as additions and backend sales, or as the main
offer on mini-sites.

A large amount used to come from selling advertising space in my
ezine. However, with the advent of SPAM filters that hinder the
delivery of ezines, I no longer offer this.

What I plan to offer in the future are products of my own. Back to the
time problem, these projects seem to have been in development
forever, but they're getting closer!

Speaking reselling ebooks, you once referred to yourself in

your newsletter as a "resell rights junkie" (you just knew that
phrase was going to come back and haunt you! =)). What do

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you find are the main attractions of getting the resell rights to
products?

Ah, well I hate to tell you this, but those were not my original words
and were actually part of prewritten sales copy. That's not to say that
they were untrue.

Because I live right out in the wilds, the nearest serious bookstore is a
whole day's drive away on mountain roads. Even then, they'd be in
Spanish, I still prefer English, especially when it's a whole new subject

to learn about.

Ebooks are therefore a savior for me as a reader.

From the point of view as a seller, it's simple. For very little cost and

almost no time, one has a product to sell, over which one has control.
Not just to make 100% on the sales, deliverable instantly online, but
also to build one's own list of clients to offer more items to.

If I had to specify what I'm good at, it is finding information. Actually,
I have a certificate from college to prove that! :-) Well, I can't provide
all the information *fresh* myself and, whilst I wouldn't buy

something JUST because it comes with resell rights, it certainly helps
both myself, and the purchaser if it has this added incentive.

For products where you have to pay extra to get the resell

rights, what sort of things do you look for before deciding to
purchase them?

Actually, I have only once paid extra for customization, although the

rights were already in the original price.

So this is an area I can only theorize on, but I would tread very
carefully indeed. Unless one pays a considerable amount of money to

be one of very few offering that product, I don't see this option as
particularly good value.

Some ebooks and software automatically come with resell
rights. Doesn't that make it difficult after a while for someone

to sell (since many others are already selling the same

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product)? What can someone do to overcome that problem, if
anything?

Yes, a lot of sales will go to the first people to promote anything and,
the market for online business stuff, which most of these products are,
is not as big as many people imagine. But as with traditional books or

any other product for that matter, there will always be some new
buyers.

I'll bet too that those who rushed in to promote it while it was *hot*,

didn't give it so much as a cursory glance. So those willing to take a
longer term view will get results by reading, using and reviewing the

products.

Often, because one only need make one or two sales of any given item
to recover costs it is still very worthwhile. You've got to remember that

two sales, mostly, represent a 100% gross profit on that line. I don't
know many traditional business with that kind of percentage.

Where I think many people become disillusioned is because they

expect to become rich off one $29.95 product. Have you ever seen a
book store that only sells one title?

They are ideal additional income streams to someone who already has

a list to offer them to. One needs to keep acquiring new *stock* and
to keep building one's list.

Do you aim for any particular topic, or type of ebook when

looking at reselling an ebook, or are they just ebooks that you
have bought and found useful?

From questions that subscribers ask most frequently or from answers

to surveys, I do tend to choose subjects that I feel will solve the
problems I already know people have.

I can only really make my choices then on what appeals to me and

seems to be at the right price point for value, etc.

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Are any of these ebook packages where you get 30, 40, or more
ebooks all packaged together worth the money? Is it possible

(as some claim) to sell each of the ebooks separately?

They are definitely worth the money if you READ them!

It's sad, but that is the downside of the entire resell rights *chant*.

People buy these packages to sell, because they see money flashing in
front of their eyes and forget that books are meant to be read and
used.

Worse, they'll buy the package, never read a word, then go about
asking how to promote it, when all the advice required is probably
right there inside!

But think about it, how much would you pay for a business-related
hardcopy book in a store? Probably as much as the entire package and
there are gems in nearly every ebook.

Sometimes it's just a case that a particular author *speaks your
language* or it's something very obvious indeed, but if you were
overlooking it and it contributes to your bottom line, then the value is

tremendous.

As for selling them separately at their recommended prices, no, I don't
see much mileage in that. The odd newbie might buy one, but anyone

selling them (who has any conscience left) would probably never sleep
at night!

The best way to use these packages is to reinvent them and make

them one's own. Repackage them or use selected items as bonuses
offered with your own unique product.

The best example and best starter in my opinion is Dan Cauthron's

"MAXIMUM REVENEW Website Package"

It has customization built in, a list building feature and Dan does offer

personal advice and support. Ultimately, one needs to aim for
something even more unique, but this is a trustworthy one for
someone new to get started with.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

With the benefit of hindsight, if there was one thing you could
go back and change since you started TuCats Design, what

would it be?

Hindsight is all very well, but I didn't have it when I needed it! The
nature of the beast is that it's dynamic and changing, both from

outside and market influences and, also along with my own
development.

I have changed many things and will continue to do so. I see that as a

need to be flexible. That, again, is no different from the needs of
traditional business, but it does happen much faster with online

marketing methods.

What advice would you have for someone who was starting out

in their own online business?

The main thing I advise people is to choose a theme around which to
base their business that is something they absolutely LOVE. Then

they'll find the motivation to learn anything that's missing from their
education or experience.

Finally, as a cat lover I have to ask. Are any of the cat pictures
on the TuCats web site pictures of your own cats?

Ha ha! At the moment, there's only one. It's of the *Boss* and eldest,
a short-tempered lady by the name of Cleo at:

http://www.tucats-design.com/team.html

I did have some more photos online, but with seven of them (and a

dog) those hairballs kept getting in the system. :-)

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Ah, I know that feeling - one of our cats used to love lying on
top of the computer monitor. I'm sure the reason the monitor

finally died was all the cat hair inside! =) Thanks again for
agreeing to this interview Pamela – the information you have

given us today has been extremely educational!

Many thanks for inviting me!

______________________________________________________________

Interview conducted by: Jason.

Jason is the editor of Achieve Net Profits, where he interviews successful
Internet marketers each week. Save yourself time and money by learning

marketing directly from the pros! -->

http://www.achievenetprofits.com/

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Question & Answers Session
with The “Laser Marketer!”

Here, I answer some quick questions people sent me through email. These
answers are picked at random to make you understand the niche filling

process in a nutshell.

For more information, check out

NicheChallenge.com

, and discover how you

can make a difference in business, and get consistent super surge in profits,
the easy way. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.

OK! Here goes…

I'm in the process of building a storefront for virtual prepaid phone
cards that can be down loaded right from the computer screen. How
can I find a niche for this product?

To find a niche for your product, you must gather some basic information

relating to your potential customers. This is crucial because you must have
this information to determine their size (i.e., numbers), buying habits,

location, income level etc, to better understand what your potential
customers are like. The more you know about them, the more easier it would

be for you to customize your offerings according to their preferences, and
hence generate sales.

Arming yourself with this information is like getting ready to fire your bullet
right on target. However, getting that information is sometimes quite

challenging in certain situations.

Now there are basically two options available to get this info. One is by
purchasing or renting demographic, geographic and psychographic data from

companies that specializes in providing such information. The other is coming
up with your own personal analysis, research, info or experience to carve
your business model based on such data.

Once you get this...

The next thing you should do is make your product positioned on a specific

concept, benefit or service that none of your competitors are currently
offering. It could be anything that gives people a compelling "reason" to buy

from you and not from your competitors.

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People want to buy products that satisfy their needs and give them a feel that
they have purchased something unique with extra benefits at a reasonable

cost.

I hear a lot of buzz about viral marketing. Is it still workable? And if it
is then how to best make use of it?

Viral Marketing in simple terms is a technique that encourages individuals to
convey their message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth

both in the message's exposure and influence. You certainly know by now
that viral marketing is not just another dot-com cliché. On the contrary, it

describes the incredible, unmatched power of the web to promote your
business by marrying email to the traditional concept of "word-of-mouth."

Viral Marketing will always be workable. Like traditional word of mouth, it

cannot be stopped. There are many ways of incorporating viral marketing
techniques. I'll be covering most of them in my upcoming article.

If niche marketing is so effective, then why do people practice and
concentrate more on other marketing techniques like for example,

fusion marketing, viral marketing, performance marketing etc. Do
really these marketing techniques are powerful?

There really is no comparison between all these marketing models. All these
marketing techniques are practiced in their associated desired business

objectives.

Nevertheless, Niche Marketing is the most overlooked marketing technique
around. There are reasons for this.

One reason for this is many people are time pressured. They want to make

big bucks in the shortest possible time frame. Without spending time and
effort they want to achieve success overnight. Countless aspiring business
people are misled by thousands of Get Rich Quick or (GRQ) schemes on the

net, which does nothing but excites people by crafting a wonderful image of
making fast money through these techniques.

Like all other marketing techniques, niche marketing also requires planning...

much more planning than any other marketing technique. Planning is hard
work. Majority of people simply gets turn around when they hear the word

"planning".

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Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Niche marketing is the very first marketing technique that MUST be
incorporated in your modus operandi. Other marketing techniques are also

vitally important depending upon the nature of your business.

Think of niche marketing as the commander-in-chief of all marketing
techniques. A commander is a person who directs his battalion to move in a

particular direction. If the commander is missing, the battalion would all be
scattered, which surely will result in disintegration of the forces.

So, the bottom line is... you need to have a plan. Set your plan with respect
to your niche, and then fire the rest of the marketing techniques from your

marketing arsenal. You can use just any of your desired marketing models, be
it viral, performance, affiliate or fusion, the results will be astonishing.

I would like your recommendation as to how I can make my site more

profitable. Almost every computer user has computer problems so the
demand for computer help is great. I am trying to profit from that
fact. The income is a bit slow at this time and I need to create a

steady cash flow in a hurry.

Since you didn't mention anything specific about whether you're having
problems with driving traffic, making sales or getting enough subscriptions for

your newsletter.. I presume you're interested in making your website more
compelling, beneficial and worth remembering as from your visitor’s point of

view. Right?

First, the design part...

1. Your website design is good. Simple as it should be. However, I noticed

that on your Home page you've given sample newsletter, or some computer-
related tips. Please don't put this information on your Home page as it looks

as if this is all you've got to offer your visitor.

Moreover, if for example, the visitor is not interested in that tip, it's style or
layout.. s/he will move to another URL as you know the time span an average
user spend when they visit any website.

Instead, talk to your visitor directly, ask mono-syllabic questions. Tell her the

moment she hits your site what she'll get there before she makes any false
assumption.

Also, make her curious to learn more about your offerings, and how can she

benefit from your site without spending much of her time while staying there.

And secondly...

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2. Make it DIFFERENT. This is an ABSOLUTE MUST!!

With huge mega success sites like ZDNet.com, CNET.com, MyComputer.com

and a host of other similar sites that delivers related computer maintenance
tips and info, it's difficult to keep up the pace... since majority of people DO

recognize them with a strong TRUST factor.

But that doesn't mean you can't be on the winning track. Instead of going
head to head with these giants, offer something invaluable and different...
something that gives your visitor a REASON to stay on your site, buy your

product or simply remain subscribed to your newsletter.

Your business will get a boost if you're the first and sole solution provider in
your line of business. Your offerings should be tightly focused to the theme of

your business and NOTHING else.

For example, you mentioned that, "every computer user has computer
problems so the demand for computer help is great". Now that's a very broad
statement. There are virtually limitless computer users. Also their associated

computer problems are varied. You can't provide everything to everyone, as
you can't be the master of all.

So, first chalk out your target market. Who's going to be your customer?

Identify which areas you're comfortable working with. Is it in providing help
to people who wants more disk space, or is it in cleaning windows registries,

or is it just in delivering helpful tips on keeping her computer at optimal
performance, and so on and so forth.

This way you can come up with targeted offerings. Then you can in turn
position yourself as an expert in that particular area... once you do this, you'll

start getting serious recognition. And that's where real money can be made.

There are of-course many variations to master this art... but I think, it’s food
for thought now. The solution however lies in your ability to come up with

your own approach of delivering solutions to your targeted customers.

I've heard that placing ads in ezines are the most cost effective

means of advertising. My question is what makes it so cost effective,
and what should I look for in an ezine to make sure my ad gets

maximum exposure?

Ezines are content-rich online publications that are delivered to its subscribers
on specific subjects via email.

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Ezines are instantly delivered to targeted group of people (ezine subscribers)
who have a common interest pertaining to the subject of an ezine. On the

Internet, almost all major ezines are opt-in publications which means its
subscribers have willingly asked the publishers to receive information about

some specialized topic.

For example if there's an ezine on music, or more specifically on "musical
instruments", its subscribers would all be music lovers or people interested in

musical instruments. Now if YOU sell any musical instrument, say electric
guitar, chances are people will see your ad with greater interest and are more
likely to buy your product since they have a strong interest in music or a

desire to buy musical instrument.

For maximum exposure of your ad, the same what's stated above can be
applied, i.e., TARGETING! Look for an ezine which is highly focused on the

topic your product or service relates to.

Also, since these ezines are delivered to large number of people with almost
no delivery or production cost, the advertisements rates are much lower
usually somewhere between $15-25 CPM, or (cost per thousand subscribers)

depending upon how targeted an ezine is. This particular thing makes it more
cost effective since it appeals, and at the same time pulls out more positive

responses at a much lower rate.

You can find more information on ezine advertising on Web sites such as

http://www.e-zinez.com/

http://www.ezineuniversity.com/

for a more

detailed description.

Have been given responsibility to sell some stock of dried shark fins

for a friend off-line. Can you help show the way to on-line for more
sales of shark fins at present and then other products?

I believe "dried shark fins" is a specialized product for a specific market. To

sell them online, first you must design a simple website that showcase your
product.

Once you design a clear website, you need to drive targeted traffic (visitors)
towards your site. You really don't have to promote your product everywhere,

as this particular product is good for people who have the NEED for it.

The best way to promote this product is to advertise in ezines that relates to
this product of yours. For example you can look for ezines that covers

information about fishes or more specifically shark fish, marine creatures, sea
animals, marine resources and the like. Creating search engine friendly HTML
pages with the rught keywords and key phrases weaved in them is also the

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best way to drive quality traffic. There is a very useful online tool or piece of
software available called

SBI! (Site Build It!)

, that gives an easy solution for

making friendly HTML pages in a relatively easy and time efficient manner.
Check out

SBI! (Site Build It!)

to make the process automated, and

completely hands free.

For a comprehensive list of ezines, check out the following ezine directories:

http://www.ezinecentral.com/

http://www.ezinelocater.com/

http://www.ezineuniverse.com/

Making Search Engine submissions yourself can also be very effective if you

know how to go about it. The best advise I could give you is to get a copy of
a book which is updated regularly on the subject of Search Engine

Optimization, and has all the information you’ll ever require to be successful
with SEs. The book is so powerful that even the Search Engine pros consult

this book regularly to get updated. That’s because a team of highly
professional search engine experts compile the latest SE secrets and
techniques under the sun into this book. It’s like a roadmap to the Search

Engine mysteries. I highly recommend getting a copy of it. You can have your
copy

here

Hope this serves as a tiny ray of light for you to get started.

Can you help me in some way to get repeat sales? It's all mess up.
Previously, I've had luck to get people coming back to my site and

buy my products. But now it seems to be a fantasy. Although nothing
significant has changed in my follow-up system.

In my humble opinion, there's much more to consider than the luck factor.
Online selling is not the same as it was a few years back. The rules have

changed. Now people have limitless buying options. If for any reason you're
unsuccessful in conveying your message out properly, you're gone.

Effective and consistent follow-up DOES help a lot in generating repeat sales.

However, if that doesn't work, something serious must have gone wrong
somewhere with the way you project or promote your products.

The number one reason why people don't get repeat sales (even after using
consistent follow-up system) is because they don't follow the underlying

market conditions which have a greater influence on your product life cycle.

These determinants may include:

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Your Competition
Product Price

Product Quality
Product Life

Product Demand, and
Product Viability

If you really want to get repeat sales, evaluate your product from the above

checklist and make necessary adjustments keeping in view the market
externalities. If everything goes in accordance with above checklist, this will
definitely yield better results.

I've been an avid programmer since more than a decade now. I have

designed numerous business applications for commercial use. At
times I used to have 2-5 projects in hand, which I very easily

handled. As a result I made some significant income too. But now the
situation is different. I hardly get any order to make any software
package. Although, I'm still in contact with my previous clients and

are currently very busy in building new clientele, but even that does
not help.

Two years back I've launched my website too, did everything there is

to be done to get business, but all I got is a few bumpy emails asking
for some further inquiry. I do not know what went wrong, maybe it's

just pure hard-luck, or its simply my inability to get business. Can you
help?

Thanks for telling me your story so honestly. Actually there are many
parameters to consider in building a successful business. In your area of

discipline i.e., software development, there's even more.

As you know, this software and IT stuff moves at the lightning speed,
especially trends in software development, you need to be "pro-active" in

order to stay on top in the marketplace.

I can't say precisely what must have gone wrong with your business, since

what I've heard is a short story, and it conveys no insider description of your
problem. However, as I've said, you need to be pro-active in whatever you do

and you must closely study the cause of the problem.

As an example, take a look at

www.willmaster.com

. The way this Web site

has been organized, presented and maintained really reflects a perfect blend

of expertise, professionalism, and customer service. I've also interviewed the
owner of this site Mr. William Bontrager, who graciously shared his success

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secrets as a programmer and editor with us. Refer to the above interview to
get an in-depth understanding of how he got to the point of success.

The best advice I can give you is to track down all associated details that

influence your business, and then check to see if there's anything that you
either are missing, or simply failed to incorporate in your business strategy.

Ask yourself these simple questions:

•

How much competition do I have in business?

•

What is the level of my expertise?

•

Do I have a powerful Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?

•

To whom I'm catering to, who's my ‘perfect customer’?

•

Am I successful in identifying a niche for my business?

•

What price tag should I set for my product or service?

•

Is my price too high, or too low?

•

Am I applying all principles of good website design?

•

Is my customer service is in place?

Answering these questions in a complete and proper way will give you a clear

idea about what went wrong with your business.

Sometimes, the problem is so minor that we simply overlook it... so it’s
advisable that you closely study and identify the causes. Since you're in best

position to judge the situation, you certainly can do it the right way.

I would like to know what makes a successful ezine.

There are a lot of factors that makes an ezine a success. These factors

include mainly the following components:

•

Theme (Must be narrowly focused on a specific topic)

•

Content (Preferably original and unique)

•

Design (Should have a standard appealing format)

•

Subscriber friendly (Should be published in the best interest of its

subscriber)

•

Timely Delivery (Pretty obvious)

A successful ezine is the result of consistent hard work and a firm
commitment. If you can fulfill these, you're ready to make a successful ezine.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

However, very few people could keep this challenge. This is primarily the
reason why majority of ezines doesn't get proper exposure and recognition.

Most ezine publishers does nothing more than compiling 2 or 3 widely
circulated articles with a bunch of annoying sponsor and classified ads into it.

Now this sort of ezines naturally can't be called an ezine. They are good for
nothing.

Conversely, if you can produce some quality content of your own on a

specialized subject, chances are that your ezine will be a success. While it's
not always absolutely necessary to have your own content for your ezine, you
can have other people's content with a focused approach. However, your

input is very much required to run your ezine machine.

For more information, there's a wonderful niche resource on ezines setup by
Brian Alt, dedicated for ezines only.

Here's the URL:

http://www.ezine-tips.com/

Hope you now have something to start with. Just follow the above guidelines

and explore in detail the inner workings of running an ezine from the above
mentioned website. It’s my favorite site for ezines on the Web.

What's the difference between a portal and a Vortal? In your opinion

what should be the better choice for me to start with as being a low
budget business owner?

Vortals are simply sub-categories of Portals. While a portal have a broad
vision information gateway, a Vortal might work for someone who is in a very

unique field of interest and can claim a more targeted audience. Vortals are
Vertical Industry Portals, which basically means they are a portal for a specific

industry or field rather than the general public.

The concept of verticals, or Vortals is the next successful wave for online
businesses. Already people have started taking it seriously. I would advice
you to start with Vortals, as this is the perfect time to get started with them.

You don’t have to be a genius in order to make a fortune. Just use a little bit

of your common sense. Make your product useful in terms of customer needs,
have your business focus laser sharp, and add value to it. Your customers

should think of you every time they’re in need of a certain product without
thinking about of any of your competitor. It must overwhelmingly appeal to

their personal desires and wishes. That's the key. Remember, simple things
work best in life.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Do you think that if I create a site of pure advertisements and the
different categories of products that are available on the Internet, do

you think I would hit the nail?

Firstly, in my humble opinion the type of website you're looking to build as a
gateway to different shopping sites to purchase specific products already

exists in greater numbers. I don't know exactly how many of these sites are
there on the Internet, but I'm sure there are far greater in number. However,

I'm aware of two such sites that do exactly where you're trying to get into.

Check out

www.shoppinglinks.com/

http://www.bizweb2000.com/

www.onlineshopping.com

If you must provide links to shopping sites for the purchase of products, it

would be nice if you could narrow down your focus to just one specific area.

Like for example, if you take 'Travel' as your main theme, your best bet
would be to provide everything related to the travel sites.

I mean if you create a Vortal (vertical portal) for travel related sites, you can
offer your customers specific information about the different travel sites. Your

customers would certainly appreciate this customized information and will be
more likely to pay you money for this specialized information.

In this travel-related-Vortal you can provide info on:

•

Travel rates of different travel sites in a specific region

•

Their comparisons (in terms of rates, service, tours, discounts,
packages etc.)

•

You can also make a deal with some travel site(s) to feature them on

your website or in your newsletter

•

You also can make your site a clearing-house of travel sites

•

You can provide your own recommendations of travel sites based on
their service, rates, packages, deals etc.

•

Best of all, you can offer your own affiliate program for this traveling
Vortal so that you get more exposure and sign-ups within a short

period of time

I can go on and on here, but you get the idea. You see, when you start

relating things around you, you automatically come up with a lot of good
ideas to work with. Just make sure you have sufficient know how in the

subject you plan to work on.

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Amin, my friend told me about your expertise and niche marketing
fame. Actually, I'm in the process of starting an online business. I

know niches are all it takes to succeed. But the biggest problem I'm
facing right now is not knowing exactly where to start. Can you help

on this?

Thanks for joining us, and appreciating my work. Paul, you didn't mention
what sort of online business you intend doing. But since you're just starting

out, here's something you must seriously take in consideration before putting
up your business online...

"Make a clear and focused business plan."

DO NOT skip it. Majority of netrepreneurs on the Net simply ignore this VERY
important step to launch a business because they want to make a quick buck.

As a result their entire energies to make their business profitable are wasted
because of not having a proper plan.

Surprisingly, making a business plan is not as difficult as it sounds. All you
need to do is define the main purpose of your business, find your niche, the

benefits it will provide to your targeted customers, your strategy to market it,
and the revenue model associated. Remember an idea is not a business plan.

Of-course, you'll have to do a little bit of homework before jumping in, but
the benefits it will generate for you will pay off over the long haul.

Resist the temptation of getting rich over night. I know it's difficult, but make

an effort to overcome it. You'll be glad you did.

A friend of mine referred me your site. I'm a teacher by profession,

and I love what I do. I'm currently in process of starting an online
business, but don't know where to start. I'll be delighted if you could

provide me some clue as to what steps are required before getting
into this venture. Please reply ASAP.

The best course of action is to start with something you already know, or love
doing. The Internet is very fertile, and at the same time a very rewarding

place for creating things based on your interests or expertise.

There's one thing I'd like to mention here, which I tell everybody including my
list members, students and whoever wants to make things big on the Net, as

a sincere advice. Please do NOT try to start a business, unless you have a
very good reason to start it.

By reason I mean, your business should be centered around on an idea, or a
proposal with which people in your selected niche can easily take advantage

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Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

of. It should overwhelmingly provide the best level of information, satisfaction
and usefulness they look for in your designated area of business.

Once you're recognized as the "somebody" in some area of business that's

easy, unique, useful and of value, then people will automatically choose YOU
as their SOURCE for getting things done. And, when that happens Sarah,

nobody can stop you from making money, even if somebody tries to.

In my case, it took me 3 months in brainstorming ideas, after which suddenly
one morning I finally came up with an idea of creating Niche Challenge. I
knew if I would just start without having a plan in mind I'll surely be out of

the game soon. And that’s exactly what I advise people looking to start, or
grow their online businesses.

Once you've had your business positioned at a particular concept or theme,

you can start marketing it to the right audience. That way your marketing
becomes relatively easy, profitable and will also carry fun along the way.

Bottom line: Don't be in a hurry. Give it a thought. If you're an educationalist,
better create your business model on some aspect of education that you think

is unique, and can be of advantage to people looking for help in that area.
Sooner or later, you'll make money.

I'm a professional resume writer and have recently narrowed down

my niche to writing resumes for moms re-entering the work force. Is
my niche too narrow? Aside from my Web site, what's the best way to

market myself online?

Don't worry — your niche is large enough. In 1998, 26 million mothers
worked; if only 1 percent of them entered the labor force that year, that

would have been 260,000 mothers, many of whom needed resumes. You
could narrow your niche even further by specializing in resumes for women in

a particular industry, such as aerospace, entertainment or law.

Since they identify themselves as moms, many of your potential clients visit
Web sites that serve women in their roles as mothers, such as

. Establish visibility on such

sites and participate in the message sections, offering advice and identifying
what you do. Getting a link would be most desirable; perhaps you could get

one in exchange for expertise you might bring to these sites in the form of
online advice or articles.

Get your Web site listed on search engines, which is best done by hand rather

than by automated services. Some of your potential clients search for resume

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

services this way; others use directories, so consider joining the Professional
Association of Résumé Writers. Its Web site,

parw.com

, has a searchable

database of resume writers by state, which is updated weekly. Membership
ensures you're listed.

Don't limit yourself to online marketing if you live in a community large

enough to make local efforts worthwhile. Putting all your eggs in one basket
in terms of marketing strategies is a risk. If what you're doing isn't productive

or effectively executed, you'll waste a lot of time. Supplement your Internet
presence with fliers or a Yellow Pages ad—listing your Web site for more

information.

As you build a clientele, you're apt to get requests to do resumes for
husbands, daughters and sons.

Wish you well as you niche forward.

My organization, Enterprise, specializes in developing vision and

opportunity of Entrepreneurs in South Africa. I have not yet created a
website, but am in the process of finding the correct Niche to put it

into.

What is the niche opportunity for the empowerment and development
of Entrepreneurs?

Thank you so much for appreciating The LASER. Actually, I like to share my
thoughts, personal experiences and vision with people. I get satisfied

whenever I help someone... so in the ezine also, I try to deliver what I
personally feel would benefit my loyal subscribers. :-)

OK. Coming back to your question Richard, here's what I'd like to suggest for

your existing business, to model it as a successful n-business.

Lets start by Entrepreneurism...

Entrepreneurism is a broad subject. You must focus your vision on some

aspect of Entrepreneurism that you think you can easily handle or
comfortable working with.

For example, like you said your organization specializes in developing vision

and opportunity for Entrepreneurs in South Africa. In my own personal
opinion, it's already a specialized area. However, it can further be polished or
augmented by providing certain value added, and best fit customized

–

Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

solutions that can make your business the hub of attraction for your target
audience.

For example, it would be wise if you narrow down your focus, and position

your services on some specialized area of empowerment or opportunity by
highlighting a distinct customer centric benefit by saying something like...

"Personal Empowerment Program For Socially Abused Entrepreneur", or..

"Empowerment For Online Entrepreneur Suffering From Information Overload
Causing Failure.", or simply...

"Empowerment For The Non-Empowered Entrepreneur."

You should concentrate on your efforts into providing counseling or advisory

services in specific areas as mentioned above. There can be limitless
combinations in the area of personal development, empowerment, and

creating vision.

Whichever area you choose to focus on, there are three prime considerations

that must be fulfilled.

1. Specificity of product
2. Viability of product

3. Revenue model

Let me describe them briefly here.

1. Specificity of product: These days specificity is as essential as oxygen.

Online, it's even MORE important. Your product or service must provide
specific benefit that must satisfy your customer’s specific NEED. If you aren't

specific, you're no more in business.

2. Viability of product: Before putting up your business online, make sure
your product has the necessary product viability, usefulness or workability. It

makes no sense developing a product that has no viability in the marketplace.
Ask yourself, would you buy any product that doesn't do what you want it to
do? Of course not.

3. Revenue model: The prime objective of every business is to make profit.

Revenue generation leads to profits. Depending upon the type of business and
your modus operandi, revenue generation could be short term, or long term.

While working with revenue model, you should design your model in such a
way that it covers a market large enough to capture most of the profits, while

satisfying a narrow segment of people, or niche at the same time.

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Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

Richard, I'm sure you now have a little bit of idea as to how can you start off
by focusing on a specific customer centric niche in the area of

Entrepreneurism.

Do make sure you reference the above info while making your concrete
business plan, and all I can say is you'll give your business a reason to grow.

I'm new to the Internet. Can u write me some details about how
many hours I have to spend online and in which way I have to work?

Like the way that would be done? Because I am very interested in
learning e-commerce and I really want to share this knowledge. If u

feel good about letting me know I'd be grateful to you forever.

Actually, there are two ways of doing business online. One is to start within
your spare time, and the other is doing it full time.

Of-course, doing it full time will be more beneficial. However, if you really
have the passion and are a fast learner, you can do it in lesser time. This is

serious stuff. You must put real efforts if you want results.

It's impossible for me here to tell you how to start off your home business
from scratch, check out Jim Daniel's website

for a detailed step by step instructions.

Ask me, how I did it. You know, I had to work like crazy for long hours to
actually grab my share of the pie from this amazing stuff. I'm still learning.
I'm still very excited about it. And, I think I'll always be excited. :-)

It's true, you just cannot even imagine how much you can earn working from

home. Unfortunately, only a handful of people are able to make a very good
income from the Web. The majority cannot even make a dime out of it.

REASON: Misinformation.

Anyway, glad that you have so much of interest, and are keen to acquire
knowledge in this particular field. I like people with this approach. But
remember, when you start off with this business, your intention should be to

help people, and not to make money. Money will automatically follow once
you start learning the ropes of the cyber- culture.

As far as how much time is required to start earning good money, I think it

solely depends on you, i.e., how fast you do your work, and how much time
you could spare online. Normally, it should take you 3-4 months to start

earning. In the beginning, don't be frightened to work 7 to 8 hours. It's very
much essential, and this time will pay you off over the long haul.

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Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

100

I really enjoy reading about people's success stories. I agree that
picking a specific group to target helps focus the right kind of help to

the right kind of people. The market I'm interested in targeting is the
teenager. My product is the domain name industry, and to me, the

Internet practically belongs to them.

Just as many of us spent hours on the phone chatting with our friends
when we were teens, teens today spend time on the Internet. This

business is a much more productive way to spend their time, utilizing
the contacts they already have, and of-course it's safe as well. I want
to help teens. Through ads, or articles... my problem is where to

properly go to find them. Any advice?

Whatever segment of customers you choose to serve, the biggest challenge
lies in finding where they hang out? And that’s a million dollar question.

Actually, there are two primary ways to attract customers to your site,

through conventional means, such as advertising and public relations and
through the Internet. That involves finding communities of interest online,
becoming an active member of those communities, and following some strict

Internet etiquette ("Netiquette") to build customers by attracting online
followers.

There are literally thousands of interesting online communities and forums

that are frequented by people who are passionate about the subjects of those
communities. Many of these community members are interested in

purchasing items connected to that interest -- whether it's Britney Spears, fly
fishing, traveling, hiking, or anything else.

Coming up with your own personal analysis, info or experience can also help
to a greater extent in finding your customers. Then we have targeted ezine

advertising which is currently the most hottest online lead generating system
around. Plus if you use a little bit of creativity, you can attract a lot of

prospects in your niche.

Another way of finding your targeted customers is by purchasing or renting
demographics, geographics and psychographics data from companies that
specializes in providing targeted information. Established companies such as

http://www.postmasterdirect.com/

http://www.emarketer.com/

http://www.NicheChallenge.com

http://wwww.focalex.com/

provides excellent statistical and targeted email

services that helps in getting the job done. These companies charge money,
but they are well worth trying if you have some extra dollars in your pocket.

There are far many techniques that can bring you customers for your

business niche, the point is how well you set your goals and at what speed
you accomplish your targets. I could go on and on, but I’m pressured here.

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Million Dollar Niches!

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101

I'm working on a very narrow niche. I've setup everything that is
required to make a business run. However I still need to know some

demographic details for my target market. Could you please refer me
any website where I can get complete demographic data for my

potential customer?

Personally I usually visit

sba.gov

and

easidemographics.com

. They're my

secret weapons to collect some very useful and authentic information.

Another great resource is

zapdata.com

So, the secret is finally out :-)

I'm doing my online business since more than six months, but until

now I didn't get my break. I was referred to you by a friend of mine,
Stuart Dickens, who's also one of your ezine subscriber. I understand

niches are important and are essential for the success of any
business. My question is, how to find and develop a niche product?

Actually, your question requires a detailed description of the niche

phenomena. There's no short answer to your question.

However, I would like to advise you to browse through the Niche Challenge

website:

thoroughly, so that you get a

complete understanding of the concept, and get answers to most of your

questions related to niches in a greater detail.

I would say that, you, first need to identify your market you wish to serve.
Once you do this, your next step should be to collect pertinent facts

associated with your chosen market.

Then, brainstorm, brainstorm and brainstorm. There are so many ways to get

a niche idea. One way is to randomly start finding a few problems, cries or
pains, people are having in using a particular area, product or service.

Then solve those problems by offering an easy, useful and intelligent solution.

Make sure your selected niche is small enough to address the 'specific' needs

of people, and large enough to make you profits.

A great way to generate a niche idea is to pick Monique Harris and Ken Evoy's

very useful ebook,

Make Your Knowledge Sell

. It has some very useful

exercises that really helps in identifying great niche ideas.

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Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

102

Niche Challenge

, we are continuously creating fresh content in the form of

editorials, articles, user feedbacks, question and answers, interviews,

marketing tips, ebooks etc., all focused on creating and profiting from just
ONE thing.

Yup! Niches.

In the future, I plan to introduce a community forum, which will carry useful

help & info, insights, news and views from both novice, as well as expert
entrepreneurs and marketers.

So watch out, plenty of useful stuff will be coming for your help and
convenience. Get ready!

Have a niche err... nice day ;-)

I am in the process of launching my ISP w/o all the background
knowledge and experience of Internet Webmasters, such as yourself.

I am a retired school administrator so I would like to target schools,
parents and educational sites for my advertising.

I also want to get links to that same audience on my Web page. I do

submit my site via a submission program once a month although I do
not see my site on many search engines. I am considering paying one

of the submission sites in order to get placement on engines. I do not
know which one would be the best at this point.

You're heading towards the right direction. Niche marketing is certainly the
way to make things work in a positive direction. Especially when you have a

lot of competition. In today's competitive ISP space, the choice of attempting
to be a master of all ISP-related services is no longer a realistic option.

People usually choose their ISPs on speed, connectivity, service and support.

However, the problem these days is every other ISP claims to offer all these
services. Now because of this cutthroat competition, prices are being dropped
continuously and the customer acquisition cost is increasing day by day.

To make people buy your service, you need to position your business in such

a way, that people should not consider your service as the best, but the ONLY
solution to their specific needs.

In your particular case, since you're a retired school administrator, you can

bring all your school experience, and blend it with your newly acquired ISP
service.

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103

For example, you can directly tell people in your niche (i.e., the educational
sector) that you have the knowledge and skills of serving educational

institutes. And since you understand their needs very precisely, you have
designed your ISP services to deliver exactly what they want.

At this point, try to provide some unique benefits related to your chosen

niche. Maybe you can tell them, how they can get be benefited by entering a
dedicated ISP bandwidth, set aside for schools only. The point is try to

position your business on some unique aspect that your product or service
can provide within your niche.

As far as site submission is concerned, one of the best search engine resource
available online (which is one of my favorite) is

BruceClay.com

Couple of days back in a private forum somebody gave me an advice

that to make my business more profitable online I need to make a
good network of people besides other regular promotional activities.

So I followed that advice and got some little success in making a few
bucks through networking.

However, since then I'm totally swamped with extra workload. It
seems as if I'm working solely for my associates and I now feel I'm

not earning as much as I am putting my efforts into this new venture.
Moreover, I don't get time to update my site content, grow my

business and answer customer queries.

At first I thought it's temporary, but with the passage of time, I'm
getting trapped more and more under this networking loop. Is there a
way to avoid so much of extra redundant work, grow my business and

profit more at the same time? Please pull me out of this loop.

Since I don't know what sort of networking you are practicing in your
business, and how you're doing it, I can't precisely advise any solution.

However, to answer your question, I would like to say a few words.

If your networking model is based on Joint Ventures, or JVs, that you handle
yourself, you better not waste your time making deals with every other
website owner. Instead, look for people who offer product or service that

compliments yours.

There are reasons for this. Firstly, they must be having a targeted group of
customers. Second, in addition to endorse your product on their website, they

can upsell your product after every successive sale they make. Of course,
you're required to do the same, or whatever deal you get into with your

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104

partners. This frees up much of your time and you'll be able to get more sales
with this strategy.

Networking doesn't mean you network with everyone on the planet. Rather

identify your networking domain where you think most of the meat is present.

Can you devise any solution for my ailing Internet business? There's
so much confusion - I have tried almost all marketing techniques, but
all I've got in return is FRUSTRATION. It seems as if marketing has

lost its effectiveness on the net? Is there a way out to avoid this
confusion and make some real serious money?

I always believe that simple things work best in life. Marketing is no

EXCEPTION. It is simply the process of creating an effective stimulus in your
prospect's mind to buy your product or service.

Your problem is the problem of millions of other people, who have either lost
the grounds or are still fighting the battle. Since you have already spent a lot

of money on advertising and are unhappy with your current response rate, I
suggest you to look inside something what I call the "e-target zone".

In the e-target zone, don't even think to sell your product without first

determining your PERFECT customer. And a "perfect customer” is the

one

who will generate substantial profits over a long time period. And with the

proper guidance, you can create a marketing plan that identifies your niche
and attracts these customers. This will provide greater sales at less cost and
improve your bottom line.

Most online entrepreneurs make the costly mistake of trying to sell their

products to everyone. PLEASE DON'T DO THIS. I repeat PLEASE DON'T DO
THIS. It simply kills the sale. If you REALLY want to see your sales soaring,

first get yourself positioned in the e-target zone, and then catapult your
regular marketing strategies.

I guarantee this heals up your ailing Internet business to a much greater
extent and will make you a lot more money than you can possibly imagine :-)

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Million Dollar Niches!

www.NicheChallenge.com

105

Useful Web Resources

You see, with gazillion of internet marketing resources available all across the
Web, it’s tough to decide who you should listen to. What to buy, and whom to
trust. There’s so much chaos out there.

Below I have included a list of some excellent resources that I use myself
everyday, and recommend them to people on my mailing list, and others.
Among these great resources, some are free and some are paid product &
services. Rest assured they are cream of the cream on the Net.

Use them, buy them and above all, put them in action to increase your
profitability and to grow your business everyday.

Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Rankings

Keyword Tracker

Unfair Advantage Book to Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Watch

Shopping Cart & Ecommerce Solutions

1Shopping Cart

Paul Galloway

Net Office Toolbox

Ad Tracking

Super Ad Tracking - Adminder

Domain Registration

000domains.com

Affiliate Marketing & Network

Linkshare

AssociatePrograms

Pay Per Click Search Engines

Overture.com

Kanoodle

Ah-ha.com

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106

Online Books & Resources

Amazon.com

Affiliate Program Software

Assoctrac

SynergyX

My Affiliate Program

Email Auto-responders

Hosting for Multiple Minisites

Web Hosting

Host4Profit

Hosting.com

Link Directory and Reciprocal Link Solution

Arelis

Link Cloaking

Namestick

Internet Marketing Newsletters
Allan Gardyne’s

Associate Programs Newsletter

Phil Wiley’s

Amin Khan’s

Darren Roberts

Abbie Drew’s

Anne Holland’s

FutureNow’s

Jacob Nielsen’s

Dana Blankenhorn's

Roy William's

Wizard of Ads Monday

Flint McGlaughlin’s

MarketItRight Insights

Bob McElwain’s

STAT News

Dr. Ralph Wilson’s

Doctor Ebiz

Paul Myers

Talkbiz

Michael Campbell’s

Internet Marketing Secrets

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Mailing List Management Software

Mailloop

Internet Marketing Advice & Courses

Terry Dean’s NetBreakthroughs

Marketing Tips

Internet Marketing Advice for Newbies

Ablake Marketing Forum

Niche Marketing

NicheMarketResarch.com

NicheMarketingExplained.com

Network Marketing

Six Figures Income

CGI Resources