Introduction
Welcome to NicheShifter guide. Before we jump into it, let me explain why I even decided to write this guide.
In our daily marketing efforts, whether online or offline, we always look at the product, search for potential markets for it, and try hard promoting it, whatever it takes to do it.
But little do we care about the customers who buy these products. If you start looking at them closely, you’ll find new markets for those very customers.
When a potential customer enters your site, you’ve captured a visitor. Its your job to use this visit to the fullest potential.
NicheShifter technique is not to replace your existing marketing practices, but just an addition to it. If you can potentially add a few dollars on top of your existing customers or potential customers, its still worth it!
Thats all for the introduction. I’ve tried to keep this guide as small as possible.
So, lets begin!
A Word About Affiliate Websites
Lets first get some of the fundamentals straight. There can be various types of affiliate websites.
1. Most popular among new internet marketers are the websites whose sole purpose is to sell. The only content it has is about the product it wants the potential customer to buy. Something like a 3 product review.
Does this website work? Yes, to some extent, it does. But if your website just has a description of a product and an affiliate link to it, the visitor might still think of doing further research after being somewhat satisfied with the sales letter of the product.
2. This is where a second kind of affiliate website bags on. The first type might have to use Adwords or other PPC to bring in traffic, since their website offers mostly a single page with little content. These prospects might then search for that product’s reviews or information online.
The second type of affiliate websites have in-depth review, along with content related to that niche. Many are even smart enough to capture the user’s information for further contacts.
The owners of such websites might have tried the product themselves, knowing the ins and outs of it. They provide their own proof, along with bonuses of their own. They’re even smart enough to help the potential customer clear his cookies before he buys using their links.
So to some extent, they indirectly get help from webmasters who just introduce a product without adequate information from their side, spending wild amounts on paid advertising.
It is important to realize that customers are not fools. They might have stumbled upon thousands of offers from your niche, thus getting used to the “normal” marketing pitch. What they need is someone whom they trust to recommend the real goldmine.
The moral of the story is, try to interact with your visitors as much as possible. Write content that is useful.
A little example would be, lets say Web Hosting.
Loads of people would be searching for good web hosting everyday. They start with the most generic term (I.e. like web hosting). There are people who have Web Hosting Review sites advertised for this keyword. What do you find? Just links to web hosting sites they think are top 10.
Do they get sales? Yes! Some people might just be impressed by a hosting company’s website, and sign up quite instantly.
But there are some, who then want to know about that web host in more detail. They search for the company, find a detailed review site. This review site puts up its own affiliate link, instructing the user to clear cookies, and offer great bonuses.
So that Adwords ad has just indirectly sent a visitor to this detailed review site. This same thing goes with any sort of advertisement, or organic traffic.
The above was just a slight peep into affiliate websites. Since this book isn’t about affiliate websites, I guess the above information would be sufficient.
NicheShifter : Understand The People, Not Just The Product
OK. After such a “long” introductory part, I guess you’ll be eager to know about NicheShifter technique.
This isn’t something extra-ordinary, or a magical pill. Its just a way to add extra bucks to your pocket, while weaving different niches together.
Lets get directly to the point. To promote a specific product, you target different communities which might be interested in it. For example, an Internet Marketing Ebook could be promoted to college going people, who want some extra cash.
The list goes on and on. You might create different campaigns, targeting different keywords (paid or organic) and stuffs like that.
Its said that “long trail keywords” is the heart of organic traffic, especially when you’re starting out. There is one more thing to it. These keywords are specific, yet diverse enough for new markets to be advertised to the potential visitor.
Lets start with an example, which will introduce the concept of NicheShifter to you.
In the Internet Marketing niche, if you’re promoting a product which helps people make money online, you try targeting different communities which might be interested.
You can find long trail keywords in which housewives, moms want to make money online, or get a job online, which they can do sitting right at their home.
Generally, thousands of affiliate will promote various Internet Marketing courses, and then leave it as it is. They don’t go any further. They FAIL to understand the potential of these customers.
Since you ALREADY KNOW that most of the people entering your web-page or article would be moms looking for job, you can take your campaign a step further. There is NO harm in creating a autoresponder specifically for this category of people. If you’d like to promote something to all categories, today’s advanced autoresponders allow you to send messages to many lists at once. But you can get SPECIFIC with certain lists.
Now what do we do with these housewives looking for jobs? You should of course promote the main product while sitting in their shoes. At the same time, understand all other problems these housewives might be facing, in general, which they haven’t searched for yet!
Since they’re looking for an online job, they might be tight on money. Its obvious isn’t it? Thus, At the same time, you can promote various sites selling coupons/discounts for food, grocery, hotels etc.
Not just that, you could even provide resources for healthy diet for her husband and kid(s). Even cheap clothes, discounts etc. for clothes can get great responses. The list goes on and on. Affiliate products need not be the only source of revenue. Adsense, banner space etc. can also bring you cash.
You can have PLENTY of such ideas depending on the niche. The best way to research the people and finding the right NicheShifted content is to track your results. Free tracking tools like Google Analytics can track people who came to a specific page through a specific entry point.
Many tools can track which keyword resulted in a sale, so that you can concentrate your efforts more towards it.
If many job looking housewives are looking for nutritional information, you can work more towards it. It does take testing. You should put efforts into understanding your target audience.
Did you get the idea of NicheShifter? In a line or so, NicheShifter wants you to target not only products you’re promoting, but products which your target audience will be interested in, however distinct the niche!
The only thing remaining is beginning to use it. This is NicheShifter.
I know this thing looks pretty obvious. In the same way in which ‘Bum Marketing’ might look obvious to many, yet it was quite revolutionary.
Building a list specific to various categories of people interested in a specific product gives you a personal connection to them. You start understanding what they want. They too start interacting with you. This is where more product ideas lands on your mind, and you might dig up some more when you NicheShift it!
The whole part on NicheShifter does look very small. You might think it finished before it even started. But I wanted to keep things compact. I didn’t want to add pages and pages of content just to please your eyes when you look at the number of pages this guide has.
I also decided to choose a funky name like NicheShifter because it looks quite attractive. Its also a very obvious technique, but something 99% don’t even think about using.
Now that you’ve understood what is NicheShifter, I’ll proceed to give you on how to use it in Bum Marketing (Article Marketing) and with PPC.
NicheShifter And Bum Marketing
Lets say you’re writing an article on getting good deals on cars. You could also add a few points on how to save money.
People looking for deals on car are already trying their best to save money, and need to save some more through car deals. They might just “assume” they did everything to save money, but you can show them the right path. A person looking for a car deal will mostly have a family.
You could give hints in your article on the fact that they might not be saving money effectively. They’ll click on your resource box link to find out about car deals as well as having a open mind about saving money efficiently.
But TIMING IS IMPORTANT
Just plugging such ads in-between the car deals will not do the trick effectively. Thats the reason, you should have an opt-in list. You can give quality information to them after they opt-in.
And then, in a timely manner, talk about their daily lives.
Are you spending too much on grocery?
Are dresses costing too much?
etc.
etc.
You can talk freely about these things in an opt-in list, because they all don’t come at the same time. You can provide them with little tips. Things that they really need… With this, you have a profitable campaign.
