ESSENTIAL MARKETING & INCOME BUILDING EBOOK BLOG POST 1

             

    CHAPTER 1

The Concept 

Before starting out with this eBook, we need to know what the terms surrounding rich marketer and poor marketer. This will help put everything in perspective. In today’s terms, a rich marketer is someone who has access to different resources and utilizes them. A rich marketer is someone who knows what it means to run a successful business and is able to cater to the market in the wisest manner. The rich marketer understands the importance of money and at the same time does not flinch from making an investment, either in improving the quality of the product or in promoting the product to the market, because it is the promotion that will bring in more money to do bigger stuff.

In essence, a rich marketer is a person who knows what the market is all about and gives it what it wants. This helps the rich marketer to continue on the path of progress and go ahead in business pursuits.

So, where does the poor marketer falter? The truth is that the poor marketer has access to the same resources that the rich marketer has, but the problem is that the poor marketer does not know about them. The poor marketer delves in ignorance, like the proverbial frog in the well.

The world has undergone a drastic change in the 21st Century. Like in the feudal ages, the world is no longer divided into ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. The demarcation is not so simple at present. Today, the distinction is between the ‘knows’ and the ‘know-nots’. The people who know how to implement the methods that they have access to and the people who do not know about these methods, forget their implementation. This is what is creating the divide between the rich and the poor today.

If you are reading between the lines, you will understand that the world of today has resources for everyone. Everything is there for everyone to use. But, not everyone is using those things in the way they should.

This is what we are going to see in this chapter—the divide between the rich marketer and the poor marketer. We are going to see what inspired us to come up with this concept. We will also see how the reality is true, in any age, but it is only the surficial aspects that tend to change from one age to another.

Where the Idea Stems from

With a plethora of information on “get rich quick” ideas and “self-help” aids, it is easy to wonder who we should listen to and who to ignore. Robert Kiyosaki of “Rich Dad Poor Dad” fame and a founding member of the Elevation Group is one of those people who when they speak on a subject are worth listening too. Why do I say that?

He has sat where so many of us are currently sitting. In the current economic climate, with so many questions about whether or not any business or investment decisions we make will actually make or lose us money, he has already trod the path of indecision. He, like most of us, has sat facing unpaid bills and the pressures of an income cannot sufficiently cover household and family expenses and has learned how to turn things around. He has learned how to use the economy to make his wealth.

His approach is not a simple get rich quick scheme, but a planned and focused approach to using the tools already in our hands to create a future that many can only dream, Education is the key to open this door of opportunity. Reflecting on the past, learning about trends and

using them to gain valuable insights into the present and future is the approach Robert advocates. As we do this in business and in our personal lives, we can turn around our financial affairs and reap the same rewards he has achieved in this process.

Many of Roberts’s books have achieved bestseller status. He is a highly regarded in the business world and as an author who has helped countless ordinary people achieve their dreams of a better future. His websites and blogs detail the life choices that confronted him, to either stick with the status quo or see gaining wealth as something negative or to seize the opportunity and use the current economic climate to find a better way of dealing with the resources and assets at his disposal.

Robert chose this path and the result is “Richer Dad,” an innovative approach to helping people make choices and decisions. Robert uses the education approach to help people take charge of the financial planning of their lives and businesses. His online websites and EBooks provide free resources to help guide readers to make personal choices that will benefit them as they seek to decide how to invest money safely.

This is a guide for those who are in business and who are seeking to use online marketing as a tool for their business success. The book describes the importance of creating a niche-marketing environment. It explores the common problems people make in online marketing and will assist you to identify your personal business niche. You will learn how to achieve an effective marketing strategy for your unique niche and how to use the proven Richer Dad principles to achieve dominance in a highly competitive market place.

Kiyosaki’s Financial Precepts and Effective Marketing

Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, is a popular name all over the world. He is an American, a fourth-general Japanese American, to be precise. He has written several books, all in the financial niche, all of them designed to be motivational and self-help books, intended to take people towards the path of progress in their business. He is known for his keen financial insight. Most of his advice stems from his own precepts. He tells people of the many ways in which they can achieve financial liberation while managing their own enterprise.

Kiyosaki does not differentiate between the different ways in which one might carry on their moneymaking tactics. He does not tell you to become a businessperson or an investor or a marketer. Instead, he tells you what you must do in order to attract wealth doing whatever you are doing. That is what makes him a special author.

He has special views about the concept of marketing though. Though Kiyosaki has not spoken about marketing directly in any of his works, but his perceptions are all clear. He says that if you intend to have a great rapport with your clients, if you want to grow your business, then the one way in which you can do that is by increasing your network. When your network is expanded, you can tap into it to make the most of your business.

This does require some effort though, and that is the reason why everyone is not into it. It takes special expertise as well. That is what separates the successful people from the not-so-successful ones. Proper networking is needed to reach out to a niche, which is where the real business prospects lie.

The Rich Marketer Poor Marketer Concept

Kiyosaki’s model is universally applicable. Our intention here is not to refute or criticize this model, but to see how well it applies to the world of marketing as it stands today. Marketing is an entirely different ballgame—you may feel that it is so different from the individualistic approach that has been used in the inspirational book—but if you scratch the surface, then you begin to see the similarities.

In this eBook, our focus is going to be on a few important points

We are going to see what it is that makes marketers rich today. Yes, we must admit that we have a special fondness for Internet marketing, which is the way the whole world is going right now. The best way to become rich at present is by being an Internet based marketer, because that is what people can really use, at an individual and at an organizational level, to take them to higher realms of their potential.

Secondly, we are going to see that there are so many different things that these rich marketers do not wish to tell their poorer counterparts, which in this case, are the people who have just started out and have still to carve a name for themselves in the Internet marketing world. It takes time; nothing is achieved without an effort, and there are many secrets that are keeping the goodies from them. In short, what are the different things that are making the rich marketers rich and are depriving the poor ones of the resources that these rich marketers have access to?

The third aspect of this eBook is the possibility. Even if you are counted as a poor marketer at present, there is no reason why you should not climb the ladder and go higher. You have the access to the same things that the rich marketers have, only maybe you are lacking in the knowledge and information about it… so here is your source to make the most of those things.

The most important thing that you would need is the change of the mindset. You have to shun the thought of debilitation from your mind. There is no reason why you cannot go higher. Everyone started out somewhere first, and in the marketing world, age is just a number. It does not matter what age you are… you can just go all out and popularize yourself immensely in the marketing world.

When Is a Niche Not a Niche in Marketing

One of the most important things that you need to know about being a rich marketer is how to tap into your niche. Your success depends on that. You need to know where your target customers are, and if you are able to focus on them, you will be building on your prospects. That is the real truth; there is no other truth beyond that.

That is the reason we have decided to clear the air about the concept of niche here. You need to know where your special forte is and you have to play to their needs and interests. In fact, this is what will make you really popular and bring the people to you that you need to promote your business to.

At the same time, you also need to be clear about the misconceptions of niche. There are marketers who have an illusion of what their niche is. They think something is a niche when in fact it is an asset for someone else. Having a precise idea about your niche is what can help you to succeed in your business.

              CHAPTER 2

When Is a Niche Not a Niche in Marketing

“Survival of the Fittest” is not merely a topic for discussion in a science classroom. In a competitive business environment, only the business that is able to successfully market itself and its products and service will survive. Weaker ones will simply lose their customer base and eventually go into liquidation or bankruptcy. This is inevitable.

The Need of the Niche

To gain a top marketing position and remain there, it is essential that the focus be narrow and the commitment to be best be determined. Without this approach, focus can become too broad and it becomes easy to spend time and money on too many things, none of which will provide the competitive edge the business needs to survive. By creating a niche market focus, not only does a business define a place for itself and its products and services, but it is enabled to take advantage of an existing market for that niche.

Many businesses that promote a product or service believe they have a niche market, because of what they are seeking to sell or provide. While this is true to a certain degree, the focus may still be too broad for the marketing strategy to be considered a niche. A true niche is not only the product or service being sold, it is also about the target audience of the advertising campaign. Advertising strategies are specifically pitched to customers who already are interested in the products and services on offer and actively searching to purchase or use them.

Most businesses market a large range of products to broad groups who may or may not be interested in what is being offered. Business strategies are often developed to advertise to a much broader potential customer base. By narrowing advertising strategies through a niche approach to marketing, valuable time, resources and money are not wasted. No matter how well advertising is presented, much of this style of advertising will only translate into a modest increase in customer numbers.

By focusing on the niche approach to marketing, the conversion rate of traffic to customers is much higher than for those businesses that focus on a broader marketplace. The added benefit for those who enter into the niche market is smaller market competition to contend with and therefore a greater opportunity for faster success.

Finding your niche is the key to successful marketing and in the remaining chapters, we will focus on how to identify your niche and how to market products and services to potentiate sales profits. This approach to business also frees the business owner to be passionate about their product or service with people who are going to be interested in it. The niche market is already an interested audience for advertising campaigns.

Niche marketing has the potential to give a business immediate online marketing success. Robert Kiyosaki explains why

“The only way one will create wealth is to understand that wealth comes from us not to us. Wealth is a reward for services rendered. That is why you must help and truly give value to others and that’s when you will attract people and wealth. If you focus on a check you will make just a living but if you focus on relationship you’ll make a fortune.”

Niche marketing takes this principle and potentiates it in the business environment.

Identifying Your Niche

When you have realized the importance of a niche for your business, you will understand that there are various things that you need to do in order to identify it. Your niche is the narrow area where your business will focus on. It is the green pasture for you… the little area where you have the most lucrative prospects to take your business ahead. This is the area where you know your business has a demand, and hence the prospects are high. Instead of promoting your business to the whole wide world, just concentrating on this little niche market really makes sense, because here even if you market to only a 100 people, there is a chance that more than 80 people will view your business favorably, because you have already tapped into a market that is interested in you.

Let us discuss some methods in which you can find your niche

One of the best ways to get your niche is to follow your hobby or passion and convert it into a business. This is a very easy thing to do and it will mostly come naturally to you because you are already knowledgeable about your hobby and it could be fun to promote something that you are already excited about. So, if your hobby is fishing, you could start a business about something relating to fishing, such as maybe making and selling fishing rods. Who is your niche in this case? Your niche is all the anglers of the world.

Doesn’t it make perfect sense? When you are a hobbyist yourself, it is easier for you to get in touch with the other anglers of the world. You know where they hang out, you know how to get in touch with them, and you know what will arouse their interest. In this case, you are a part of the niche, you are not apart from the niche. It helps you to have a clear focus about what you are going to do and that can certainly help your business prospects.

You can also find a niche by finding a specialized area of an existing market. Take this example. The cell phone market is a huge market. Now, if you think of getting into the cell phone manufacturing market, that is a very huge task that you are planning to take up. Are you confident of meeting the demands of this very wide market? That is certainly a tall order! Then, suppose that you are able to narrow down your market. Instead of catering to the entire cell phone using fraternity, you decide that you will focus on a part of it. You decide that you will specialize in making cell phones for students only.

In that case, you do not have to go too far. You only have to take a look at the needs, requirements and preferences of the student community and you create devices for them alone. You are not interested in the other users of cell phones and what they are looking for because that does not form a part of your niche market. You only want to get in touch with people who are part of your niche.

Naturally, you will be able to produce more sophisticated products because you can do research on what this specific market needs and you will be better equipped to provide it to them.

Another way to identify a niche is to find out a shortcoming or a lacking in an existing market. When refrigerators were first invented, they were made of wooden or metallic bodies and they did not have the rubber lining that they come with presently. Due to this, these refrigerators were immensely noisy and definitely not a pleasure to use.

Some smart cookie understood this shortcoming in refrigerators and then thought of a method to eliminate the noisy nuisance. Thus, the rubber lining was invented. You see the point… this was an add-on, something that was a failing of a previous product and now it has become a complete industry in itself.

Maybe you should take a look around as well. There are several products out there that need some kind of finesse. Also, there are several services out there that can do with some better planning. You do not need a scientific mind for that. Haven’t you sometimes, after using a particular product or service, felt that if you had designed it, it would have been better? Now is the time where you can use all these ideas and opinions and create a niche for yourself… likeminded people like you who are also looking for those very things that you purport to give to them and make some money in the process.

Something that is the need of the hour could be an excellent niche for you to deal with. There are so many things that are lacking in the world that we live in. You should have a keen eye for finding out about those things. Then sit down and think—why are those things lacking? Can you do something about it? Can you provide people with any solutions there?

In such cases, it might be required for you to up your skills a little. You might need to learn new things. You might need to invent something even. But do not let that faze you. The biggest marketers of the world, the most successful people, are those who have identified some unsatisfied need in the world and then provided that to people.

Create a need. This is perhaps the most difficult way of finding out your niche. It will take the greatest amount of creativity and effort. But, you can do it if you are given time. What did Bill Gates do? He created a niche, he created a need. He created a whole new niche of people who wanted to use computers. And that created a million sub-niches of its own.

You will need oodles of talent and inventiveness to develop a niche by creating a need. But, you should start by thinking about a new product… a product that will benefit humankind in some way. You may have some ideas on that already. There are a lot more people with such ideas than you might think. If you have something in your mind, do not nip it in the bud. Think about what you can do to implement it, after you have carefully assessed the worth of that idea. If you are sure, then you can go ahead and think about building on your concept… and creating a need in the process.

Building a Unique Niche Approach to Business

If you want to really shine in your business, transition into becoming the rich marketer, then you need to develop a unique niche approach to your business. Every marketer right now needs to have a niche—we have already established that fact in the previous chapter—but to really stand out, you will need to have a niche that is unique.

Your niche must be just your own. That helps you build a stronger hold on the market because you do not have a competition. This kind of monopoly might be difficult to achieve, but once you have done it, there is no stepping back. There is nothing that can deter you from going ahead.

                     CHAPTER 3

Building a Unique Niche Approach to Business

If you are already in business, you may already have a reasonable idea of what your unique niche already is. Most people enter into business, whatever its size, because they have an interest in the product or service they are selling. Perhaps you have qualifications within the industry your business operates or you have previously sold products and gained experience with the produce you are now selling yourself.

Your niche is the primary product you are selling and the secondary products are those products that support the primary product. If you do not have a primary product, then your primary product should be the product you are currently ranking as your bestseller with customers.

If you are reading this eBook with the intention of starting your own business then consider the products or services that already have your personal interest. Investigate which of these are already in high demand with prospective customers. If you remain undecided about your business focus, choosing the product or service already in demand, will provide you with a potential niche focus.

Knowing which product or service to sell is at least in the early stages of developing a business, the easy stage. The important point is not to grow your niche too big too quickly without having identified the niche group to market it too. Most businesses fail by trying to expand too quickly and without the customer or client base to support the expansion.

When determining how to market the niche, it is tempting to take advantage of all the Internet marketing tools and develop strategies more focused on optimizing a website for search engines in the hope of attracting new customers. This temptation may attract traffic to your website, but it is not necessarily going to mean those visitors will become customers who will remain loyal to your business.

When we remember, the role that developing relationships play in building wealth potential, it is easy to understand why statistics show that the best way to increase business is to develop relationships with your existing customers. This approach to customer service, contributes to customer loyalty to your products and services. Their word of mouth recommendation of your products and services will attract its own traffic.

Building a niche focus group does not mean not implementing optimization techniques to build a broader customer base, but rather encourages the resources and financial assets be directed towards an already interested market base. This enables the business to reward customer loyalty and build on existing relationships, rather than constantly needing to build new ones to maintain sales and profits.

Robert Kiyosaki has described the importance of this service relationship approach to creating a customer niche. He highlights the principle that “wealth is a reward for services rendered!” As businesses provide products services to their customers, and customers recognize that they and what they want and need are the business focus and not just profit, they will return continuously and will bring other customers with them.

How Big Should Your Niche Be?

This is an important question that needs to be answered before you can plan anything concrete about your business. All your business-related activities—planning strategies, creating a plan for your business promotion, hiring people to work for it—will depend on the size of your niche. If your niche is very narrow, you will probably require only a few resources to bring it to fruition, but if your niche is huge, then you will probably need a large number of resources to make it happen.

That is the reason why you have to think about the size of your niche. Maybe you could begin by making a fair assessment of the kind of resources that you have at your disposal. What is the budget you have? How many people are working with you? What is their expertise? What are your qualifications? What eligibilities do you have? And, most importantly, what are the visions that you have about your business?

These are the questions that you should ask yourself and get good answers to when you are planning on the size of your niche. You need to make sure that you select a size that works for you—a size in which you can fulfill your business’s goals and ambitions.

Moreover, there is one very important thing. Whatever business you start with, one day you will need to expand it. At that time, you will want to widen your niche. That is why, even if you are choosing a small niche now, make sure that there is scope for growth. Your niche should be able to grow when you are ready for it. Will you be able to implement techniques that will help you find more people to add to your niche, and hence aid you in growing your business?

The preliminary planning that you make for your business is what dictates its future. At the same time, I should tell you not to be too reserved and restrained in your thinking—there is a lot you can do if you visualize and plan hard. So, let yourself loose!

Marketing Strategies and Your Personal Niche

What you do with your chosen niche is a very important deciding factor for the way your business goes. Every business has a niche, whether they realize it consciously or not, and it is the niche that they cater to that matters the most. Now, every business has a different niche as well. That’s the reason no two businesses can implement the same kind of marketing strategies. You will need to have an air of uniqueness about your marketing methods, just as your business niche itself is unique.

Here, pay close attention to this uniqueness factor, which is what can take businesses to the direction we want them to go.

In addition, in this chapter, we are going to discuss the popular marketing strategies that rich marketers use today. These are the secrets that rich marketers won’t tell their poor counterparts, because they can do without the added competition. However, what they do not realize is that there is place for everyone. If you help others in the online world, they will help you too.

                  CHAPTER 4

Marketing Strategies and Your Unique Niche

Why Do You Need a Unique Niche?

Today, the main mantra of any business is that it needs to have a well-defined niche that is its own. This is what helps it get an identity and establishes it in the industry.

Consider two credit card companies. Both have approximately the same features and are competitors of each other in a way. They are doing similar business as well. At present, both companies are working with the same niche. Then, one of the credit card companies goes ahead and introduces special cards for students. This special student credit card has features like milder credit checks (which helps students because they do not have a credit rating yet), a lower spending limit (which helps students because they can manage their expenses better that way and ensure that they do not run long bills) and a low interest rate. Due to these features, this company wins over the trust of the student niche. Almost overnight, it overtakes its rival and its business improves.

This is an example in which a specialized niche can help your business. But let us take this example further.

Now, in order to still focus their attention on a closer niche, the company offers some incentives to African-American students who want to take their credit cards. The niche becomes more concentrated now. These students go all out and order their credit cards. The business now spreads like wildfire, though it is within a very small niche.

However, it does make sense. The company has now monopolized credit cards in the African-American community. People from this niche are going to consider just this company when they want credit cards. An intelligent move by this company is that it is catching people when they are young, when they are still students. Most of them are going to grow up and still think by default about the same company. So, even when they are adults, the company has already sold their credit cards to them.

In business, it is always the smarter cookie that turns out to be the richer marketer. It always works. You have to be one step ahead of your competitors if you have to win the rat race.

Think what they are not offering to the marketers. Then sit and plan your strategy to offer that same thing. Within the market, is there a group of people—a large group of people—on whom you can pay special attention and increase your business potential? Then do that. Go ahead with that group. This is your special niche. When you focus your attention on them, you are sure to multiply your business.

It is always wise to have 1,000 customers in a closed niche than have 100 customers in a wide niche.

Can Your Business Niche Really Be Unique?

Now, the question is, can you have a unique niche? Is it possible to have that? Isn’t it possible that your competitor has thought of it already?

These are the kinds of apprehensions that create apprehensions in the minds of even the most prolific marketer and hold them down. You cannot have such skepticism in your mind when you are trying to enter the rich marketer category. Even if your competitor might have thought of this niche already, they have not tapped into it. In the business world, it is always the first person who takes the step that counts, that builds the monopoly.

When Alexander Graham Bell applied for the telephone patent, he was lucky because several other people applied for the same patent in the next few days. Their machines were almost the same as what Bell had devised, but still today we know Bell as the inventor of the telephone, not any of the others. Bell was also a great businessperson. He immediately got to selling his units and made a successful—highly successful—business out of it.

So, the timing surely matters. Something may be holding your competitors back, which is not your problem, because you haven’t encountered it. There is no reason why a mere suspicion that your competitor may also be trying to enter into the niche should stop you from doing things.

To build your unique niche, these are the things you need to look for

Think whether there is a special group within your larger group—a kind of subset within the universal set that you have been targeting for so long. What can you give to this special sub-niche? There might be some special features that they are looking for, they may have their own set of preferences and likes and dislikes. There might be some cultural points that you might consider as well. If there are things you can do that can help this special group feel more special, then why not go all out and give it to them? This could be your own, very unique niche.

Maybe you could look at your own personality… your own hobbies and passions.

Consider an example. Maybe you are an artist; that is your hobby, not your profession. Your profession is that you are a fashion designer. Now, there are many fashion designers in the business and competition is certainly quite tough. But, you can plan something special. You are an artist, aren’t you? You think of embellishing your T-shirts with your own artwork. You make unique artworks and print them on the T-shirts and flood the market with them.

This can really get the people’s attention. The strength lies in numbers too. When people can see these T-shirts prominently displayed, they are going to be interested in them. Just make sure not to go overboard though, because fashion should not be too commonplace.

But, you get the point. Now you have something that your competitors don’t have. You have an advantage and you are leveraging it on your business. In the meantime, your business is popularizing your artistic talent as well. You are aiming at two birds with one stone.

You have developed a special unique niche of your own—a niche of people who have become fans of your artwork. They wouldn’t want anything else right now. You have a huge edge over your competitors. It just took you some thought to develop this sub-niche; you had the talent in you all the time.

There is another way to build a sub-niche. Are you associated with something that people know you for? Maybe you have done some charitable work for senior citizens in the past. Or maybe you are Jewish. Or something like that. If you have such a cultural, religious or linguistic edge, you have an opportunity there to create a sub-niche of people like you. Like attracts like in the world of business. Even today, in this highly liberal world that we are living in, people like to gather amidst other people who are similar to them. You might work this to your advantage in business. There is no harm in catering to a particular category of people; it is looked upon as philanthropy rather than sectarianism.

What Marketing Strategies Should You Adopt?

Once you have a unique niche, there is one important thing that you have to think about. You have to think how to reach out to this niche. Unless you are able to promote your activities to this special niche you have created, your efforts will be futile. Hence, a very important part of the job will be to implement proper marketing techniques to reach out to your niche, to popularize your business within the niche.

The following are some of the methods that you can use. In our subsequent chapters, we are going to see one of these methods—which we have handpicked to be the best in the current reckoning—in much greater detail. And, all of these methods are implementable on the Internet, because that is the weapon of the rich marketer of today.

Popularize your product through articles. This strategy includes writing meaningful, informative articles and publishing them on the Internet across various directories. There are many article directories that will take your article submissions for free. You could consider the following places to put your articles; these are the best in the business right now…

EzineArticles (http://www.ezinearticles.com/)

Articles Base (http://www.articlesbase.com/)

Article City (http://www.articlecity.com/)

Article Alley (http://www.articlealley.com/)

Buzzle (http://www.buzzle.com/)

iSnare (http://www.isnare.com/)

Go Articles (http://www.goarticles.com/)

Associated Content (http://www.associatedcontent.com/)

Amazines (http://www.amazines.com/)

Article Directory (http://www.articledirectory.com/)

There are many advantages of writing articles on these directories. First and foremost, you are giving out something to people for free—information. Most of the people in your market are looking for information right now. And, if you can give them this information for free, you are directly adding them to your fan base.

Also, by giving them relevant information, you are establishing your stamp of credibility on them. You are telling them, in no indefinite terms, that you know what you are talking about. You are showing them your expertise, and this makes you different. You may notch up a good fan following of people who like to read your articles… and that is your unique niche right there. These people, who grow accustomed to your manner of giving information, will not want to buy products from anyone else.

The second marketing strategy, and this one is a personal favorite, is blogging. Have you tried blogging? This is perhaps the best way in which you can reach out to your unique niche and do the most of it. A blog is your personal space. It is the live recording of what you think and feel, in a chronicled manner. But, it is more than that. This is a place where people can read about you, and your business because that is our intention here, and they can post their comments. This has become a powerful tool of creating visibility over the Internet today.

Blogs are same as well as different from articles. They are same in the manner that they contain content. They are similarly text-based and if you look just at the content on Notepad or something like that, you may not be able to tell whether the content will eventually land up on an article directory or a blog. But maybe the similarities end there. The reason is that blogs are highly interactive. When you are on a blog, it is possible for you to receive comments from your readers. They can read your blog posts, comment on them, and even share them with their own groups.

Blogs are the real new-age Internet marketing tools right now. They are so interactive that they can be shared through Web 2.0 tools such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Squidoo, HubPages and so many more. Each of these tools is designed in such a way that they can popularize content on the Internet. Once you have a blog post on Digg, for example, the friends of the readers who dugg your content will be able to read it too. They will be able to digg the content as well, which will add to its popularity. As a result, a lot of likeminded people are going to read your content and they may like the whole thing. With such social tools, you are growing your business at every minute or, to say it more precisely, you are growing your unique niche at every moment. This counts a lot for your business, doesn’t it?

In fact, if you carry on with this in the right manner, you might be able to take your business just where you want to take it, and become a rich marketer.

You may also want to try putting up press releases on the Internet. When you have devised a new product that you aim will cater to a new niche, or a special sub-niche within your existing niche, then you would do best if you would design a professional press release about it and submit it on a website like PRWeb (http://www.prweb.com/), which is a press release directory.

Press releases are usually viewed favorably by the search engines because they contain updated information about something new that they feel people would like to know about. Hence, once you have a press release put up, people are immediately going to know about

it. Services like Google’s Google Alerts and Yahoo’s Shine are instrumental in popularizing press releases to a greater extent, which means your chosen people are going to know very soon about what you want to tell them.

Internet press releases are different from offline press releases that you might find in newspapers and other publications. Here, the press releases carry a direct link to your business webpages. Hence, people who are interested in what they read can directly come and visit your website. They can find out what your business is about, and carry on from there. Do not underestimate the power of a great press release in popularizing your business to your special niche.

Email marketing is another thing you have to consider. In this method, just as the name indicates, you send out emails to a group of targeted people. What are these emails about? You have to carefully design them so that they do not look spammy and they should contain some meaningful content for your customers. They can contain some subtle marketing strategy within them, but on the face of it, they would work the best if they look like they are part of a series or some tutorial that you are providing for free for your chosen target group.

You cannot send emails to people just like that. You will need to solicit their permission beforehand. Most of the rich marketers of the Internet today have done so by collaborating with popular websites and creating opt-in forms on these websites. When people become members on these websites, they are asked whether they would like information from their partners. People who agree to that are the people who opt in to get such emails.

Once you have such a list of people, you can start sending them emails. You should not send too many emails—just 1 email every week or two should be sufficient to get your point across. Remember that you do not want to become a rich marketer at the cost of sounding too desperate. Also, build a powerful strategy right at the start. Once you have your strategy, do not shift from your path. You might have 10, 20 or 40 emails in a series—it does not matter, but it is necessary that there is a common strand connecting them all.

You can make the most out of your email series by using autoresponders. Autoresponders are automated messages that are send out to someone when they take a particular action. For example, people may get an automated message as soon as they opt in to your service. This message invites them to the group. You can have more automated messages later on during the course… in fact, you can schedule the entire email series to be sent out through autoresponders.

Take a look at these resources. Your competitors are doing it already, and if you want to become a rich marketer, you need to use these techniques before they do. Also, email marketing is a wonderful way to personally contact people from your unique group, which makes them feel special and they start thinking quite favorably about you.

One more marketing strategy that you can consider to get in touch with your unique niche is to build a great sales page proclaiming what you do. This sales page could be as long or as short as you want, and you can make it as creative as you want to. A sales page is a blatantly promotional page, so it is very different from all the other methods I have discussed with you, but it can hit the mark if you plan it well.

Basically, your sales page should tell people what your business is about. You need not tell them all the details right away, but your sales page could be a way of giving them a good

preliminary idea about your business. You could consolidate your sales page by giving people an option to opt in to some list so that they can be kept in the loop for further information.

Today, marketers are designing immensely different sales page, using all the creativity that they have. It is possible to have audio clips and video clips in a sales page. There are also small people images that can crop up from the bottom right of the screen announcing the product and speaking to people about it that can be placed on the sales page. There are links to other social networking places that you can put on the sales page, where people can go visit and find out more about you.

But, what really takes the cake on the sales pages are the testimonials. You should try to get good testimonials from your existing clients and put them on your sales page. This really makes a difference. People understand that your product is something worth considering because there are a lot of happy people who have used the product. Even here, you have ways to be unique. You could add video testimonials from people!

Speaking of videos, there is one more very interesting and highly effective way to make your business reach out to your chosen niche. That is of video marketing. You can try this method out. Make a short video about yourself saying something about your business—it could be some kind of a tutorial video, or it could be a review, or it could just be an interview… anything you would like. Once you have such a video, put it up on websites such as YouTube or Metacafe.

You will almost immediately see the jump in sales. Right now, YouTube is second to only Google as the most popular search engine in the world. People are coming here to find information. In fact, they are coming here to look for videos. When you make meaningful videos and post them on YouTube, you are getting very popular. Your credibility is increasing. Also, you can add links for your business within these videos themselves. People can straightaway visit your website once they have liked your video; it is as simple as that.

Do you realize the immense advantages of having a video about yourself or your business? You are automatically increasing your popularity by leaps and bounds. You are becoming some kind of Internet celebrity and you are stamping your credentials. People will trust you as a reliable source for information and as an authority, provided you post good content. And, since you are trying to locate your special niche within the niche, this is the method that can take you there.

You may also want to try out affiliate marketing. This is one of the ways in which you can go out and reach your unique niche. When you are marketing through your affiliates, essentially you are placing an ad of your business on their websites, blogs or whatever. These people are generally those who have businesses related to yours. Thus, they have a good chance of bringing in your special niche to you.

For example, if you have a business of selling pregnancy wear, then a website that gives pregnancy self-help information could be your affiliate website. You could put up an ad of your business on their website. When women come looking on that website for information about their pregnancy, they will see your ad and most likely they will click on it to visit your website as well. That is how simple it is to bring an interested person over to your website through affiliate marketing.

Affiliate means to associate with or be a member of something or someone. This means that affiliate marketing can be considered as a business that gives compensation or a reward for a person who brings another client into the business. There are many examples of affiliate marketing available both online and offline. One example is whereby a client is giving a certain money back coupon when they refer another client to the vendor of a good or service.

Other examples are when a person is given gifts in form of cash or other rewards for referring people to the vendor. These examples are the reason why some people earn some money using affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is done through using certain levels. The levels are mainly four which can be used to make affiliate marketing a success. In the first level there is the merchant or vendor. From the vendor, the next levels are the network, the publisher and the affiliate. These steps of marketing have an indirect connection with internet marketing at some point. This is attributed to the use of regular advertising methods by affiliates to get other affiliates.

Advertising methods that affiliates use will include email marketing, display advertising, search engine marketing and search engine optimization. One form of strategic affiliate marketing is by using one website to drive and send traffic to another. This is one of the methods of internet, marketing that is normally unseen by advertisers. Other modes of online marketing are predominant than affiliate marketing. It is still on a low profile despite the fact that it is a big part of online marketing.

There are some compensation methods that are normally made using affiliate marketing. These compensation methods given to affiliates are different and understanding them would be advisable. The methods are:-

Predominant compensation methods

Diminished compensation

Performance marketing

Multitier programs

Predominant compensation methods

When these types of compensation methods are used, there is the revenue sharing and cost per share that is given. The percentage of programs that use Cost per Share (CPS) is 80%. 19% of the programs compensate on a Cost per Action (CPA) method. The remaining percentage is normally used by Cost per Mille (CPM) and Cost per Click (CPC).

Diminished compensation methods

Markets that are mature use a different mode of compensation. Less than 1% of these traditional affiliate programs currently use CPC and CPM. Such kinds of compensation procedures are mainly used in paid searches and display advertising. CPM will require the party advertising to avail the advert on the site and display it to visitors so that they can get a commission. When PPC (Pay per Click) is used, there is another step that has to be accomplished in order to receive compensation. It will require the visitor not only to view the advertisement, but also to click on it.

On clicking the advertisement, they are directed to the advertiser’s website. CPC had a lot of popularity when affiliate marketing was starting. However, there has been a continuous rise in click fraud such that the method is seen as an easy way to defraud some money from the internet. Though some of these methods have had a decrease in popularity in some areas, there are some which are still being used in other areas. A good example of an area that still uses these methods is China. When compared to the West, it has a different system to compensate affiliates. Most of the affiliates are being paid on a Cost per Day basis. Some of the networks in China will offer CPC and CPM despite the reasons stated above.

Performance marketing

In CPM and CPC, the publisher will not be interested by a visitor becoming a member of the audience that an advertiser is trying to target. The reason behind this is that the publisher will already have gotten their commission. As a result, a lot of loss and risk is left to the advertiser if a visitor cannot be converted. In most cases, the highest risk is seen in CPM.

CPS and CPA will need the referred visitors to do more than just have a look that the website that thy have been referred to in order to receive a commission. The advertiser has to make sure that the visitor is converted. To make a conversion, an affiliate will have to send traffic that is mostly targeted to the advertiser. This way, they will have a higher chance of making a conversion. Risk and loss in this situation is normally shared between the advertiser and the affiliate.

In some cases, affiliate marketing can be termed as performance marketing. The term is used in reference to the compensation of the employees. Most of these employees are paid by commission. However, there are added bonuses for performing more than the baseline which they were given.

Affiliate marketing has been misunderstood to be like a sales team. This is not true due to two reasons. The first reason is that a person who is an affiliate marketer provides very small and sometimes no influence on a possible prospect. Secondly, an advertiser’s sales team will not have any control of any prospect.

Multitier programs

There is a type of programs that give commissions on a hierarchical referral network. Such programs are normally referred to as multitier programs. A good example of the same is when a publisher, say publisher “1”, gets a contact with an advertiser. Once they get this contract, they will get other publishers which we will call “2” and “3”. The two of the new publishes will sign up for the same system or program using the code that publisher “1” gave them.

Once they have signed up, any earnings that publishers “2” and “3” get in future will be paid as an additional commission (though at a lower rate) to publisher “1”. Very few affiliate programs have a two tier program. Those that are more than one tier are more or less like Multi Level Marketing (MLM) programs. However, MLM seems to have a high qualification and complex commission systems than normal affiliate programs.

There is a payment necessary though. You will have to pay your affiliates for promoting you. Generally, you pay them according to the number of clicks that these people are able to

divert to your business. You could use a reliable service like Google AdSense. This service automates the entire process and you can easily find out how many clicks a particular affiliate has sent you and you can pay them in accordance to that.

But the big benefit of affiliate marketing is that you are bringing people over to your website, and these are people who are connected to the niche that you are planning to target.

However, if you really want to walk over the competition, then the method that you should seriously consider is social networking. This is age of social networking. Everyone is one these websites right now, connecting with each other like never before. There are groups of people here, people sharing likes and dislikes and having common interests and preferences.

If you could attract one of these people within a social networking group, then you have a chance to attract so many more. Their entire friend’s group could be yours for the taking. When you are backed with a good product and good reviews from people who have used it, viral marketing through such social networking websites is something that could make you the richest marketer ever. People will like your stuff and then recommend it to others. This kind of popularity can increase with amazing alacrity. You will be surprised at the prospects you build up even when you are sleeping.

Social networking is so immense, and such a potential tool, that you just cannot ignore it if you want to become a rich marketer. In the next few chapters, we are going to take a very close look at social networking and how it can make you a rich marketer. We are also going to see the top 3 social networking websites today, places where you can really reach out into the open.