Testing And Improving Your Marketing Approach 
by Abe Cherian,

Reaching the right market online requires knowing what your niche product or service is, and "who" is it designed for. 

So many people are looking for a product to sell online. You may have even tried doing this yourself. And this is a huge, fatal mistake that far too many people make right from the start. Do not waste your time looking for a product to sell online. Instead, look for a market that is easy to get to - Find your market first, and only then should you start thinking about what kind of product or service they might want. If you do this, your business is geared up to be an instant success before you even launch it. 

This is the simplest rule of Internet marketing, yet it is the one thing so many people overlook. It is the biggest reason why so many start-ups fail. They make the fatal mistake of looking for the right product to sell online, rather than finding the right market. Think about who exactly wants to buy your product. Not necessarily who needs your product, but who wants to buy it and is easy to find online. If you can't identify and easily reach that market online, then your business is in danger of failing.

For example: Let's say you have the cure for a headache. You've got this remedy that cures every headache in the world. You have an unbelievably fantastic product. Can you imagine how much money you could make? Don't let your imagination run away with you. This would be very, very hard to sell online. How do you find people with headaches online? Where do the people who have headaches hang out online? They don't. There is no specific interest group for headaches. 

Not only do you have to find people with headaches, you have a second obstacle you have to overcome. You have to be able to identify the people who are willing to believe in your product and who are willing to purchase it online. Even though this may be the ultimate product, it would be very difficult to sell online. 

If you put your remedy in pharmacies across the country, you would probably make billions of dollars. But online, you'd be lucky if you could make a profit, simply because it would be hard to find your target market. You could spend all the money you had on advertising and you still wouldn't reach your target market. This is because online, there is no way to find out who has a headache and who doesn't, and there is no specific place where people with headaches congregate on the Internet.

Now, if you had a product for people who are interested in making videos, for example, you have a target market that is easy to find. There are newsgroups, e-mail discussion lists, e-zines, and web sites that talk about making your own video. Sure, it's a very small market, but it is extremely easy to target. 

Here's why... 

- You can find out exactly where video makers are going online to find tips, advice, and products.

- You can find out exactly where they meet to trade information and share pointers.

- You can easily define this market, and you can find these people on the Internet which means you can actually make a profit.

Once you've identified your business target market, you're going to find that target market really has more than one group within it. You can divide that market up into more than one and you do this by using market segmentation. This allows you to focus in on one group at a time from a marketing point of view and to make your marketing message more powerful. Quite often your business will have different marketing methods depending on the unique characteristics of the segment within your market.

You can segment your market based on many things. 

Think of what you're asked to fill out on a registration form or when you complete a consumer preference survey. Simpler still, how often you buy something. Of course, if you have a big, easily target market you'll make a lot of money. If you have a small, easily target market you'll make a smaller amount of money. But either way, you'll make money.

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