How do you conduct research on your niche Audience?

[vividlion]

Hi there STF,

I'm sure everyone would benefit from this thread if everyone could get together and share useful methods that help in finding out vital information on your target audience and niche that ultimately help us make the right decisions when it comes to marketing and also determine if it's profitable or not.

One of my favourite ways is to look through Q&A sites and find out what they are wishing for, what problem is causing them pain and seeing how we can solve that pain for them if I were to release a service.

 

[Stuti]

Well I always use Google to research for the niche site because that is the only way I find tons of information. I do not personally like the Question and Answer sites because not sure what kind of responses I will find there...but for sure Google works for me....

 

[terryse]

I use Google's free Keyword Tool to search whether there are people spending money for that particular niche, how many people are searching for that keyword, and how many competitors I have with websites made exactly on that niche.

 

[smoothmarketer]

I use both Google and Bing for my online research. I've also found out that sending questionnaires can be a very helpful source as long as you keep them simple and to the point. Whenever, I can, I do conduct off-line research using old traditional methods - they still work.

 

[Trista]

I also use the Google Keyword Tool -- or Google Keyword Planner, as it's now known.

One of my favourite ways is to look through Q&A sites and find out what they are wishing for, what problem is causing them pain and seeing how we can solve that pain for them if I were to release a service.

Yes, I also think the Q&A sites are helpful. I mainly check Yahoo Answers and Wiki Answers. Additionally, I check out the various forums devoted to the niche to see what people are discussing and what their concerns are.

I also check out Amazon to see what's selling in the related niche. Amazon is a great resource because it organizes according to bestsellers, reviews, and other kinds of helpful criteria. If appropriate for the niche, I also Clickbank to see what the top selling products are in the niche.

I also like to do offline research. I look to see what print magazines, if any, are devoted to the niche.

 

[MoBowen]

If I were selling to a business audience, I would look at trade association websites to see how big the market is and what types of problems members have.

For example, if I wanted to sell to subcontractors, I would check out the Subcontractors Trade Association website. As an example, they have a couple of white papers on the site. One of them is titled, "Getting Paid in a Challenging Economy." Obviously, getting paid is a problem for subcontractors.

If I wanted to sell to hotel owners, I would look at the American Hotel and Lodging Association. On their information page I can see that their members generated $155 billion dollars in sales last year and that the average occupancy rate was 61.4%. Filling rooms to maybe 80-90% occupancy may be of concern to these members.

Of course this method only works if there's an association affiliated with your target audience. If you can find one, they can often be a goldmine of valuable research data.

 

[mkcookin]

I simply visit magazines.com or keyword tool and see what people are buying and searching the most online. This way I can get a good idea on what is and what is not a profitable niche to pursue.

 

[Sugarhill]

I'll be honest, I've decided to avoid most of that. I am going to go with what I think I wouldn't mind reading and seeing on a daily basis and that will be my foundation. From there, I will look at what they are responding to and adjust as much as I can without losing myself.

People can tell when they are being sold something and when they are receiving something that is shared. I'm going the sharing route.

 

[Trista]

I simply visit magazines.com or keyword tool and see what people are buying and searching the most online. This way I can get a good idea on what is and what is not a profitable niche to pursue.

Yes, magazines.com is an excellent resource. Another helpful online resource that's very useful for researching is dummies.com -- that's the Web site of the "For Dummies" series of books. The site is well organized and categorized and you can quickly get an idea of what the popular niches are as well as an understanding of their target audiences' needs and concerns.

 

[NicheGuy]

Actually I kind of work in reverse. I have a number of things that are of high interest - some passions, some close.

It's easy for me to write on those niches so content comes fairly easy and I don't tire of it since I have 16 niche sites so variety has become both the spice of my affiliate marketing and the mother of invention - new and fresh content.

However, when deciding on a domain name, and so many that we want are not available I have used Google's Keyword Tool, now Keyword Planner to work the best words to possibly change the name around. I do concentrate on traffic sources after the fact using Google Analytics and a Wordpress Plugin called WP Slim Stat, which gives you more information than you could imagine and it's all in your WP admin area. It balances out GA a little and has some very useful statistics.

 

[mkcookin]

Yes, magazines.com is an excellent resource. Another helpful online resource that's very useful for researching is dummies.com -- that's the Web site of the "For Dummies" series of books. The site is well organized and categorized and you can quickly get an idea of what the popular niches are as well as an understanding of their target audiences' needs and concerns.

Thank you for the reminder.

I also use Dummies, for the same reason I use magazines. They both already have profitable niches that you can pick, because people are promoting books that people are already interested in buying offline.

 

[vividlion]

magazines.com is great, I also find forbes a handy website and fast company, they give valuable research data on trends and also current news that is of interest. I just went on forbes.com and it showed a statistic 52% of small businesses are homebased, which tells me people are finding it more in their best interest to run their business from home. I think you all have contributed some great methods and resourches here!

 

[danealegana]

I use Google's free Keyword Tool to search whether there are people spending money for that particular niche, how many people are searching for that keyword, and how many competitors I have with websites made exactly on that niche.

Thats what I am doing too. And then analyze my visitors with analytics account. Where are they coming from, what device are they using and what post is the most visited and so on, to better market them without annoying them but retaining them and be loyal to my site.

 

[wowtgp]

Thats what I am doing too. And then analyze my visitors with analytics account. Where are they coming from, what device are they using and what post is the most visited and so on, to better market them without annoying them but retaining them and be loyal to my site.

I am thinking about adopting the same strategy, but it's really time consuming. Then again, I won't earn anything if I am not willing to work hard.

 

[danealegana]

I am thinking about adopting the same strategy, but it's really time consuming. Then again, I won't earn anything if I am not willing to work hard.

It just needs much patience for this and great observation.
If you know where most of your visitors come from and what they are mostly interested to, you can utilize it to advertise on adwords or facebook ads and its worth it if spending some money to get more out of your site is ok with you.

And it does definitely pay off for me.

 

[AdSpy]

Just to update this thread, you may want to use AdSpy(dot)com or competitor research in social media - Facebook and Instagram, this 2018. There's a lot of filters that you can use there to target your niche audience and even get their feedback from their comments on social media ads.

 

[hilleug61]

Your business decides your audience! It is definitely not a rocket science! You just have to sense the word of mouth around you, and you have to be extremely smart in getting in the shoes of the audience/customer base.