When starting a business, you need to be passionate about it to succeed
Read any article and consult with any professional, they will always tell you that one of the best ways to earn money is to start your own business. Fortunately, you have been brewing over a startup idea that you think will revolutionize an industry or will help you take advantage of today’s trends to earn a sizable income.
The problem is, you are not sure if this niche you have chosen will be profitable in the next years to come. You have started listing down all your interests in the hopes that it may help you narrow down your niche choices, but you just do not see yourself working in these interest fields for a very long time.
If this problem has been going on for a long time, you might risk delaying the start of that business. One way to work around this limbo is to use that uncertainty to motivate you to start testing ideas and collect important data which can help you decide on a niche you can focus on. You may also finish an affordable online MBA in Canada to boost your confidence and build a reputation in the business industry.
But let us talk about effective ways to find the right industry niche for you.
Create a shortlist of interests you are passionate about
Do not think about what is trending or profitable at the moment. The biggest mistake you will make as an entrepreneur is to make a niche’s current profitability for longevity. The fact is, any niche can be profitable if the entrepreneur working cares about what happens in the industry. If you are not going to be passionate about what you will start right now, then the chances of you quitting is high.
List down what you are interested in; this includes hobbies you enjoy doing, your favorite food, the kinds of books or magazines you buy, etc. Then try to create a shortlist which includes only five of what you have listed down previously. Afterwards, rate each one with 1 being your top choice and 5 as the least of the choices.
Find the gaps in your chosen interest
The next step is asking yourself what gaps you want to address with your business. Remember that there are countless shops related to your interest, all of which cater to the same needs and wants of consumers. If you want to stand out, you must identify the gaps these existing shops have not addressed. In short, what is your unique selling point?
For this, you will have to do a market research. You will need understand the buyer behavior of consumers, and find problems that your business can solve. You can accomplish this by going to forums like Quora and see which concerns are always coming up. You can also organize a focus group discussion and get suggestions from your target consumers. Prepare a list of questions that focus on the pain points of your chosen industry, and make sure you follow-up with more questions that can help them elaborate on their concerns.
The next step is to research your direct competitors. Study how they are marketing themselves, the language they are using, the way they are presenting their products, and so on. Other than finding the gaps in the market, you must know what you can do to out-market, out-advertise, and ultimately out-sell your competitors.
Create a website
Your website must be intuitive and clean. Forego complicated design elements and stick to a layout that is easy to understand. You do not want a potential pool of customers to get lost in your website because there are too many things going on.
Additionally, consider starting by creating a landing page where you can generate leads before doing anything else.
The domain name you will choose must be easy to remember to encourage customer retention. As far as the technicalities of your website is concerned, you must choose a web hosting that can accommodate an influx of traffic at any given time of the day. You would not want your website to stop working because too many people are on your page at the same moment.
Publish content
The success of your shop does not stop with selling high quality products and getting good reviews. It needs continuous execution of digital marketing strategies which involves creating content.
An effective way to get to the coveted first page of Google is to publish blog articles. On your blog, you can explain why you have chosen to address a specific problem in the market, show the evolution of your business, and even as simple as discussing how your products work.
You should also diversify your content by publishing white papers, infographics, data studies, and videos too. Additionally, be sure to listen to our podcast episode titled, You’re doing content marketing all wrong as it will help figure out the best approach to creating content that people actually care about.
The success of your business is not in how lucrative the business is. It is in how much you care about the growth of your chosen industry and how passionate you are in revolutionizing the way things work. Keep these tips in mind and you will surely be able to pick the right niche for you.