I find this article very useful, would like to share here. it's from 1 of the page from The Lazy Marketer newsletter. "You Need to Find Untapped Markets With Little or No Competition" A lot of people believe (and teach) that the way to "make it" online is to find a very specific little niche and then dominate it. This has cost them - and their innocent listeners - countless fortunes in lost opportunity... Like any popular myth, there is an element of truth in regards to finding a market that you can viably reach. However - what the people who subscribe to the "go small" myth don't realize is that in most cases it's actually easier to drive more traffic in hyper-competitive markets than it is if you're the only affiliate in a tiny niche! Simply because there's so much more demand, keyword variations, etc. Not to mention - buying customers. In fact, this is something I learned the hard way. Let me explain... How I Struggled For 2 Full Years in "Untapped" Markets... ...And How in a SINGLE DAY (When I Ran a Simple Experiment in a Hyper-Competitive Market) I Earned More Than I Had The Entire Time Trying to "Dominate" Untapped Markets... (And boy, did I ever feel like a moron when I found out how much easier it is just to do what's already visibly working.) Anyway - here's what happened... For a couple years, I was trying to market a product in a "mini-niche" that, I believed, filled a hole in the marketplace and had a lot of potential. The problem was that it wasn't being actively sought out, and very few people understood the value of the service. Long story short, the results were always poor. A sale here, a sale there - but never enough to justify the endless amount of effort and time we'd expended trying to make it "fly". I think in total, I had personally earned something like $8,000 or so from that project. Definitely nothing to write home about, regardless. And then it happened... One day I was bored (and a little tired of toiling away at my deadbeat project), and so I decided to try doing something I'd read about on a marketing forum. So I chose a very popular product, got my affiliate link and ran with it. It took me something like 20 minutes or so to set up. Weeks later, I'd actually forgotten about it entirely until I logged into that affiliate network for another purpose altogether. I couldn't believe my eyes - this stupid little experiment had already generated hundreds of dollars in affiliate commissions that week alone. I was sincerely stunned, and excitedly shouted from the office for Sarah (my wife) to come and take a look. We were both amazed. And what happened next truly changed my mindset, once and for all... A few days later, when I opened my traffic stats I noticed what seemed like a mistake - this experiment affiliate offer had been accessed literally thousands of times, and it was only 8:00 AM. Apprehensively, I logged into my affiliate account - not sure what to expect. My jaw dropped - I'd already earned over $3200 in commissions just that morning alone. By the end of the day - and in a single 24 hour period - this crazy, unexplained traffic spike had generated over $9,100 or so in commissions (all 100% profit, and the traffic was free). It was mind-blowing, and a true table-turning benchmark for me as a marketer. Not because of the monetary amounts - or the strategy/experiment. Those are consequential, and not the real reason behind these results. (I'll explain this further down). Instead, what this did is it forever instilled in my mind the following three truths: 1. Hard work does NOT guarantee - or correlate with - earnings. You can bust your ass for years trying to sell the wrong thing. Or you can put forward truly minimal effort in comparison in hot, active markets and see substantial results. It's supply and demand that determine what you can earn. 2. Simple always wins. Affiliate marketing is just another form of direct marketing - which means that it comes down to connecting your traffic with offers that convert to sales. And what you sell determines the type of traffic you get, as well as what you earn. Don't get lost in the confusion of the endless traffic strategies, blogging techniques, tricks, etc. What ultimately makes you money is making offers to relevant prospects. Keep it simple. 3. It's all right in front of you. Popular products are not hard to find. They're everywhere. All it takes is to use Google to poke around the PPC ads and popular content sites for 5 MINUTES and you'd have to be blind if you couldn't clearly see what's being advertised consistently in virtually ANY market, implying the fact that it's selling. People don't spend money advertising, month after month, unless they're seeing an effective ROI. Anyway - to sum it all up... Do NOT Avoid Competition. It's Actually a Crucial Element to Success - Because it Indicates an Active Marketplace With Lots of Money Changing Hands. So don't shy away from competitive markets, or popular products. There is a reason why they're selling like crazy. Research what others are doing in competitive markets, and pick and choose what's feasible for you, and then get your own piece of the pie. And speaking of pie - remember that "dominating" just a tiny FRACTION of a massive market is way more lucrative than being the sole "Emporer" of a tiny market. It's just math, folks. Get in front of enough people eager to spend money on what they (already) want, and you'll find that affiliate marketing is one of the simplest, no-brainer ways to generate some serious revenue online. Yes, it takes work and no, I'm not saying that there's "overnight success" or anything like that. But what I CAN guarantee you is that when you properly promote products that have proven to sell for others, the money comes easy.
0.01% of a 10 billion dollar market, is worth the same as 10% of a market worth only a million or so. Is it easier to go for the 0.01%?