*For Profit, Not Just for Kicks.
When I thought of the title for this post I thought it sounded great. Then I was afraid it sounded like I was just trying to float some link bait. My real goal for publishing this post isn’t to sell you on the idea of adopting social media because it’s the cool thing to do. I just want to hold a discussion about the ways you can utilize existing technology (most of it free) to build your own 21st century ‘social media’ business.
The most important piece of the puzzle is building a tool that people want to use. Lots of people. If you can create a resource that clearly benefits others, your business has a great shot at making money.
It’s the Audience, Stupid
People are keen on targeting niche markets in the social media and online business worlds, and that’s a good plan for success. However there is such a thing as defining your core audience too narrowly. If your business idea doesn’t ‘scale’, in other words if it doesn’t appeal to at least several thousand or million people, the likelihood of success dries up. The reality of the business world is you need so many views to spark a certain amount of interest, which leads to a smaller amount of leads and finally conversions.
Ask yourself this: What size audience (customer base) do I need to run my business, and how well does my product fit into this core audience?
Freemium = Viral Selling
Give it away.
I recommend giving your product away free in order to grow an audience, but not the ‘entire’ product, just a scaled down version that people can use and forward to friends. Sure a lot of people will take the free content and run, but so what? It costs you nothing to share with them, especially if in the process these visitors help spread the word by retweeting links to your website (or sharing it on any social network).
Free is the bait which lets you find warm leads. Providing value first will endear more potential customers to you, as opposed to relying on cold calls and disruptive marketing. I’ve had sales jobs before where I made over 100 cold calls per day — seems like a lifetime ago — and trust me you don’t want to have to go down that road if you can avoid it.
Speaking of free, I mentioned before that most of the tools for your business are free, so let’s talk about some of them.
Granted, hosting a website costs a few dollars a month, but the content management system (CMS) is free — thinking WordPress here. You can also bill customers using PayPal, which is free to use even though they shave a small percentage of the sales price from each order. Other free tools include:
PitchEngine — Social Media Press Releases
BackType — See What People are Saying About Related Products or Activities
BlogPulse — Discover What’s Hot
Notice how these free services are also using the freemium model?
Bottom Line: Think about what people need, show them how to solve the need and encourage the sharing of the solution…while making the complete solution a revenue generating activity.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Joe is right on about his comments on target audiences and sizes.
For those of you who don’t know me, I run a blog about Tiny Houses (when I say Tiny, I mean like 150 sq/ft Tiny). Obviously this is a very niche market. One thing that I have realized as I have grown my brand is that my market might be too small. Me and fellow bloggers in the space have started calling it a Micro Niche blog.
To my best estimates there are roughly 25,000 to 50,000 people in the USA that are in this market, I have a pretty good market penetration, but I don’t think that I can build it to where I will be making a living off of it. Being my first blog, I didn’t think of this factor when I started.
Would I do it differently if I could do it again? No, because I love it, but I now find myself trying to figure out how to become a full time blogger
Excellent point, Ryan.
You’re taking the steps you need to become a full time blogger by learning about the tools that will help you produce better content (like Ustream). Can’t wait to see where your ambition takes you!
Great post Joe.
Ryan, I completely understand your concerns about the size of your market. At the same time, I see a huge opportunity to dominate by expanding your blog. Let me explain my though process here.
The name of your blog is “The Tiny Life,” but it seems that your main focus is tiny houses. I would expand this topic to include tiny homes, tiny mobile homes, tiny cabins, tiny container homes, tiny RV homes, tiny apartments and tiny condos. I would expand even further to include tiny spaces in general. In my mind, that would include tiny office space, tiny hotel rooms and even tiny cabins on ocean liners. Having said that, what’s stopping you from covering tiny garages, tiny backyards, decks, patios or even tree-houses?
I would absolutely dominate this niche if I was you. I think there is a show on HGTV called Big Idea, Tiny Spaces. Take some ideas from this show. Offer advice on how to decorate, give tours of places (you don’t have to be there as many people have cameras. If not, mail them a Flip Mino to use and have them send it back to you.), offer blueprints, have users upload photos of their spaces, whatever your heart desires.
It’s up to you to dominate man. I can see the vision. After you dominate this space, new opportunities to expand your niche will arise.
Philip
Great post Joe.
Ryan, I completely understand your concerns about the size of your market. At the same time, I see a huge opportunity to dominate by expanding your blog. Let me explain my thought process here.
The name of your blog is “The Tiny Life,” but it seems that your main focus is tiny houses. I would expand this topic to include tiny homes, tiny mobile homes, tiny cabins, tiny container homes, tiny RV homes, tiny apartments and tiny condos. I would expand even further to include tiny spaces in general. In my mind, that would include tiny office space, tiny hotel rooms and even tiny cabins on ocean liners. Having said that, what’s stopping you from covering tiny garages, tiny backyards, decks, patios or even tree-houses?
I would absolutely dominate this niche if I was you. I think there is a show on HGTV called Big Idea, Tiny Spaces. Take some ideas from this show. Offer advice on how to decorate, give tours of places (you don’t have to be there as many people have cameras. If not, mail them a Flip Mino to use and have them send it back to you.), offer blueprints, have users upload photos of their spaces, whatever your heart desires.
It’s up to you to dominate man. I can see the vision. After you dominate this space, new opportunities to expand your niche will arise.
Philip