If you’re like most rising “digital entrepreneurs,” when you start online, there seems to be opportunity everywhere.
There are hundreds of thousands of affiliate products you can promote. You can create your own digital products. You can license other people’s products.
The blessing (and the curse) of doing business online is that there’s very little risk to get started, so you’re largely left to your own devices when it comes to choosing a profitable path to go down!
That’s why we put together the Product Creation Mini-Course here… It’ll help you brainstorm and build a product that you can start selling online :0)
Today, I want to point you to 5 of the biggest, most profitable niches online, and then break them down into subcategories (that also represent relatively huge markets).
You can publish content in these markets, promote affiliate products, or sell your own digital products and services.
With that, let’s get started…
The Macro Markets
To put it simply, a ‘Macro-Market’ represents a billion dollar industry, made up of a bunch of ‘Micro-Markets.’
The Micro-Markets are specialized verticals within the bigger market, and serve to help us define what type of products we need to be creating or promoting…
The idea is that someone who wants to ‘get their ex back’ is most likely not the same person who ‘needs to get a date,’ despite being underneath the ‘Relationship’ category!
In other cases, a person who wants the ‘make money online’ is probably also in the ‘home-based business’ category…
So, it’s worthwhile to consider where your prospects are, and what problems you’ll be solving for them, before putting together your business model!
5 Macro Markets
Online, there are 5 big, major markets. In these big markets, you’ll find everything from lower end ebooks being sold, all the way up to physical products and 5-figure coaching and consulting deals…
- Business and Marketing
- Health and Fitness
- Relationship and Dating
- Survival and Preparedness
- Self Help
NOTE: Survival hasn’t always been on this list. In recent years, and with huge cable channels jumping on board with reality TV shows dedicated to preparedness, it’s growing by leaps and bounds!
Now, let’s dig into each niche a little bit:
Business and Marketing
The business niche is and remains one of the most active and profitable markets on the planet, largely because there are so many different ways to go with it!
You can sell services, consulting, done for you programs, information products, courses, events… You name it.
Here are some of the largest verticals in the business space:
Make Money Online (MMO)
The make money online space is where most internet professionals start out… They see a course that’ll teach them how to be rich with the few clicks of a button, talking about some ‘hack’ or ‘loophole’ in Google that’ll solve all of their financial problems.
These courses do well. They make a lot of money. They also attract a ‘certain’ type of buyer and typically sell for less than $100.
Internet marketing (IM) or Business Development
I think of the Internet marketing niche as the older, wiser brother of MMO. The majority of people who start in the MMO space will graduate to the IM market quickly after, because they’re invested in the process of creating an Internet business, and need more specific information about Facebook, digital products, etc.
This IM market includes things like sales copy, paid traffic, free traffic, digital products, conversion strategies, blogging, social media, etc.
Sales and Leadership
The sales and leadership space caters to more established business owners, who have something to sell or have teams to run.
Oftentimes, this is the most profitable space of them all, because the rewards are much higher! A change in leadership style or tweaks in sales scripting or sales calls can equal six and seven figures a year in additional revenue.
Local marketing
Local marketing is just exactly like it sounds – helping local businesses market better online. This is where you take your skills as an Internet marketing or professional, and sell them to other local businesses who need your help!
Home-based business
A subtle tweak of the MMO space, is that of home-based businesses. Most people dream of working from home, and get into lots of different things to do that… They might bring their corporate job into their house. They might sign up for survey offers, or work as a ‘secret shopper.’
The home-based business crowd isn’t necessarily looking for an internet or affiliate product fueled profit stream – they are looking for a different way to make money that seems legitimate, like drop ship products or selling on Amazon.
Health And Fitness
There are very few niches bigger than health and fitness, and for good reason… So many people in this world need advice, help and information associated with health!
Not to mention, it’s an ongoing problem. Not all diets work for all people! So, you have some mega products like P90X or Insanity, and some that are quite bit smaller but still make lots of money!
Losing weight and burning fat
Products and services offered to help customers lose weight will always be around, and they’ll always sell well. Entire billion dollar industries are comprised in this one segment – supplements, training, workouts, gym memberships, video courses, ebooks, coaching.. The list goes on and on.
Workout programs
Surprisingly enough, workout programs aren’t necessarily part of the ‘weight loss’ niche, like you might think. Sure, working out does play a roll in burning fat, but there are lots of workouts that help customers do lots of different things – adding muscle, increasing strength, elevating endurance – to name a few.
Meal plans and recipe books
An additional part of the health and fitness space that deserves mention is meal plans and recipes created to serve a specific market. For instance, low-carb diets, gluten free meals, high protein recipes…
Getting toned or shredded
There are basically two types of people when it comes to losing weight, the folks who need to get rid of quite a few pounds and the people who just need to lose the last ten!
The diets, workout plans, and routines that each different type of person uses are quite different, so it only makes sense that these two groups of customers would be treated differently…
Powerlifting
An additional area of health and fitness is the powerlifting, or ‘bulking up’ segment. In fact, there’s an entire industry dedicated to helping people PUT ON weight and muscle! Again, these types of customers are going to need something different than what we talked about above.
Relationship & Dating
Relationships and dating advice is huge online, for a few reasons. Firstly, online dating is absolutely huge because people have busy schedules. Secondly, the majority of people are selfconcious and interacting on a keyboard is less threatening.
The same goes for ‘learning’ about dating… It’s easier to buy an ebook or a course and learn online than it is to seek help from a friend.
Reconnecting with your partner
With busy lives and incredibly high divorce rates, not to mention the temptations brought on by sites like Facebook, marriages are crumbling. Oftentimes, at least one of those partners are invested in saving the marriage, and turn to books and training to help them do just that.
Getting your ex back
Most relationships end in a breakup, for better or worse. Sometimes, if one side of the relationship still feels for the other side, they might make attempts to get that person back. There is an entire market online dedicated to arming that individual with strategies, tips, tactics, text messages and everything else associated with getting back together with ex’s!
Getting a date
Some people grow up without the confidence to go out and strike up a conversation with a girl or a guy… The ‘gettiing a date’ industry spans the gamut of one night flings, to geeky guys who ‘want the girl,’ to finding the perfect partner!
Committed Relationships
One of my good friends actually identified a trend, interestingly enough, about moving from a ‘relationship to a proposal’ that’s proven lucrative. The idea is to teach women how to get a guy to commit, while making him think it’s his idea! This can be spun lots of different ways, but is worth a mention in the dating industry.
Survival & Prepper
Whether you fear government collapse and massive epidemics or not, it’s worth noting that the survival niche is one of the quickest growing niches online.
There are lots of ways to cut up this space, but it’s always interesting when a market is 100% invested in ‘buying and holding’ goods!
Food storage
Did you know that there were food items that would store on a shelf for 25+ years? Yeah, me neither until I got into this market. The market for this kind of stuff is growing by leaps and bounds, all to stock up bunkers full of food!
Survival tactics (like hand to hand combat)
In a pandemic or government collapse, you’re going to need to know how to protect yourself and your family. This is a fear-based play, but there are guys making a lot of money in this market…
Living off the grid
How exactly would you live in a world without electricity and running water? Well, these courses and guides show you how, and in some cases help you build the resources to help you get there! Like solar power and water filtration…
Water purification
A necessity of post-apocalyptic survival is water. Reports, video courses and physical products are all being sold on purifying water and using it to live off of!
Self Help
What ‘niche’ report would be complete without a self-help section? You’ve seen it online, I’m sure. There’s an entire industry dedicated to improving one’s mindset, minimizing limiting beliefs and the power of visualization…
Law of attraction
All the good things you want in life, you ‘attract.’ Believe me? Well, there’s an entire market dedicated to teaching that fundamental principle, and it’s making a lot of people a lot of money!
Mindset shifts
How do you react to success? To failure? To jealousy? When it comes to the way you think and your mindset, there are products catering solely to shifting your focus towards the advantages of every situation…
Negative beliefs
Supremely negative people have a hard time living life, and these types of products aim to help them shift their belief system to that of a more accepting, nurturing variety.
Changes in outlook or demeanor
How we see things has everything to do with our feelings toward it… Whether that be an event, the way we were treated, what was said to us, etc. These types of self-help products help change the way we think about situations, and put more of a positive light on them…
What do we recommend?
That is a very tough question…
The correct answer is the niche that makes you a lot of money and you can be proud of the work you do AND love your life while doing it… I can tell you from first-hand experience that dedicating years of your life barking up the wrong tree sucks…
I’m a big believer in monetizing your passions. Do something that you don’t consider to be work, even though others might. Build products. Create a coaching program. Write a piece of software. If you’ve solved something other people are struggling with, there’s good money to be made there!
The whole first part of my book, Create: Transform What You Know Into How You Get Paid, is dedicated to figuring out what you should do and how it’ll line up with prospective buyers.
At the end of the day, do something you love and don’t do it for free!
