Niche marketing strategies are something all Internet businesses and entrepreneurs are having to reckon with these days if they want to keep their head above water and profits in the black . I have had to learn niche marketing begrudgingly, perhaps like you, through some painful trial and error, and wasted money on over-hyped, expensive Internet marketing products. Yet, learning the ins and outs of niche marketing has been a matter of survival for my business. In this article I will share with you one of the most powerful and overlooked sources of free niche marketing traffic.



It is incredible to me with all of the hype over “Web 2.0” all of the so-called “gurus” have overlooked niche marketing strategies from one of the most visible and vibrant sources of free traffic on the Internet. This traffic source has been around since the beginning of the Internet and it is still important.

Internet groups.

Yes that means, Yahoo! Groups, MSN Groups, Google groups and other places where people freely congregate around their shared interests.

These groups offer a gold mine of interested, rabid prospects. People in these newsgroups will devour your information if it is good and properly conveyed to them. These are people who voluntarily joined a group to interact with others around a common interest; The same interest you are promoting in your niche. They were not bribed by a free newsletter, nor did they have other carrots dangled in front of them to join. You are not trying to sell them on your idea. They already get it and deep down inside, they want you to have the answer they are looking for.

Think about this for a minute. Internet groups are laser targeted, interested prospects. You can send them unlimited messages. Every day if you like, you can start a conversation or interact with exactly the customers you want to interact with in your chosen niche. Furthermore, the postings you make go directly to their inbox (if that is their preference) or they can read it at the Group page.

No Spam filters to get in the way or people rolling their eyes because of an unwanted message. They are interested. Now multiply that times hundreds of thousands of people,.. get the picture?

The leading newsgroups are still Yahoo, MSN and Google. If you are new to “Group Search” pages at one of these portals, a quick look at the Yahoo groups page shows some startling numbers. The numbers after the categories refer to the number of Groups, not the number of people. For instance if you are marketing a “Health and Wellness” product (which happens to be my niche) there are over 125,000 groups that you can join to market this product on Yahoo - 125,000 groups!! -- again, completely free for you to e-mail as much as you like.

No Spam worries -- no credibility gap -- just a bunch of eager people interested in the same thing you are interested in telling them.

Now, realistically you will not need to join or want to join 125,000 groups. But within that broad niche, you will be able to focus on at least 50 groups that are viable and vibrant, each with thousands of people in them. If you play your cards right you can easily establish yourself as a trusted authority and eventually prosper.

With all of these groups you will reach focused, interested people and potential customers. Yet, people are savvy and skeptical on the Internet these days because of so much Spamming and devious tactics, so you must be careful or you will alienate yourself from them.

As was said earlier, no one bribed them to join the group, it was their decision, they are free. This freedom also gives them a certain power that must be respected. You are entering their group and you must speak to them properly. Frankly, Internet marketers have turned the Internet into a very rude place. It has taken me quite a while to learn how to approach and profit greatly from my association with niche marketing to Internet groups.

The bottom line is, Internet groups offer the promise of easily building an Electronic Rolodex of laser guided, targeted prospects eager to read your messages and interact with you about your products and services, day after day.

If you approach niche marketing to Internet groups in the proper way, a sweet fruit awaits you. If you approach them badly, the fruit will be as bitter as the others are sweet.