Research and Planning Order
When first starting out in any kind of IM, it is usually best to start with 1) what you know from personal experience (including "real-life" education), are interested in, and most importantly - what really "lights you up," and 2) market (NOT market niche research yet) research. If you are very fortunate, you can discover a topic/subject you are truly passionate about coupled to a broad, "evergreen" market that has a high enough demand but not too much competition.
Once you have a clear picture of what market you want to be in, it's time to "drill down" in enough depth to find your market niche or even sub-niche. Now is when you need to start sharpening things like your market niche characteristics, U.S.P., and personal brand. Skip these essential steps and you will most likely fail - no matter how great Y.O.U. think your product or service is.
Next comes your keyword research so you can identify what buyer keywords to optimize your blog, website, or chosen web platform around. Another words, this is where you mainly carefully examine the issue of "SEO" or Search Engine Optimization. This is extremely important, no matter what you have decided the sources of your online traffic will be - free or paid.
Finally, you can wrap things up like considering what your marketing/advertising budgets are, what your other necessary expenses come out to be (ISP, domain name registration, web hosting, critical software, etc.), how you plan on reaching your target audience, and completing the steps you need to, to become a "known" quantity online or brand.
Recent Comments
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Great summary.