Help! Paralysis of Analysis over the "Which groups have magazines"... part of 4HWW

[Monkiii]

OK, so I've gone through and brainstormed a list of demographic groups that I have personal experience being part of (pag 159. revised edition). I come up with a bit over 50. So far so good. Then I get to the bit about identifying which groups can be reached by one or two small magazines to find a niche area and the problem starts.

I want to actually follow the 4HWW method rather than reinventing the wheel. A trip to our largest bookstore seems to suggest that there are only about 5 niche areas at all: Business, Fashion/gossip, Sport, Cars/science/technology, Music/teen, Fitness and Food/art/craft. I'm trying a number of online sources with more magazines (like zinio.com which lets you search inside magazines), but the results are pretty much all the same. There are only 5 niches in the universe.

Only tolling through Google seems to identify anything as niche as Tim's examples, and frankly that takes a long time. I've been trying to do it with freelence web researchers, but it's difficult when they don't know how far to niche the phrase up or down (ie bass fishermen -> North Western American bass fly fishermen, bass fishermen -> fishing). They tend to just research as long as they feel for something similar to your phrase and give you whatever magazines turned up. This meant that it looks like my list would need to be gone over multiple times to niche up or down depending on what they find, driving up the time / cost dramatically. Considering it cost $50 to get a list of about 5 rather poorly matched magazines from only the first 10 areas on my list, it looks like just narrowing down my niche area would take over $1,000.00, which seems crazy! ($50 x 5 times as many items on the full list x about 4 revisions for niching up/down).

There must be a cheaper / faster way to find niches from magazines. Tim's bookstore method and writersmarket.com failed to turn up anything beyond the "Big Five". Look on Zinio.com / BarnesAndNoble.com / Amazon.com / Ebay and you'll find no magazines specifically for Tim's examples of "amature athletes" or "bass fishermen". Sport magazines which mention fishing, sure, but does the existence of a single "Sport" magazine full of articles on grid-iron and baseball really justify targeting "Bass Fishermen" as a niche? If you're trying to find out if "digital painters" are a good niche and the closest magazine you find is "3D world" does that make it a poor niche, or just show that your source for magazines sucks? If so, what works better?

I think part of my problem is that I haven't managed to even pick what the problem really is myself. All I know is I have a long list of demographic groups, and I'm having real trouble turning almost *any* of them into a list of existing magazines that match. This may explain why I haven't bought magazines in a long time, but it doesn't help me find a niche!

So how did *you* go with this part (question 2, page 159)? Did you go straight to the magazine area at your local bookstore and easily find a magazine on your niche idea area? Did you skip this altogether (as I suspect most people did) and just go straight to "Hey, what would be a cool product idea?!"

I'd love to hear how anyone else went through this as I'm going kinda nutsoid.
Thanks in advance!

[Angelle]

I've had a similar experience in trying to research with Writer's Market and bookstores. I'll be curious to see some feedback from others who have been able to do this successfully (meaning, "Use Tim's methods to verify small niches with magazine readerships"). Can anyone share any better methods or results for verifying your own smaller niches with magazine readerships? Or is everyone having a similar experience?

[Screeps]

You have identified very LARGE markets. You must think of a niche as division of something larger. Business niches would be different types of businesses- International Business, Stock Trading, Small Businesses... That only begins to break it down- inside those topics are even further defined niches. You mentioned Cars- niches would be more along the lines of: Muscle Cars, Futuristic Cars, Retro Cars, Formula One Cars.... the list always goes on. You said there are only 5 niches in the universe- the truth is there is an infinite amount!

Identifying the most clearly defined niches that still are large enough to try to sell things too is not easy- and you cant rely on someone else to do it for you. You must be creative. In another thread someone identified their niche as "yoga/eco-friendly/self helpers"- with this he has found a clearly defined group of people who have similar tendencies. He will now Have to Guess which are the magazines that "yoga/eco-friendly/self helpers" buy.

You don't want to reinvent the wheel- but don't expect to just find one by the side of the road. Identifying niches is your homework and you just have to be creative and take chances to do so- and as always tinker along the way...

-Zac

[REOBULK]

In point....my niche is Real Estate...LMAO....really, it is....now if I leave it at that I'm dead...so then I narrow and target....I NICHE......and now I've got a very good niche that the BIG GUYS just can't do....the forest for the trees sort of thing.
I like finding a niche that I can then sub-niche from and tie everything together in a nice little miniverse........

[ABToronto]

I think another important point Tim makes (in Question 1) is that you should start your Niche search in fields you are connected to. You'll have a much better sense of what print/on-line resources there are, and you'll have some personal experience with the problems/solutions you address with your muse.

When I began my inventory of social, industry and professional groups, I also extended it a bit to include those of my closes family and friends. For example, I many not have an autobody shop, but my dad does, and because we're pretty close, I know many of the problems he has in the shop, and can often provide a fresh perspective for solutions. Then I can also get a sense of what industry and professional groups he belongs to, go to trade shows with him as research, borrow his reading material, etc. Mining your network will expand your niche opportunities and give you a starting point for testamonials (cause of course they'll want to say something great - just go for folks with different last names ;)

Word of caution though. Tim warns against taking opinions from close friends and family - and I agree. They'll tell you everything you do is wonderful -that's why you love them. As an aside, if you doubt this, just watch the audition episodes of any of the television talent shows like American Idol. Nobody told 95% of those people they can't sing... how sad.

[J_Rock]

I am doing exactly as Tim suggested in Step 2.

Just when you contact the advertising directors, email them. Emailing them gets many more responses then leaving a message.

I would look at magazines that me or my friends would read. Find out what there target audience is. If you understand that audience, and they are a small group (2-3 magazines on the topic and 15,000- 100,000 readers) you just your niche, my friend.

Good luck

[Monkiii]

You have identified very LARGE markets.

I'm very aware that a niche is something much smaller than these behemoths. That's my point. My challenge is that all the magazines seem to only cover huge, mainstream subjects that seem to be way to big to be a "niche". To use your cars example, there were zero magazines covering muscle cars, futuristic cars etc. in the magazine sources I saw, they were just "cars". I saw no magazines covering areas small enough that I would consider them a "niche".

So is everyone:

a. ignoring this criteria from the 4HWW as I suspect
b. doing a "niche" (*ahem*) that is mega-huge (ie "cars")
c. finding a much more diverse range of magazines than me (if so, where?), or
d. slapping your forehead at something blatantly obvious that I'm missing?

[Monkiii]

I am doing exactly as Tim suggested in Step 2.

Thats what I'm trying to do...

Just when you contact the advertising directors, email them.
The trouble is finding whether a magazine exists for the niche in the first place. Without that there's no advertising director to contact...

Good luck Thanks!

[J_Rock]

Get a copy of Writer's Market. There are a lot of niche's in there and it tells you exactly how many people read each magazine. etc.

[liam75005]

Why don't u go IRL in the bookstore and have a look around at the magazines there ?