| Copyright 2004 Saul A.J. Burton |

A long time ago I read "The Whole Truth" about internet
marketing by Stephen Pierce. The part that I enjoyed the
most was the one about Herd Psychology... or something
like that.

In short: "Everybody is doing it - it must work! I'll do
it as well". It's obviously far more well defined in the
ebook. If you still haven't got it you can buy it here:
http://www.the-whole-truth.com/

When I read it I could see it in action with the smartpages
frenzy that occured in that period. Every new product was
"smart-something". It was fascinating to see it happen.

Now I'm seeing the same trend with Niche Marketing.
I put quotes around "New" in the title because niche marketing
is anything BUT new. Offline businesspeople have been carving
their niches since business was invented...

The most fascinating thing is that niche mrkt in itself is a
niche. So before the "Niche revolution" (and who started it?
I remember some posts here on the forum talking about niches
quite a long time ago) everybody was *teaching* how to make
money online selling or promoting ebooks. Then a great ebook
about software expanded the infoproducts category and made it
wider. Nice :)

Now, instead of seeing lots of people focusing on niches, I'm
seeing lots of people focusing on how to make money selling
stuff on how to make money with niche oriented products.
Nothing bad with that per se (even me myself is thinking of
jumping on the niche-train to make some money!) but be aware
about a couple of things...

It looks so much like the smart pages frenzy that I can only
think it will end soon. That it's a fashion. There are lots
of people who are going to buy lots of ebooks and tools but
won't do anything with them. Lots of people paying lots of
money and doing NOTHING with what they buy. The herd that
Pierce so well described in his ebook.

How can I tell? What do I know about this stuff? Well, I read
a statistic that about 70% of the people who buy ebooks don't
even read them. I have done that myself. Why does that happen?
Because copywriting is so powerful.
It makes you feel good about buying something.
You're proud you bought it and you're happy that the thing you
bought will increase your traffic, profits, whatever...

But then we have to sit down and read it and that takes much
more time than writing 16 numbers and cliking on the ORDER
button... so people put aside the ebook, forget about it because
they DON'T see it laying around on the furniture (it's hiding
in your hard disk instead) and get fascinated by another sales
letter and buy other stuff that will not help them unless...
UNLESS YOU READ IT, and ACT and DO something with what you
learned from what you bought.

So if now you find a "make money with niches" product think
twice before you buy it. Think well "Am I going to READ it?"
or if it's a software: "Am I going to take the time it takes
to learn how to profitably use this software/script?"
If you have other things that you already bought and should be
reading, finish those before you buy a new one.

You might wonder why I'm writing all this...
Because I bought thousands and thousands of dollars in ebooks
and software. I've been buying ebooks since 1998 and I am pretty
sure that if I added all the money I spent I would come up with
a figure that would make me FURIOUS. Why? Because in all this
time I have rarely acted on all the knowledge I've learned.

Now, after 6 years of studying webmarketing, I can stop myself
from buying stuff online. Not always, I still have at least 6
ebooks to read before I buy a new one, but I believe I have more
control over my wallet.
And in fact I haven't bought a niche oriented product ...yet ;)
And you shouldn't either, UNLESS you are sure you'll ACT on the
knowledge you'll learn.

Niche marketing is a great thing, and even if it's not new, there
are many new products that will teach you how to make the most
out of niche marketing, so you can save some time.
Trial and error can be fun, but it's more fun to leave them to
others and focus on what works :)

And unless YOU ACT and make your investment on knowledge a
profitable investement, you'll be wasting your cash. Go and
buy a DVD instead and enjoy some quality time in front of the
Tv.

That's it. End of my rant... I know I wasted so much money
on ebooks that I didn't learn from and so I wanted to help
others avoid wasting that much money.

The juice of this article is the following:
Niche marketing is a hot trend right now (because of the
"herd factor"), so you will be *bombarded* with offers about
niche marketing....So:
Make your choices wisely, and ACT on what you learn.

DO IT!

Cheers,
Saul