Up And Coming Niche Trends
If you’ve been paying any attention to gas prices lately, you’ve noticed how high they’ve gotten. But has it occurred to you yet, that you can actually capitalize on these rising prices? When everyone starts complaining about something, that’s usually an indication of changing trends. And changing trends can be profitable.
High gas prices are just part of a larger problem in today’s world. Actually they’re part of several larger problems. There’s the financial crisis many people are in. Real estate and mortgage prices. Unemployment problems. Rising costs of food. And much more. All of these problems, are creating a much bigger awareness of all the other issues. And this awareness is creating opportunity.
What kind of opportunity? Alternative transportation options. Environmentally friendly everything. Gardening, home improvement, fashion, and more.
Take any one of those niches, and you’ll find many more smaller niches. Look at alternative transportation options for instance. There’s a rising interest and electric cars, alternative fuel sources, and even human powered devices like bicycles and scooters.
A few weeks ago, I was surprised at how high the gas prices have gotten, and in the midst of my grumbling I started talking about how we were soon gonna start riding bicycles because this was just ridiculous. A few days after that, my Jeep broke down. Since that’s our only vehicle at the moment, we ended up having to resort to riding a bicycle after all. Other things had to take priority with finances, so getting the truck fixed will be another couple weeks. In the meantime, my husband dug out one of our sons’ bicycles. The bikes have been sitting around unused for years, so basic maintenance on the tires in the chain was needed at first. After that though, using the bicycle to go to the grocery store became fairly easy. My husband straps on a backpack, and goes grocery shopping every couple days.
Now, this works decently for us because our grocery stores are only a mile or two away. But as gas prices go higher, more and more people will start looking at this themselves. In fact, my husband has started searching online for bicycles that can handle carrying cargo. And guess what? We found there’s a lot of people who are already doing this, and they’re modifying their bicycles to help them carry groceries, boxes, packages, camera equipment, and more.
In recent weeks, around our small little town at least, I’ve noticed there seems to be an increased use of bicycles. Just this morning I also saw someone on a small scooter. These are just two niche markets that are poised to grow dramatically over the next several years. And because of all the news about environmentally friendly things lately, there are many related niche markets that will soon be growing too. I found a CNN report this morning for instance, which was talking about companies and individuals who are using recycled trash to make new products with. Similar things have become very popular recently too, include things like the slow food movement, shopping for food and products locally, and making your home more environmentally friendly.
How can you capitalize on these as an affiliate marketer? Well there’s article writing and content sites of course, and you could try earning money from those using old standbys like Google AdSense or ClickBank digital products. A better approach though, might be to use tangible products from affiliate networks such as Commission Junction or Share A Sale.
With the bicycle idea above for instance, you could have a website about bicycles, repair, maitenance, customizing them, and so on, then you could promote either the bikes themselves, or related things such as repair kits, parts, accessories and more. You could then use a tool such as The Affiliate Datafeed Profit System Plugin for easy and automated updates and earnings, or you could insert the products onto your site manually as you go.
So, start looking around at related topics in the news, and think about which part of these new trends you might like to start capitalizing on.
©2008, Kathy Burns-Millyard
