Google Alerts: How To Find A Profitable Niche For Your Special Interest Video

Research is crucial in finding a profitable niche for your Special Interest or Non-Fiction video as well as in marketing it. One of the best free research tools I’ve found is Google Alerts.
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Don’t Re-Invent The Wheel

In this blog I’ll be adding lots of articles about how to intelligently select video topics to pursue that have a high probability of success. Choosing topics is part science, part intuition and, admittedly, a touch of good luck. You should pick topics that will be profitable, but also ones that you enjoy. If you have a topic you are interested in, you’ll be more motivated to follow through with marketing and producing follow-on products.

We’ll go through a lot of good research methods in future articles and in an upcoming video. However, today I’d like to tell you about a personal experience that very well may happen to you, too.

Due to YouTube and hundreds of other video outlets, many of them free, there are a lot of video clips floating out there in the internet cloud. Most are free and some are for a fee. Some are pretty good and some are awful.

My own experience is that a couple of years ago I produced a DVD about car detailing. There didn’t seem to be that many competing products out there, and I felt I had a big name expert to work with. Plus, I let my emotions talk me into it because I was temporarily interested in the subject due to a new car I was enjoying.

My sales have dropped off and I was wondering why. When I started digging around on the net I found several sites giving away perfectly good videos on detailing. Some were promoting their detailing products, but some were not.

eHow is an organization that pays videographers a modest fee, I think it is around $300 – $500 per title, to produce short videos for them on a wide range of topics. Turns out they have posted a lot of videos on car detailing which they are giving away free. (They make their money on advertising). I really feel the sudden abundance of free car detailing videos has killed the market for mine.

My message here is to look around and do your homework before embarking on a new special interest video production. The internet is changing everything, and the amount of content on it is increasing. Look at places like eHow to see if they are giving away videos like the one you are considering. The great thing about the internet is that search engines like Google do a darn good job of researching for you.

Finally, don’t let your emotions push you into producing something. Be objective when considering new titles, and do “due diligence” to find out if the is a market and if the need has already been filled by existing product.

Always keep your eyes and ears open for new opportunities, which are around every corner.

Things To Think About Before Selecting A Topic

So you think you have a great idea that is sure to be a money maker? I hope you do. But, after producing scores of videos myself, I’ve learned that my “gut feeling” can be nothing more than indigestion. In other words, I do some homework before jumping into a new project just because I think it will sell.

First off, you really have to be specific about what your project idea is. The more specific it is, the easier it will be to do pre-production market research and do post-production marketing to sell it.

After being in this business for a long time, one thing I am aware of is that if I’m truly interested in the subject matter, I’ll pour more energy into it at every phase. It is increasingly important to me to feel that what I’m doing is important, so choosing topics I care about is a priority.

There are a lot of research tools available to help you estimate the size of a potential market and if they might buy your type of product. We’ll cover that in a future post, very soon.