Affiliate Marketing Network Business: Market Selection And Assessment

by Charles T Chege

The correct identification and assessment of a market is crucial for the success of an affiliate marketing business as it forms the foundation of your customer base. A good market consists of a large number of people with a common need who have enough spending power for you to profit from serving them. The market must be hungry for a solution; willing to spend disposable income on solutions and must be easy to reach.

Every market represents a niche and a good question to ask at the beginning is "what niche do I want to go into?" Not every niche represents a viable and profitable market and one can not create markets where they don't exist. Related to this is the fact that product targeting is really secondary to to niche targeting. An affiliate must identify the niche market and determine its needs before creating or locating a product to provide the required solution. Market identification and assessment is governed by real research and brainstorming ideas. The system has three important components. These are; Closeness, Net-Worth, and Availability.

Affiliate marketing involves doing what one feels affectionate about. What are your hobbies and interests? Do you possess any specialized knowledge that might be of use to others? You must target your products and services to a well-defined group of consumers ie a niche market. The best place to be is to have a business in an area that is both profitable and enjoyable. To find a niche and create a business based on that niche maximizes your chances of success as these are markets that are hungry and eager to buy. It is therefore vitally important to do research and brainstorming to get your market interest (your affinity market). While the average person thinks in terms of products that already exist, the niche marketer thinks in terms of both existing products as well as products that haven't been introduced the market yet.

One must determine whether the market will be profitable for you and whether you can afford to enter that market based on your current budget and resources. Market profitability is based two factors:a)It has an effective demand b)It has the inclination to purchase or a willingness to spend part of its disposable income on those products or services that meet their needs. These two factors can be further appraised by looking at the pre-existing products or services and how they are selling, their average prices and how much the demand is being expressed ie a healthy amount of competition.


The market opportunity is defined by the forces of demand and supply that determine the level of competition in the market.How much room in the market is there for selling a variety of products? Are you limited to selling just one product or is there an opportunity to roll out new products or services and capitalize on new trends?


The optimal determination and assessment of the niche target is a pre-requisite to the successful provision of solutions. Herein lies the determinant of the success or failure of your affiliate marketing business.