In this article I’d like to share with you seven hot niches that are likely to provide great profit potential going in 2012.
7 Hot Niches for 2012
Let’s get stuck in and look at each niche in turn…
1. Green energy
People are interested in green energy either because they are environmentally conscious or they wish to save money. Both of these are strong drivers for 2012, as are government subsidies and ever- rising gas and electricity bills.
You could profit from these trends by setting up a WordPress blog dedicated to selling eBooks on how to make your home more energy efficient.
Of course, you’ll need to write some articles for it and possibly add some videos from YouTube too. But there is no shortage of topics to cover: wall/loft insulation, solar panels for your roof, wind turbines and selling electricity back to the grid are just some ideas.
As you might expect, some savvy marketers have already been jumping on this trend and a search in ClickBank (the affiliate network for digital products) shows a number of products that are selling extremely well, especially on the subjects of building your own solar panels and wind turbines.
A great example is “Homemade Energy”. You can check out their sales pitch here
It would take a few minutes to sign up for ClickBank (it’s free), grab an affiliate link for products like these (check them out first, of course) and promote them though your “Green Energy” blog.
As is almost always the case if you can add an opt-in form to your blog (using a service like AWeber or MailChimp) and build a list of people interested in this subject matter then you will really put your profit potential on steroids!
2. Managing your money
It’s not just governments who have borrowed too much. Households and individuals have as well.
Anyone accustomed to daytime TV will notice the endless “debt relief” ads that seem to pop up in every commercial break.
Although it is not really to my personal taste, people do make money by generating leads for these companies. If you go to the “Largest Affiliate Offer Search Engine”, namely oDigger.com, and type in “debt relief” you’ll see lots of different affiliate offers that you can earn money from. There are several other ways of earning from this niche including money-saving tips (a certain Martin Lewis at MoneySavingExpert.com is doing very nicely out of this niche, thank you very much!) and personal credit ratings. In terms of the latter, companies such as Experian offer affiliate programs that you can earn money from in return for generating them new customer leads.
3. Financial trading and investment
With the current state of the financial markets you might say I’m crazy for suggesting this!
Well, I totally agree that the markets are tough right now, but there are a couple of plays on this that are well worth considering.
Firstly, history shows home investor and trader activity actually picks up when stock markets have fallen. Falling markets not only generate headlines (which raises people’s interest) but also there are generally more opportunities to pick up cheap stocks that have been unfairly brought down by the market as a whole.
For 2012, I wouldn’t really recommend areas such as Forex (which have been all but done to death by so many product releases) but instead markets such as commodities.
Gold, is a niche that I’d especially like to highlight.
Of course, there are practical uses for gold – such as jewellery and electronics – but the real trick here is that there is a limited supply and – crucially – central banks cannot “print more” like they can with money!
This makes it the best insurance against inflation and therefore a great niche for 2012.
So again, a blog, eBook or set of training videos on gold investment or trading would be a great way to make money from this niche in 2012.
In fact, when I visited the United States a short time ago I noticed talk radio commercials were already starting to feature ads for training courses on buying and investing in gold.
4. Obesity
Although the rise in obesity in countries like the US and UK could be related to economic factors this is probably best considered as a social trend. TV, radio and newspaper reports are raising awareness of the risks all the time and more and more people are keen to take action.
There are plenty of products and services out there available for affiliate promotion that can be used to monetise this niche too. Examples include general weight loss, home workouts, diet plans and courses on how to make lifestyle changes to deal with specific obesity risks like diabetes.
Check out the Google Keyword Tool and ClickBank to brainstorm ideas and products that you could make money from.
5. Sleep
A rather unusual niche as first glance but sleep and in particular sleep deprivation is something that has been making people money online for years.
So in one respect this can be considered an “evergreen” niche, meaning that it is always popular regardless of other things that are going on. However, issues like insomnia do tend to become more prevalent when economic times are hard.
Such as 2012, for example!
There is a mixture of physical and information products that can be used to make money in this niche. Check out these high volume searches reported by the Google Keyword Tool:
Sleep apnoea, sleep deprivation, how to cure insomnia, sleep disorders, snoring solutions, natural sleep aids, how to get to sleep
There are some real “buyers’ keywords” here that include words like “how to” and “solutions”. This is a great indication of hungry buyers in this market.
6. Raw food
This niche puzzled me when I first heard about it: Are people really interested in eating lots of raw food?!
Well, believe it or not the answer is yes. What is more, interest in this niche is growing, a trend that looks set to continue into 20121.
If you’re wondering exactly what this is all about then About.com explains that, “The raw food diet is based on the belief that the most healthful food for the body is uncooked.”
Right now, it seems that one of the major online experts in this area is David Wolfe who is capitalising on this trend already. Check out his website.
With interest growing this could be the ideal time to get onboard. Set up a blog, build a list of subscribers by offering a free report on the raw food diet and then promote eBooks, training courses, recipes and related nutritional products to make money.
7. Property
Recently, the news has been full of headlines telling us how difficult it is for first-time buyers to get their foot on the first rung of the property ladder.
It crossed my mind that perhaps some of these first time buyers would be interested in learning how to buy property cheaper at auction.
Maybe, maybe not.
But there are at least two other factors which make selling information guides (such as eBooks) and related products and services a great bet for 2012:
1) At the time of writing there are growing risks of another financial crisis hitting the banks (which have lent too much money to countries such as Greece) and another recession in Europe, UK and the US. This means increasing danger for the housing market and more houses being repossessed and sold at auction.
2) Regardless of economic conditions, there are always people who have cash on the sidelines for investment. I’m thinking specifically of the baby-boomer generation here, many of whom are sitting pretty, thanks to decades of house price inflation. These people have time – due to retirement – and are looking for new interests and investments.
Property auctions remain a bit of a mystery to most people but we have a couple of groups of people (first-time buyers and wealthy baby boomers) who are likely to be very interested in learning about them.