“Just pick a niche and stick with it until you succeed.” That's some of the most common advice given to Internet marketing newcomers. But how do you know if you picked a good niche? Nobody wants to spend countless hours building a website, only to discover on down the road that there was never much money there to begin with. With the following five niches, you don't have to wonder if the money's there. It is. We picked these niches precisely because they are hot and getting hotter. Pick one of the following, stay focused, and you're sure to see success in 2016. Why Personal Development is a Great Niche for 2016 Personal Development is an evergreen niche that has boomed recently. As the recession seems to lift, more and more people are thinking about getting ahead in their jobs again (instead of just being satisfied to be employed). The Personal Development niche provides instruction and other aid for many people seeking more success in life. It's important to note that the Personal Development niche doesn't just sell to people's aspirations. Products in this niche are also a balm for stress: The stress of low social or work status; the stress of not making enough money; the stress of not meeting expectations (financial or otherwise) placed by oneself and others. Personal development products also cover relationships, addiction, personal finance, public speaking, and similar topics. That's actually great for you as a marketer. The best kind of audience to target is one under stress that desperately wants their problems solved. When you provide a solution to someone's burning problem, everybody wins: You, your customer, and your bank account. Products in this niche range from $7 Kindle books to $20,000 coaching programs. Books, CD courses, e-courses, workshops, and similar products cover every price point in between.

Members

of this niche love

free content as

well. Use it as a

magnet for your

mailing list.

How to

Approach This Niche Like other hungry audiences, this audience is ready to buy what you're selling. But before they'll buy from you, they need to trust you. This is where the concept of “pre-selling” comes in helpful. Most good affiliate sites are designed to pre-sell with their content. This content hits on prospects' emotional hot-buttons, reminding them of the stress they feel. Content that pre-sells doesn't even have to mention the product you’re selling (and quite often, it shouldn't), although it may mention the general type of solution.

It's important to be able to empathize with your audience here. Do that, and your own content will have feeling. This will inflame your audience's feelings and drive up sales. Fail to do this, and your audience won't get excited. They might even decide they don't trust you. And no matter how much they want to scratch their itch, they need to trust you before they'll buy from you. Fortunately, all of us have been under stress at some point. We've all felt inadequate at times, or afraid we might not live up to expectations (our own or somebody else's). Keep these experiences in mind when you write for this audience. You may not be in their exact shoes, but you've had similar experiences. Remind them of what they're feeling and show them that they can trust you. They will reward you with sales. Products and Resources Tony Robbins is the biggest name in personal development, with books on relationships, business, and personal power. Brian Tracy is another popular author who concentrates on sales and goal-setting. Authors such as Depak Chopra and Joe Vitale take a slightly more mystical approach but cover similar territory. There are many other authors in this niche. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz are perhaps the two most important books to read in this niche. They set the stage for almost everything that cam afterwards. You can find products to promote at Nightingale-Contant, Clickbank, and many CPA networks. Hard Assets: A Sure Thing in an Unsure World Hard Assets is another evergreen niche that's seen an increase lately. It's not as popular with marketers as the Personal Development niche—all the better for those who get into it! Traditionally, people concerned about their wealth have invested a portion of it in hard assets such as

gold and other precious metals, real estate, and other tangible forms of wealth. Tax laws also make it possible for many to use their retirement savings accounts to buy hard assets as well. Even though the economy seems to be on the upswing, many are anxious that it could drop again soon. Selling to this anxiety is a great way to make money selling in the Hard Assets niche. How to Approach this Niche As with any other niche, it pays to know your audience. Traditionally, hard assets buyers were upper-middle-class and wealthy men, most of them at least 30 years old (and usually older). Today, many more women take part in these decisions. And because of the recent recession, people with a wide range of income levels have been looking into hard assets recently. The biggest goal for most hard assets investors is to ensure safety: Safety for themselves but just as much for their families. Fear and stress are good motivators in this niche. A sense of responsibility towards one's family often plays a large role as well. So is the remembered pain of losing 40+% on investments in 2008. These are all chords you want to strike in your audience. Trust is even more important in this niche than it is in others. The bigger the investment, the more they need to trust you.

Take this example from Regal Assets, a large online player in the Hard Assets niche. They include several trust elements just below their menu bar. These are followed by social proof (and therefore trust) indicators of Twitter and Facebook followers. Right next to these are a toll-free number and a “Chat With a Live Expert” button. Among other things, these let readers know that there really is someone on the other end, and that this is a legitimate and well-staffed business. That's a lot of trust packed into less than two inches of screen! It's important to note that these are at the top of the page, before any other content or sales copy. Scroll further down the page to see their continuing use of trust elements such as celebrity endorsements and testimonials. It's important to keep in mind that investing is different from purchasing a product. There are many very wealthy people who will drop a few million on a yacht soon after seeing it, but who might take all

week before they make an investment of a mere $100,000. Use a slower (but persistent) approach than you would with other niches. It will pay off! Products and Research. Hard Assets Investor is a good guide to this niche. You can learn plenty about audience attitudes and fears, as well as some of the products that sell well in this niche. Regal Assets is one big player in this niche right now. Aside from the assets themselves, this audience also buys books, reports, consultations, etc. If you're really serious about this niche, check Dan Kennedy's books No B.S Guide to Marketing to Leading-Edge Boomers & Seniors and No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent are great guides to a large part of this niche audience. How You Can Profit from the T-Shirt Craze of 2016 If you've read Entrepreneur and similar magazines for very long, you've no doubt seen ads selling t-shirt and bumper sticker business kits. You can still buy all the hardware and make money selling t-shirts both online and offline. But the magic powers of “crowd funding” and print-on-demand technology allow anyone to get started sooner and with much less capital up front. That's probably the reason we've seen such a big boom in the past several months. People and organizations who used to sell items on Cafe Press and similar sites, have figured out they can bring in a lot more money with better business models. And who wouldn't want to try? Most people have daydreamed about owning their own business at some point. And just about everybody has seen, heard, or said something funny or profound and immediately stated, “I should make t-shirt with that on it.” And since the Internet allows any business person to find customers for even the most strange or obscure design, many people have started to see t-shirt profits that weren't previously attainable outside of catalog or chain-store distribution. If you choose a print-on-demand option you can try as many ideas as you like, without worrying about materials or inventory cost at all. All you need to pay for is marketing and promotion.

Who's Buying T-Shirts? A simple look around in any public place will show you that t-shirts sell to just about everyone regardless of ethnicity, income, location or creed. Teens, tweens, and twentysomethings by the majority novelty t-shirts. But many people (mostly men) continue to buy them up to age 50 and beyond. Of course people of all ages buy t-shirts that aren't necessarily funny or novelty shirts. The key is knowing where to advertise to get your designs seen, and branding your business. Facebook is a good place to start with both, as it has one of the most targeted advertising dashboards around. Schools, churches, and other nonprofits often sell t-shirts as fund raisers. You can pocket some cash yourself if you can deliver quality shirts at a good price. You can also sell branded t-shirts to restaurants and other businesses that either sell them in-store, or else use them as part of a uniform. How to Get Started Many people are using TeeSpring and Spread Shirt represent two different ways to get started in the t-shirt business. A quick Google search will turn up other ways to get started. If your t-shirt business really takes off, you may want to consider investing in your own hot press, printer, or silkscreen setup. It will take a little more work, but you'll have a chance for greater profits this way once you reach a high volume of sales. Sell Multiple Niche Products to the Survivalist and “Prepper” Niche The survivalist niche has always been an intense niche of passionate people. If you had a useful product to sell to this audience, chances were you could do pretty well without bending over backwards with your marketing efforts. This niche has been blossoming over the past 2-3 years and has recently become HUGE. That's partly due to the show Doomsday Preppers, which National Geographic Television claims is its most-watched TV show. Not everyone in the survival niche thinks the end of the world is coming, of course. But they're all

concerned that the fabric of society is breaking down. Most are convinced that, instead of slowly unraveling, the thread that holds society together will someday snap completely. Those in the survivalist niche range from paramilitary-style commando-types who have stocked years of food and ammunition into bunkers, to more mainstream individuals who have prepared their “bugout” bags and urban escape routes in case of disaster. Regardless of their level of involvement, however, nearly all the members of this audience share strong feelings about society, politics, and their anxiety about the future.

A pre-assembled bug-out-bag sells for $495 at Specialforces.com. How to Approach and Profit From This Niche The most active members of this niche are conservative white males with an average age of 45. That's an important thing to keep in mind as you sell to them. If you're not familiar with anyone in this niche personally, it's important that you spend some time reading online survivalist forums before you start to sell to this niche. In fact, that's something you should in any case.

It's important to understand the jargon, buzzwords, and common attitudes in any niche. This niche demands extra-careful attention to the way people talk and how the feel about the world. The most well-written content or sales copy won't make a dent in this audience if they perceive you as an outsider or someone who doesn't “get it”. Fortunately, most survivalists and preppers aren't shy about their feelings. Spend some time on the forums below to understand this niche market. Where to Find Out More Survivalist forums: Survivalist Boards Prepper Forums Prepared Society Survivalist Magazine Major Surplus and Survival, an online store that caters to the survivalist niche. Clickbank has many info-products relevant to this niche. Keep in mind that products from many other niches cross over into this one. Solar power and woodworking products sell well in this niche, for example. Fitness and Health Supplements: The Evergreen Niche Combo That Keeps Getting Bigger The Fitness and Health Supplement Niche (or two overlapping niches, depending on your point of view) is a good audience to sell to for 2016. It was a good audience to sell to in 2015, and it will be again in 2016!

Just a few of the many categories in this niche. Much like Personal Development (with which it crosses over), this audience is driven to positive goals largely because of negative stress and fear. People want to get fit for a variety of reasons: To have more energy, to become more attractive, to avoid or fix health problems, or even to deal with disaster in the future. People take supplements for all of the above reasons and then some. They may take supplements to help them with their fitness routine or lower their cholesterol. But this audience takes supplements for a variety of other purposes as well: To treat cosmetic conditions such as dandruff or bad breath; to treat impotence or a perceived lack of virility; to enhance memory and brain function; and to ease stress and depression, just to name a few. A healthy percentage of supplement buyers buy supplements because of a distrust of “Big Pharma” and modern medicine. How to Approach This Niche

There are many sub-niches within the Fitness & Supplements niche. The best way to start off is by targeting one of these smaller subsections. Your local gym, magazine rack, health food store, and supplement store will all have magazines and other literature that will help you discover many of the sub-niches in this niche. The best way to start is simply by finding a crowd you have affinity with, then learning about their major concerns, buzzwords, emotional hot buttons, etc. One good thing about this niche is that few people are one-time buyers. A person who buys one DVD or piece of exercise equipment is likely to buy more, as well as other related items. And supplements practically have “subscription” written all over them! There are many different affiliate programs in this niche. The following are some suggestions to get you started. GNC Affiliate Network BodyBuilding.com Affiliates Commission Junction has a large range of products in every niche. Clickbank carries a large number of relevant information products. Many CPA networks have high-paying fitness offers and high-paying supplement offers. These offers change on a regular basis so that you're always able to sell a fresh product.