" niche market":

What is it?

How does it work?

How do i price my services by targetting niche markets?

How can i have on website offering different service plans and at the same time targetting different niche markets?

Thanks

Hop over to this link:
http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=468272
and
http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=468231

Also, do search these forums. They are packed with interesting information for you to understand all your questions.

A niche market is whatever you want it to be. In short, it's a targeted market, such as real-estate, where you offer services that can attract real-estate agents.

This is just a short explanation. Doing a search and figuring out which niche you want to target are good ideas.

This might help you out:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,297662,00.html

http://www.wilsonweb.com/articles/niche.htm

Vito

Niche markets are a great way to make money in the hosting biz. It's pretty hard to compete with the monster-sized hosts who offer it all for $2.99 a month, but if you can provide a service that meets the specific needs of a certain group then you have your niche.

We have our little niche market and it is working out very, very well. (The site in my sig should give you a clue as to who we are targeting.)

Also - your Adwords marketing for niche markets is way less expensive. No need to bid tons of money for keywords like "web hosting" when your niche customers can find you with much cheaper keywords!

Well even if you take a look at larger/multi-brand hosting companies like Interland or Affinity the reason they are multi-branded is to target certain niches. A perfect recent example is Gate.com (http://www.gate.com) launched by Affinity (http://www.affinity.com). The new brand is targeted at a more tech savvy audience, so they crafted the messaging and products to that specific niche. Even though the core infrastructure is the same as their other brands.

...look at larger/multi-brand hosting companies like...Affinity the reason they are multi-branded is to target certain niches.
The reason Affinity is "multi-branded" is because the group that bought the company in 1999 had millions of dollars to spend, and they went on a hosting company shopping spree.

Actually, Affinity itself was the first company they bought. I was with Affinity for the two years before the sale. Half of the people in the company stayed with the "new" Affinity, and half of us went with one of the old owners and started what eventually became Omnis.com.

We would hear all sorts of fun stuff about the "new" Affinity. They seemed to be on a mission to piss away as many millions of dollars as they could in the shortest amount of time possible. But that was hardly uncommon in 1999/2000 (a different group owns the Affinity companies now).

But you're right on when you say, "Even though the core infrastructure is the same as their other brands" - it's all marketing. A hosting account is a hosting account.