With thousands of businesses rushing into cyberspace (recent figures show more than 10,000 new domain names registered last month alone!), it's important for your business to have a unique product or service niche. It's also crucial for your online presence to add value to what you're doing off-line. Otherwise, you're a me-too business that stands little chance of rising above the increasing noise level on the Net.
I am reminded of the "unique niche" problem every time I get a request for marketing advice from someone selling a MLM or network marketing scheme. Check out a newsgroup like misc.entrepreneurs or one of the business opportunities ad areas on a major online service, and you'll see lots of "Make Big Money" ads that basically all look alike. I'm often unable to help the people selling these opportunities, because they have failed to consider or even understand the importance of having something that offers a specific advantage to the customer. These people are usually so focused on getting people to sign up on their networks that it's not important to them whether the actual product being sold (long distance services, vitamins, whatever) has any intrinsic advantages over dozens or hundreds of other similar products offered for sale on the Net. It has never occurred to them that at some point, somebody has to be buying those vitamins or that long distance service or else there's no business for a distributor, and no reason for distributors to join such a network. And when I ask these MLM mavens to tell me the basic advantage of their product, they're often unable to supply an answer.

But the noise level in the MLM businesses is only a harbinger of things to come in many other online businesses. It's no longer possible to be the first or only business on the Net in many fields, and being on the Net isn't, by itself, a unique advantage. The challenge is to find a key business advantage that makes you successful, and to leverage that advantage with the unique capabilities of cyberspace.

If you can't be the only bookstore or realtor or travel agent or publicity consultant on the Net (and you can't), find a specific niche (sports books, vacation condos, "green" vacations, or PR for law firms, for example) where you can stake a claim. Of course, you can't claim a niche unless you can truly serve it, but often you can focus your efforts on a more specific market segment and use that specialization as a marketing weapon. By promising to do one thing really well, you'll have a better chance of gaining the credibility that will lead to sales.

If you already have a successful off-line business, think about how you can add online value to your off-line efforts. Think about why your customers come to you now, and how you can add convenience, service, information, communication, or other values to your business by going online. Don't just take what you're doing off-line and move it online in the hope that being there will somehow make people stand up and cheer: leverage the cost-effective information distribution and communications capabilities of the Net in the service of your customers and your organization. Give customers a larger selection of items at lower prices, or offer a series of articles about your field that will be helpful to your customers. Ideally, your online presence should be so great that your customers would get an online account just to take advantage of it. The closer you come to reaching this goal, the better your chance of profits on the Net.

"Find a need and fill it" is not just a slogan on concrete delivery trucks. It's a time-tested marketing maxim that holds true in cyberspace and elsewhere. The Net is not a niche; it's just another marketing arena. The sooner you focus on delivering real online value, the healthier your cash flow will be.