Individuals who work from home can find a market for or test the profitability of a product with the help of the online affiliate marketing business model, according to one seasoned internet entrepreneur.

Author TJ Philpott says such marketing efforts will assist homeworkers in determining if particular niche markets or product ideas are worth further effort or investment.

"You don't have to spend time or money on product development or support," he notes on PromotionWorld. "As a result you can therefore focus your efforts on test marketing the niche markets themselves."

His tips for finding potential markets while minimising financial risk include selecting a niche that interests you, because this will give you more energy and enthusiasm and make your work "seem more like play".

Exploring new opportunities is a further recommendation for decreasing competition and boosting market dominance, while searching Google for a particular product or niche will reveal whether it is profitable via the number of paying advertisers visible on the right-hand column of the results page.

Further advice from Philpott includes checking online affiliate programmes for products fitting your niche, setting up a "pre-sell" system to tempt visitors with a few of your product's benefits and closely analysing results to ascertain whether ads, the product or the site itself need to be tweaked.