Market Your Business to Fewer People
and Get More Sales

We all tend to want more... more money, more customers, more everything. The truth is that targeting your marketing more narrowly —or niche marketing can actually make you more successful.

I recently read a post on MarketingProfs.com (an online marketing discussion forum) from someone who was starting an event planning company. She wanted to host weddings, birthdays, networking events for professionals, and parties for singles.

She was looking for help with a name for the company, since she was having a hard time thinking of one. It's going to be hard to fit all of that under one name, and when she tries to market the company, the problems will get worse.

Stop "Spraying and Praying"

She's spinning around in a circle and hoping to hit something. The marketing for professional networking events would have to be very different than the marketing for weddings. Her market isn't a niche at all. Selling to everybody is selling to nobody.

B to B Marketing is Different

They have completely different problems, and need different solutions. Marketing aimed at small businesses is irrelevant to brides, and vice versa.

Find a Niche Market

Trying to be all things to all people will lead to fewer sales, not more. Instead, find a specific group of people that wants what you sell. Ignore the people that don't.

Successful Niche Marketing — How it Works

Remember the wedding dress challenge on The Apprentice? The two teams, Apex and Mosaic, were competing to see who could earn the most money selling wedding dresses.

Apex team members stood in Grand Central Station in NY handing out flyers. Mosaic contracted with a bridal Web site to send out a marketing email to their subscribers.

Most of the 500,000 people who pass through Grand Central daily don't need a wedding dress. The email campaign reached a much smaller audience of 23,000.

But every one of them was a bride-to-be and potential customer.

Mosaic had a $12,788.94 profit. Apex earned only $1,064.47.

The Secret of Mosaic's Success?

They picked a company (The Knot) that had a specific niche and a specific audience — brides, and only brides. So, they got better results.