I’ve been writing quite a few posts about niches, and important it is to concentrate your focus (rather than scattering your efforts and your money). Here are some of the best posts, gathered all in one place.
Is Your Marketing Missing Its Target?
How to Pull Your Marketing Out of the Mud
Earn More Money Marketing to Fewer People
Can You Have More Than One Niche Market?
Do you have an ideal client? Do you know why you need one? Or how to find your ideal client?
It’s one of the first questions a marketer or copywriter will ask.
Do you know the answer? If not, you should.
Because you need to think like a fisherman. Decide what kind of clients you want to catch. Then you’ll know where to go look for them, how to attract their attention and what services to offer them. The closer your prospect is to your ideal client, the better.
Think about the problems you solve. If you’re a web developer, you solve the problems of people who want web sites, and don’t have them. People at large corporations? Solo entrepreneurs? Musicians? Are they creative risk-takers? Or more conservative? Fit your prospects to your personality. If you’re a creative person, full of ideas, and a risk-taker, accountants may not be your best choice.
There’s no sense trying to find clients with a splashy Super Bowl ad campaign if you’re a small business. Think about the resources you do have. There are inexpensive or even free ways to promote your business.
It’s no use trying to sell a $10,000 solution to a small business that earns $100,000 a year. They can’t afford it. To attract smaller companies, offer less expensive options, or payment plans.
Do you specialize in a particular industry or offer specialized services? Pick a niche . If you design web sites, set yourself apart from every other web designer. Be the designer who specializes in small business web sites or the designer who does sites for independent bookstores.
Are you offering something people want? Is there a big enough market for it? Think about the kinds of challenges the company faces (outsourcing, increasing market share, learning to use social media) and how your services help them solve those problems.
It doesn’t have to be a multi-million dollar problem; it could be helping someone who is overwhelmed with paperwork and needs a virtual assistant.
Are you talking to the head fish of the family? (OK, so I’m stretching this metaphor until it nearly breaks) Aim your marketing and your discussions at the person who has the authority to buy your product or service.
Need more help figuring this out? Download this free ideal client worksheet.
Image: Iamwahid
There’s an intense discussion going on in a forum I belong to, about whether you need a niche or not.
Do you? Or is it just a lot of nonsense? Why is a niche important?
Here’s why:
MORE MONEY
That’s right. More money. If you specialize you get more money.
In marketing, we call it a unique selling proposition – it’s a fancy bunch of words for whatever it is that makes you stand out (Hint: printing business cards for any small business is not a niche).
The reason that many people recommend finding a niche is that it’s much easier to market yourself that way. Trying to be all things to all people will doom you to failure.
There’s a nail salon near my home that also offers video transfer services. Would you trust your memories to a nail salon?
Say you’re a fisherman and you specialize in tuna.
If you want tuna, you figure out where tuna congregate. Let’s see, tuna. Well they’re fish, so that eliminates land masses. You need water.
Now, what kind of water? Not ponds, or lakes, or rivers.
Oceans! Which part of the ocean? Cold water? Warm water? Close to shore? Far from shore? Etc.
You narrow down your target, instead of spraying and praying and hoping to hit something.
Then you think, OK I know where the tuna live, where’s the best spot to hang out to find them? What do they want to eat? What kind of tackle do I need to catch them? What can I do that will attract tuna to my bait?
A few more practical examples.
Say you’re a wedding planner. That’s not a niche, but what if you specialized in interfaith weddings – and the special issues that arise when different beliefs come together? You could make a name for yourself, and probably charge more money too.
Or, the Virtual Assistant for video producers. If you focus on video, you can go hang out at video industry events, read video industry magazines, and fix yourself in people’s minds as the “go to” person for the video industry. If you know who you’re talking to, and what problems they have, it’s going to be much easier to solve them.
See how it works?
What strategies do you use to attract your own “tuna”? Share them in the comments.
Less gets me more? How can that be?
Focusing on a small group of people, instead of trying to sell to everyone, can actually get you more business. You need a niche.
But how do you find one?
First of all, think about what you like. Is your passion for design in a particular industry? Are you more drawn to pharmaceuticals? Or does your heart beat faster when you work on something for the music industry? If you’re passionate about something, the joy will come through in your work. You’ll be happier, and so will your customers.
Next step is to narrow it down. Music is a big topic. Do you want to focus on big labels? Or up-and-coming indie country music artists? Be as specific as possible.
Do some research. You may have a great idea, but there’s no sense going ahead with an idea without a market. So, do a little research to find out if a market exists. Here are some tools.
Become known as a specialist in a particular field, and you’ll be the go-to company. “Oh yeah, she’s the green exhibit designer.”
Next, you’ll need to figure out how to build trust in your chosen niche. More on that tomorrow.
Everyone (including me) tells you that you need a niche. Having a clear path helps you find new customers (since you know exactly where to look) and improves your ability to focus your marketing efforts.
But, what do you do if you’ve got several, unrelated niches? What if your business has grown organically and you’ve got some clients in the software industry, another chunk who are accountants, and a third set who sell medical devices?
The first thing to do is to review each sector and see which ones are the most profitable, and which are most likely to remain profitable. Who’s bringing in the most revenue? Which industries have the best potential for current or future growth. Which ones will do well despite the recession? If not, do you gain something by retaining lower-profit sectors (such as prestige, or PR, or brand awareness). Take the customers in the areas you want to keep, and focus your efforts on them.
One solution is to create separate micro sites (mini Web sites) or landing pages for each one. Develop separate marketing campaigns and send visitors from each industry to the appropriate spot. Limit the content on each site to information and products that are relevant to that sector.
Build a clear trail to guide each group to the right spot and focus them on the benefits they will receive by using your product or service. Add separate tabs for each one to your Web site: services for software developers; services for accountants; services for medical device manufacturers. Make them different colors so they stand out.
Adjust the copy, the products, and the services in each section to fit the specific problems faced by each industry. Use industry-specific language (tax time for the accountants, cloud computing for the software developers) as appropriate.
Add testimonials from clients in each group, and offer informational content (articles, links to trade magazine, worksheets, etc.) designed to appeal to each of the three industries.