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
Fisherman know that if they want to catch any fish, they need to go to the right spot.
Marketers need to do that too. You figure out what kinds of fish (clients) you want to attract and go where they are. Right? But wait, you’re going to need one more thing.
Worms, squid, and flies work for fish. Not so much for people. You’ll need the kind of bait that attracts people; specifically your preferred kind of people. Choosing the right bait can make a big difference in whether you catch a lot of fish (clients) or no fish at all.
Put together a series of blog posts, articles, or write something completely new. Pick a topic that vexes your audience and help them through it (“How to Hire a Copywriter”, “10 Questions You Should Ask Before You Hire a Web Designer – and the Answers To Each One”).
You can either use ebooks as bait for a signup to your newsletter. Or, you can spread them virally, with no sign-up required. The first way grows your list of qualified prospects for your services or information products; the second gets more downloads and spreads faster.
These can be viral videos – something that’s funny, interactive, and spreads the word about your company. Or, they can be how-to videos, showing how to create a “buy now’ button or a favicon.
Another idea would be a demonstration of your skills; reviewing someone’s Web site design and pointing out improvements that will boost conversions.
A membership site or a community of some kind lets your clients and potential clients interact with each other. You can step in and tell them about projects you’re working on (guidance on how-to), encourage them to help each other, encourage them to connect with each other, and offer inside tips that the rest of the world doesn’t get (if the forum requires membership).
This strengthens ties to you, increases your authority and builds trust.
You can interview an expert, or give a series of talks. Make sure it’s informational, not a big sales pitch.
Like the ebooks, and the videos, you can use them to build your list (make sure you get permission for any further follow-ups), spread the word about your services, and establish yourself as an expert.
What other ideas can you think of? What experiences have you had with “bait”? What did you do and what results did you get?
Why do marketers always ask if you have a target audience? Why not just tell the client what to do? You know, a step-by-step tutorial. Isn’t marketing just marketing? Why does it matter?
It may seem odd, but there is method to this madness.
The reason we ask is because we’re trying to find out how to help you and what to recommend. It matters because what’s appropriate for a business trying to reach Fortune 500 companies is not suitable for a business who wants to sell hangers to local dry cleaners.
If you were going to do a logo for a toy store, you’d choose different fonts, colors, and design elements than you would if you were creating a logo for a funeral home. The first should be lively and happy and bright. The second should be somber and reassuring.
Spending a lot of time creating a cheery logo for the funeral home would be a mistake. The client would be unhappy and you’d probably have to redo it (costing you time and money). If you spend a lot of time and money trying to reach “everybody,” you’ll end up with fewer clients (not more). Market to fewer people, and you’ll earn more.
You need a target audience so you know where to focus. Picture a real archery target. There’s a big red circle in the middle, and rings around it. Hitting the circle gets you 10 points. Hitting one of the rings gets you fewer points. The further the ring is from the center, the fewer points you get. If you miss the target entirely, you get nothing.
Marketing works the same way. If you hit the center of the target (your ideal customer) and you make money. Hit something close, you make some money, but not as much. Miss the target entirely, you get nothing.
Let’s say you’re selling car insurance for commercial fleets. Your ideal customer might be moving companies. A close second could be florists or contractors. They all have several vehicles, which get a lot of use, and have to be insured. On the other hand, copywriters and designers likely only need a single car, for their own use. Marketing to them (and I have personally received offers for this) is a complete miss. That sort of marketing is completely broken (and unfortunately, too common). It costs lots of money, but earns very little.
On the other hand, once you have a real ideal customer profile, you can then narrow down where you look for prospects, what to offer them. and how you reach them. Think like a fisherman. Go where the fish are.
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.