niche marketing Archives

Business owners are often tempted by the idea of large target markets. They think that creating products or services that appeal to many, means more sales and greater revenue.

But the reality is more complicated than this. When you have a product with broad appeal, you often face greater competition. Other companies will have similar products and they’ll be targeting huge swathes of your market with their promotional strategy.

This is why developing a market niche is so important to businesses, particularly smaller ones. In deciding what it is that makes your product or service unique, you can appeal to a smaller but more receptive audience, making your marketing efforts much more effective.

So how can you go about finding your own market niche? Here are a few steps you should take in order to find the right business niche for you.

Look at your Own Interests, Passions and Values

When you’re working far beyond the standard 9 to 5 to get your new business venture off the ground, it’s all a lot easier if you’re excited about the idea you’re working towards.

Think about your own personal interests and passions. How do you like to spend your free time? What publications do you like to read? What topics are you passionate about? What values would you like your enterprise to embody?

When something is exciting to you it feels less like work. Your enthusiasm will also translate into more imaginative products, services and marketing strategies.

Assess the Competition

In order to develop your market niche, you have to provide something that very few others (ideally no one else) is currently providing. You can only do this by looking at and analysing the competition.

Who is offering a similar product or service? Are there any limitations to the product or service they provide? These questions should lead you to establish what you can do differently – in terms of customer service, product capabilities or branding.

Develop an Understanding of your Target Market

Niche products tend to have very specific target audiences. You need to understand the values and priorities of a potential target market. You also need to know where you can go to reach them with your marketing materials.

By delving into a target market, you can learn more about the problems they encounter. For instance 1300 Rubbish found that hoarders could benefit from their cleaning services, whilst Active Mum found that pregnant women and new mums were struggling to find appropriate opportunities for exercise. Once you understand the problems faced by your target market, you can further develop your product or service to solve those problems effectively.

Conduct Market Research

Once you’ve set upon a product or service and a target market, you should conduct thorough market research to determine the viability of your niche within the market. You may be passionate about your product or service. But the real question you need to answer is whether anyone else shares your enthusiasm!

Any research you undertake should be combined with a comprehensive projection of the sales you require to make your business sustainable. How many people are likely to be interested in your product? Will they buy from you just once or multiple times over the course of the year? Establish demand and potential revenues in order to determine whether your niche market has the potential to be successful in the long term.

Following these four steps should bring you closer to your market niche. You’ll develop ideas that perfectly solve the problems faced by a small but still potentially lucrative target market. In doing so, you’ll find ideas that you’re passionate about, that will be easy to market and that will help you to convert more potential customers into loyal brand advocates.

Melanie Saunders is a blogger and content manager at 1300 Rubbish – experts in the field of rubbish and junk removal. Personally, a huge fan of sustainability and green living.

These days a good business also has to be a media production business as well. A social media strategy should be essential to all businesses and with media rich channels like YouTube, you can become a celebrity in your niche.

A classic example of this is Melissa Maker from Clean My Space. Melissa is a cleaner. She cleans houses. However she has leveraged the power of YouTube to become a celebrity in the cleaning space.

So much so, that she is now making more money from speaking engagements and advertising than from actually cleaning. It’s never been easier to build an impressive presence in your niche.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Know you niche

For Melissa, it was home cleaning. What’s your niche? Identify what your niche is. What can you comment on and what can you provide plenty of helpful advice about? Generally it will be what you are currently paid to do.

2. Select a channel for your message

Melissa chose YouTube. This is ideal for such a visually relevant topic as demonstrating how to clean. If it’s visual then YouTube makes sense. You could also incorporate Pinterest or Instagram. If you are explaining details or interviewing experts then a Podcast might be the ideal medium.

Whatever channel you use, make sure it all leads back to your website. This is your home base for all your media content. So use these available social media channels but also capture email addresses and bring them back to your website for more content.

3. Create useful, valuable content

This is the step that ensures your content will be shared and re-shared. It has to be useful for the audience. The trick in all this is to not to chase sales; it is to position yourself as the expert in your field. By doing it this way, you will attract higher quality sales than you’ve had in the past. People will see you as the ideal provider of the service or product.

Some people worry about what they can create content about but if you are already being paid for a service then you do have valuable knowledge and expertise. The trick here is to break it down to bite-size pieces for your audience to consume regularly.

4. Deliver it regularly and consistently

People like people they can trust. Deliver your content at a regular time each day, week, fortnight, month – whatever suits you. Just stick to it and maintain it. Melissa Maker sends out a new YouTube video every Saturday at midday. People know to expect it and it is delivered. They trust her and know they can rely on her. This regularity of content helps build your subscribers. They know to expect your content and by doing it regularly the word will spread and your numbers will grow.

5. Spread the word

Winking at someone in the dark is the same as creating content that no one sees. You know what you are doing, but no one else does. Once you have created the content you need to share it. You need to Tweet it, post it on LinkedIn, share it on Facebook, email it. Collaborate with people who have the same audience to ensure more people see it.
People will respect the fact that you are staking a claim to a niche and putting your name to it.

If you follow this process you will build your brand, your credibility and eventually be seen as a star in your niche. The key here is being prolific. Stick to a strategy and keep generating content. It won’t happen overnight. This is a year long strategy at least. The more regularly you create content the quicker the result will be. It could take a year though. But don’t let that put you off – the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time to plant one is today. So start now.

Geoff Anderson is owner of Sonic Sight, a corporate video production company. He presents on using video in business and is the author the Amazon Bestseller “Shoot Me Now – Making videos to boost business”. To find out more about Geoff and to learn about the 5 Mistakes to avoid when making videos, visit www.sonicsight.com.au or visit www.geoffanderson.com.au
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