Are you a fox or a hedgehog? Because according to Isaiah Berlin, in the marketing world you’re either one or the other. A generalist (fox) may know many things, but a niche marketer (hedgehog) knows one big thing. And that makes all the difference.
Read on to find out why niche marketing always wins and what you can do to grow your profit margins and ditch the mass market.
Niche marketing in a nutshell
Ever heard the saying, “jack of all trades, master of none?” It means that a generalist can do everything on an equal footing, but a niche marketer is a specialist, a master of one thing. The same holds true when you’re an online business owner hedging for dominance in an incredibly competitive market.
Niche marketing is when you take a segment of a larger market and hone in on it, identifying the unique needs and preferences of the population. It means reaching out to people who are likely to buy your product or service rather than engaging with a broad audience.
Take women’s shoes, for instance. That’s a mass-market right there. Now when you exclusively focus on shoes for vegan women or shoes for gardeners, you’ve found your niche market. An important thing to remember here is that a niche market doesn’t mean ‘small’; it simply means having a specialized offering to your target audience.
Almost every market can be defined by the specific needs of consumers. Some general ways of doing this include:
- Price point (luxury, moderate, discount)
- Demographics (age, gender, income level)
- Level of quality (premium, handmade, economical)
- Psychographics (interests, behaviors, values)
- Geographics (area of a neighborhood, city, or country)
Psst, here’s a tip for you! When crafting your niche marketing strategy, don’t try to identify everyone who wants your product or service. Instead, focus on the small market that makes up your dream audience, the people most likely to become loyal to your brand.
We get it. You may still be skeptical about niche marketing, but trust us, when you have a small business budget or are advertising a product that’s simply everywhere, the ultimate solution is to outsmart the mass market. And the way to do this is — you guessed it — to niche down.
Why niche marketing rocks
Unconvinced about niche marketing? Read on as we list the business benefits of niching down.
Some quick advantages include:
- Be the go-to expert — people in your niche are more likely to pick you over a generalist because you’re the expert
- Concentrated marketing efforts — no need to compete in a mass market, focus on solely marketing your niche
- Charge premium prices — you’re the specialist, so charging premium prices is perfectly acceptable
And some more benefits unpacked below.
Less competition
When you cater to a targeted audience, there are naturally fewer competitors offering the same product or service. On the other hand, there might be less consumers seeking out your offerings. In this case, you must target the right customers who will buy into your business model.
Brand loyalty
Brand loyalty is easier to keep track of when you interact with a segmented audience. Niching down means you can focus on quality customer care and nurture relationships long-term. The bottom line is, the more segmented the audience, the more personalized your brand can be. And getting up and personal is a foolproof way to win brand loyalty.
Less marketing spend
Saving money is a real possibility when you’re tailoring marketing campaigns to a segmented audience. Unlike reaching out to a broad audience, you already know who your crowd is, where they band together, what content they want to see, and what gets their attention. Ultimately, this feeds into a cheaper marketing strategy and can even garner more impactful results for your brand.
How to become a niche marketer
So you’re ready to focus on a niche, now what? Below are some useful tips to get you started.
- Ask yourself some deep questions
What do you care about? Ultimately, believing in your brand and selling with passion boils down to knowing your strengths. Your niche should arise from your interests, values, and objectives. Look at your own experiences to date and pinpoint what you enjoyed and where you thrived.
Ask yourself some questions like:
- Is there a pain point I’ve identified that I’d like to solve for others?
- What skills have I developed over the years?
- What do I enjoy most doing?
Once you’ve done some soul searching, it’s time to move on to the next step.
- Study your target market
Ok, you’ve got an idea for a niche, now what? It’s time to crack your knuckles and get researching. First, study your target market to understand their pain point. Then, comb through sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Quora to identify what dialogue people are having and what matters to them. To address your customer’s pains, you must become a master at understanding their woes. Only then will you be able to sell your offerings.
Need extra tips? Swing over to our piece explaining how to connect to your target audience here.
2. Check out the competition
The next step is to identify whether there’s a market for your niche. Study the competition by entering keywords into Google that your target audience would use and see what appears. Is there an opportunity to be special? Discovering the right keyword that garners considerable traffic with little competition and barely any paid advertising presents a window of opportunity to inject yourself into that market.
3. Look at potential profitability
Next up, use Google Adwords Keyword to determine whether your keywords have at least 10,000 searches per month. If a certain keyword garners substantial search volume, then it’s a telling sign that your niche area is profitable. Another tip would be to use Google Trends to see whether your niche topic is trending or not. Finally, if you’re a product business, it might be useful to go on Amazon to see what pops up with your respective keyword.
4. Craft your client avatar
Now that you’ve selected your niche, it’s time to know your audience inside out. And the best way to do this is to develop your client avatar — a fictional buyer persona representing your ideal prospect. Be as creative as you want here, but make sure the avatar is complete since this will help you pinpoint the motivation, pain points, and desires that influence your customer’s purchase decisions. Ultimately, your client avatar will help you promote better, whether through social media, lead magnets, or landing pages. It will also help you understand what sells better and how to do A/B email testing correctly.
That’s a wrap!
Thinking of becoming a big fish in a small pond? Pick one area to focus on, and channel your efforts to stand out in your field. But remember, to succeed in niche marketing, you must truly understand what your audience is passionate about, identity what you can do for them, and spot gaps in the market you can fill.
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