I’ll be the first person to tell you that not everyone will love what you do. Young readers may not have learned that life lesson yet, but I’m sure many older readers have. Aiming high is important, but it’s no use if you miss the goal completely. No business has the luxury of appealing to everyone – not even Amazon. The way to dominate and grow as a business is to prioritize a niche market and mean something to a selected group of people. You need to inspire trust and confidence with audiences that will respect your expertise. In this article I will examine how to identify a niche market for your business and make it easier for potential customers to say: This is the company for me!
What is a Niche Market?
A niche market is a specific group of people who might be interested in buying your products or services. They have common characteristics, such as geography, interests, gender, age, and consumer behavior. Choosing a niche market as a start-up is a great way to get a foothold inside a subsection of a broader audience. For example, a large corporation will dominate the bread market, but a niche company will target a specific type of bread: artisan banana bread for fans who prefer homemade food products.
Growing Big Requires Thinking Small
Traveling down a niche path doesn’t mean your business is unambitious. It’s more about finding a specific audience and providing solutions to them. Identifying a good niche market is a crucial step for any new or small business. Remember, targeting specific groups doesn’t mean you’re excluding anyone. You just want to make sure you’re appealing to the right people.
Who Should I Be Targeting?
When targeting an audience type, you’ll want to know as much as you can about them. Think about your business and ask what kind of people would use your produce or service? If a business wants to sell handmade accessories, then who would buy this? It’s far more likely to be college-educated women in urban cities, than middle-aged fathers in the rural suburbs.
Questions you should ask yourself
Knowing the answers to these questions will make it much easier to create a personalized marketing campaign for your business.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Once you’ve identified your niche market and potential audience groups, it will be much easier to pinpoint your customers and sell to them. For example, an interior design firm based in Houston, Texas may prioritize middle-income homeowners between the ages of 40-70 with incomes up to $250,000. They could even go one step further than that and target customers who want their kitchens fitted in a classic style. They could even break their audience down into two segments: working families and early retirees. Once you have clearly identified this type of demographic, begin looking into the competition and see what cool ideas you can plunder.
Testing Ideas with Customers
When it comes to speaking with customers, it makes sense to test out your assumptions by chatting with friends, family members or someone else who fits your customer profile. Listen carefully to the kind of language they use. These words are excellent gateways to human aspirations and motivations. Social media networks like Facebook and Twitter provide free audience insights, so use those to find new trends, topics, and news relevant to your niche market. You can also research keywords and hashtags on your favorite social media networks to see what people in your niche are saying. By analyzing their comments and posts, you will discover ideas that will appeal to your audience.
Mean Something to People
Identifying your niche market can be a lengthy process, but if you’re planning to launch a new business then it’s one of the most important steps you can take. You want to provide value to people and finding a niche market does just that. Mass marketing is a bit like throwing a fishing net over a large pond and seeing what you’ll catch. A niche approach is more specific and requires bait, skill, and patience.
Trying to appeal to everyone on the internet is a waste of time, effort, and money. Sites like Amazon and eBay only list the wide variety of items they do because they allow private sellers to list items for sale. With that in mind, think very carefully about your niche market and audience. Any sector or industry you choose, from eCommerce to engineering, will require you to have specialist skills, and that’s where your business can prosper. Choosing a niche market isn’t easy, but if you get it right, it’s a lucrative way to become a well-known brand. If you’re interested in learning more about picking your niche then read my other article: 3 Helpful Steps To Picking Your Niche
