The Power Of Going Deep Into Your Niche
Think about it. If a company is selling sporting goods, does it make sense to market to people who have no interest in skiing or golf? No.
Why waste time and money trying to engage an audience that has no use for its products? And why waste precious resources chasing a market share it will never get?
What’s A Niche?
The word niche can mean different things to different people, but generally it’s thought to mean small or highly specific consumer audience. Which may explain why it’s still a difficult marketing sell, even though specializing in and targeting niche markets has never been more crucial than it is today.
The most common misconception about niche marketing is that it means catering only to a small audience. That idea needs to be turned on its head; niche marketing can cater to a large audience, but the target market itself must be extremely specific.
Taking it one step further, the same product or service can be promoted to different market segments by narrowly targeting the advertising to clear-cut demographics.
Using the sporting goods example above, a company might target specific goods or services to those who participate in a sport, but also market related merchandise, such as jerseys, to fans.
The Power of Niche
To profit in today’s digitally-influenced environment, it’s imperative to specialize in well-defined niches. The winning businesses are those that possess the greatest relevance to their target audience. They are the most focused, and they truly understand not only their market but the people they serve.
Here are just some highlights of what focusing content marketing efforts at a particular niche can mean:
- Avoid Spreading Oneself Too Thin. Forget about saying “everybody” is a potential customer. Focus on specific groups of people and their specific needs and wants, then develop a product or service for them that is based on their interests.
- Provide More Value. A well-defined niche helps provide exactly the information potential customers are looking for, which then leads to more focused traffic and, ultimately, more profits.
- Word of Mouth Advertising and Loyalty. Targeted niche marketing tends to come with the added bonus of brand loyalty and, subsequently, free word-of-mouth advertising. According to Forbes, this is the single most valuable form of marketing. Niche market members are passionate about their interests and take a certain pride in sharing their knowledge about those interests through social network shares and real world conversations. A brand can have a huge impact in this way, with those customers returning again and again.
- Become the Go-To Expert. People always prefer working with an expert. A business’s profile and visibility will grow as word-of-mouth spreads about its expertise in a certain area. A plus: the targeted audience is smaller and becoming well-known within it will happen more quickly.
- Being Unique. When a business narrowly focuses its niche marketing, there will be less direct competition. Finding the sweet spots and then providing a service or specific product that is specifically developed and targeted to a well-defined group means there is less chance of it being replicated.
- Focus, Focus, Focus. Being willing to go deep into a niche can result in big payoffs. It doesn’t need to be boring or uninspired, either. The options are endless because there are so many ways to slice and dice the market: gender, age, income, hobbies, habits, location, and relationship status are just the beginning.
Begin on the surface, then drill down as far as possible, creating market segments within segments, within more segments, and so on. Find your target audience and direct your attention to them specifically.
Niche marketing fits extremely well with today’s inbound marketing strategies, so finding and winning over a niche market will ultimately result in successful sales and profits.