Niche Marketing

There’s an old saying in marketing that if you narrow your niche, you double your business. That may be an exaggeration, but it is true your business can’t be everything to everyone. Use these tips to find your people and build a loyal following.

Find your fans

Start by identifying your ideal client. What do you offer and who wants it most? Lean into that category and cater to their needs first. If you are just starting out, you can create your product or service just for this audience. If you’ve been around for a while, find the customers for whom your brand resonates the most. Who loves you best? Who gets the maximum benefit from your offerings? How can you make the most profit by doing what you like to do and do well?

You can refine your ideal market using many different identifiers: price and quality level (Do they want a premium or discount brand?); demographics or geographics of your customer (Who are they and where are they?); and psychographics that affect lifestyle, culture, and behavior (What are their values and interests?).

Use this information to create a go/no-go protocol for customers and clients. Targeting the work you want to do most will save you time and resources in the long run.

Discover what they want

Once you’ve found your perfect niche continue to ask them what they want through surveys, product testing, focus groups, and simple conversations. Connect with your fans to find out what they like best about your product or service so you can continue to provide what they want.

Remember, they may not know what they want. As Henry Ford said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” So don’t use consumer feedback as your only guide to tailor your brand. Combine this research with what’s trending and what needs are not being met. Use tools like Google Trends or Exploding Topics to find out what customers are searching for so you can provide the solution to their problem.

Survey the market

Look at what your competitors are doing. Part of finding a niche is differentiating yourself from what everyone else is offering. What part of your brand experience is uniquely yours? If you are not currently standing out, what can you do differently? Or can you create your own market by altering your product or providing a more specialized service?

Rauk Dentistry, a client of ours, discovered a simple procedure they could learn and perfect to help tongue-tied babies have better breathing and oral health throughout their lives. Adding this service has opened up an entirely new customer base. And that base will need additional dental services in the future. Building this trust with new parents is not only changing lives but creating a pipeline of future patients.

As you are finding your niche you may still provide some products or services that don’t fit neatly into that box. That’s ok. You don’t have to limit your offerings, just how you market them. You can still provide more than you promote but spend the most of your marketing energy on the highest potential audiences.