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Ever came across a brand offering something that makes you go, “I wonder if they made that just for me!”?
That’s the trait of a successful business serving a niche audience.
Becoming a specialist that caters to a specific group of people results in a more focused business.
As you position yourself as the go-to brand for a product or service, it helps you establish your credibility over competing generalists. In addition, it allows you to focus on solving that ONE problem for that ONE kind of audience.
This audience for the business can be defined by a common demographic trait, such as age, gender, or profession. It’s basically a segment of a larger market. This segment has unique needs, preferences, or perhaps identity that makes it distinct from every other consumer.
Of course, this is a hard choice to make when you are bootstrapped as it requires patience and consistency. But it is a concerted approach towards profitability.
So, how’s marketing different in a niche business from others that cater to a broad market?
Digging deep into the market
Marketing for niche customers is about getting to know your audience and delivering what they want.
The most important step in making your niche work is getting clear on what exactly you do and what makes it special enough to help you stand out from other people who do the same thing.
A deep understanding of your niche customers’ needs helps you tailor your product and marketing efforts towards those who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer. If a niche customer doesn’t feel that you understand their needs, they aren’t going to convert into paying customers.
One of the easiest ways to learn more about your niche customers is to simply ask them. You can do this in a myriad of ways, from online surveys to phone interviews and focus groups.
An effective way is to send questionnaires or surveys in exchange for an offer or discount. This will motivate more responses, helping you build a better picture of who your niche customer is and what their needs are.
Keep the focus around these questions:
What kind of people is your product for?
Where do they live? Where do they work?
How old are they?
Are they mostly male, female, or a mix of both?
What does an average day look like for them? (You might have to use some educated guesswork here.)
Do they use social media often, and if so which platforms do they prefer most?
What stage of customer awareness are they in? Do they know that a solution to their problems exists?
What’s their purchasing capacity like? Would they be willing to spend the price you quote for your offering?
What objections/mindset blocks they might have regarding purchasing your product?
Build an Emotional Connection
We make many of our decisions, big or small, by listening to our emotions.
When you are marketing to your niche customer base it is important that you connect with them on an emotional level.
When you understand what triggers your niche customers’ emotions and desires, you can use that information to influence their buying decisions.
However, it is also important to make people feel good about themselves when you are marketing for a niche product and ensure that they feel hopeful. Show your niche customer that they are not alone in their business needs and desires and how your offer would fulfill those needs.
Case Study: Diversification of Offering
Working in a niche space can exhaust your audience after a while. Once you have served them all, how do you grow? One way to go about is to diversify your offerings. Introduce new products or services that you think your niche audience may benefit from.
A fellow student from my engineering college is using this approach to grow his company.
His company started by providing travel services to armed forces personnel, which was a real pain point for these customers. But as they interacted with their customers, they identified more pain points of that niche audience that no one else was solving.
Then what, they took this opportunity to launch more services that catered to these pain points related to travel and more. As a result, they’ve managed to establish a monopoly in the market that not only solved their customers’ travel problems but also other related or non-related problems they might be facing.
This helped the company to grow its offerings into various other fields. And now, with a diverse portfolio, his company is serving the niche audience in multiple ways.
Hope this gave you clarity on how to grow a niche business. What marketing strategy are you following for your niche business?
If you liked this post and would like more tips on other tools, then read more articles like this here or you can listen to the podcast.
Want to brainstorm a marketing strategy to grow your business? Book a free consultation with me here.