Defining your niche is a key part of marketing your business online.
Ask any marketing professional, and they will tell you: “your business will do better once you’ve identified a niche.”
Yet, many people find this to be completely counterintuitive.
You may find yourself thinking that success comes from offering as broad of a range of services as possible. After all, if you choose just one “thing,” how will you ever get enough customers.
While this way of thinking may make sense on the surface, it rarely translates into business success.
Does Your Business Need a Niche?
Does Your Business Need a Niche?If you look up the word “niche” in the dictionary, you’ll discover the following definition:
Niche (n): Denoting or relating to products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population.¹
In a sense, every business has a niche. If you are a therapist, then your services relate to the segment of the population who is in need of therapy.
However, even as narrow as that focus seems, you would still benefit from defining an even more specific niche within that industry. For example, “couples therapy.”
Or, if you are a grocery store, your niche might be “people looking for a large selection of international foods.”
While there are, of course, a few exceptions (which we will discuss later), it’s a safe bet that your business can benefit from identifying your niche. Here’s why …
Why You Need a Niche
You need a niche because it helps you find the right customers and the right customers find you.
More specifically, here are the eight biggest reasons that you need a niche:
1. Knowing your niche helps you find your ideal customer.
Who is your ideal customer? Many people don’t define that for themselves, especially when their business is young. After all, when you are just trying to get customers in the door, you don’t want to be picky right?
Wrong.
Yes, of course, you don’t want to cut yourself off from potential income sources. However, if you’re just chasing all customers without first identifying who you truly want to work with then you can easily end up with a business catering to a bunch of people you don’t even enjoy helping.
If you first take the time to identify your ideal customer, then you can market to that customer. That’s how you grow a business that you can truly love and be passionate about. Knowing your ideal customer helps you easily identify your niche market.
2. You can hone your skills to become an expert in your niche.
Customers, particularly those who are willing to pay the most money, want an expert.
It’s difficult to become an expert in every single part of an industry. However, it’s fairly easy to become an expert in a specific market niche or a niche event.
When you take your work to this next level, the work also becomes more interesting and exciting for you. You can spend your time learning more and more about the niche that you already enjoy.
3. Your Website Can Target Your Market Niche
Let’s face it; online marketing is the way that most people reach their clients today. The Internet is a busy, noisy place. People don’t generally look past the first page of Google search results when trying to find what they want. Therefore, you need to make sure that people can easily find you on that first page.
While there are many tips and tricks to online marketing, they all fall short if your website is too general. Consider these two scenarios:
- Scenario 1: You are a business coach who wants to help people do better in their work.
- Scenario 2: You are a business coach specializing in working with women in midlife whose children are starting to grow up and who now want to turn their attention to their new businesses. You want to help them utilize their skills as homemakers to succeed in their new careers.
If you create a website for scenario one, you’re going to get lost in the sea of businesses that are offering that exact same (general) thing. In contrast, if you target your niche in scenario two, the people who fit that scenario will easily find your website.
4. Increased Focus Reduces Overwhelm and Burnout
Sure, you could try to help everyone within your industry. You might even manage to succeed in getting a lot of clients through the door. But then what?
When you try to do too much, you spread yourself thin. That’s how burnout happens.
You can avoid burnout and overwhelm by really defining what you specifically want to do. Who do you most want to help? How are you best equipped to serve those people? If you have a business that sells products instead of services, which is the product you most believe in?
In business, we are often told to “think big” but actually it can be better to think small. You can always grow when your time and energy allow. If you know your niche, then you can grow in the right way, at the right time.
5. You Will Make Smarter Decisions for Business Growth
When you know your niche, you essentially know your goal. Every single time that you start to make a decision for your business, you can pause and ask yourself, “is this aligned with my goal?” You can dig deeper and find the best way to move forward with that goal in mind.
If you don’t know your niche or your goal, then you can easily make the wrong business decisions. They can take you off track, wasting your time and money. No business can afford that kind of waste.
6. Niches Encourage Collaboration Instead of Competition
The world is fiercely competitive especially when it comes to business. It can be incredibly stressful. New business owners benefit from taking thc delta 9 gummies to relieve stress. The more general your own business, the more people you’re competing with.
Working in a niche encourages collaboration, which supports not only the growth of your business but also your own health and wellness.
Going back to the therapy example, if you’re a therapist who works with “everyone” then you’re in competition with every other therapist in your area. In contrast, imagine that you only work with self-identified Highly Sensitive People who are in college or young adulthood.
You can collaborate, network, and befriend the other therapists in your area. When they meet that type of client, they’ll naturally refer the person to you. You all work together for the good of the whole and your own business benefits as a result.
7. Authenticity is Critical to Business Success Today
These days people want to work with businesses (and business owners) that have an air of authenticity. Your niche expresses your authenticity.
People want to know the story behind your business. Defining your niche is the first part of telling that story.
After all, if you’re focused on doing exactly what you love and know about for the people you most want to work with then how can you help but express your most authentic self?
8. Niche Businesses Make More Money
For all of the reasons mentioned above, you can make more money in your work if you define a niche. More customers will find you and they will be the right customers. You can charge more because of your expertise. The decisions you make will propel your business forward. It’s also very much worthwhile finding a business for sale and buying that. A friend recently found a business for sale in Naples, Florida using a broker and it has been a great success, so it really does work.
Why You DON’T Need a Niche
As you can see, there are many benefits to defining your niche. However, as mentioned, a niche isn’t right for everyone. There are two key times when you might not want to define your niche. Here they are:
- When you genuinely don’t have any idea what you want to do. In this case, you may wish to generalize for a while as you figure out what you can really be passionate about.
- When you yourself are the brand. This particularly applies to celebrities and bloggers. If you yourself are the brand then people will buy from you because of who you are, not what your niche is. If that’s the case, you may be able to skip the niche.
Need Help With Your Niche?
Once you know your niche, then you can easily engage in niche marketing. You can use a combination of branding, SEO, networking, and other tools to reach the ideal client that needs precisely what you offer in your niche.
Helping you with this is our niche. We want to find the best way to work with you to market to the people that you’re trying to reach. When you succeed with your business, we have succeeded in ours.
Reach out today to learn more about how we can help you with niche marketing.
