As small business owners, our natural tendency is to market our products and services to as broad an audience as possible. If you sell carpeting, you may think that everyone who has a floor is your potential client. But what about those people with allergies, or people in wheelchairs, people who live in apartments or people who just bought a brand new home? They all have floors, but they probably aren't in your target market.
At its broadest, your carpeting target market consists of homeowners. You can narrow it even further to homeowners with houses of a certain age who are thinking about replacing their carpet and new homeowners who want to update or change the look of the house they just bought.
The reason you want to market to a niche is to reach those people who are ready to buy your product or service. It doesn't mean that you can't sell to people outside of your niche. It simply means that you will concentrate your marketing dollars on campaigns that specifically target your niche.
Niche marketing becomes even more important for expertise based businesses such as professional speakers, consultants, web designers and business coaches. Your services are very personalized and the goal of your marketing efforts is to attract your ideal clients.
Here are some characteristics of a profitable niche
- They a common set of issues or problems
- You have a product or service that will solve their biggest problem
- They are easy to identify and reach
- The group is large enough to provide you with an ongoing source of prospects
- They can afford your products and services and are willing to pay for solutions that meet their needs
With Niche Marketing you can showcase your expertise and cause your ideal clients to seek you out. Rather than chasing your prospects, niche marketing puts you in the position of expert so that people with a specific problem will be looking for you. Your job is to find out where they hang out and put yourself in front of them so that they know who you are and make it easy for them to purchase your products and services.
Another reason to market to a niche is that it gives you the opportunity to build a relationship with its members. When you are an expert in a specific area, you have an automatic entrée to a meaningful conversation and you can enter a dialogue with them, provide advice and gain their trust as a valued resource.
The final reason to market to a niche is that it gives you the ability to spend your marketing dollars more effectively. Some people think that if you market to a niche, you'll turn away sales, but I challenge that assumption. You can sell to anyone you choose but you are focusing your marketing efforts and targeting them to a specific group.
As small business owners, we don't have the brand recognition of a large corporation. We don't have millions of dollars to invest in global brand marketing like they do. We're vying for our prospect's attention not only with large national brands but with regional and local brands. In order to break through that chaos, we must speak directly to an individual to get their attention and the way that you do that is with niche marketing.
A magazine ad, a direct mail piece, a banner ad on a website or a pay per click campaign online costs the same whether you have a general message or a specific one.You'll get a higher response and higher return on your investment the more targeted and specific you make that campaign. Even though you may have fewer people looking at your marketing messages, percentage wise, more of them will buy.
Spend some time researching your niche and creating targeted marketing campaigns. It will pay off in more sales and higher quality customers and clients.
To find out the latest strategies and tips to transform your ability to attract new customers and clients, sign up for my free monthly print newsletter Linda believes that every business owner can and should be a star in the eyes of their prospects and customers. She's a Marketing Strategist, Business Coach, Author and Speaker who focuses on small business marketing. She shares best practices, what works and what doesn't in the fast moving pace of today's business environment. Her mission is to prevent small businesses from closing their doors due to bad marketing. She shows them how to successfully use online and offline marketing strategies to attract new customers and keep them coming back. Linda learned how to manage a business during her 30 year career at a Fortune 100 company. She completed her coach training at Coach Training Alliance. She counts as her mentors some of the top coaching, marketing and public speaking experts in the industry, including Dan Kennedy, Bill Glazer, Ali Brown, James Malinchak and Milana Leshinsky. She is a member of The National Association of Women Business Owners, The Loudoun Chamber of Commerce, the Dulles Regional Chamber of Commerce and Business Networking International (BNI). Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Linda_Griffin |
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