Operating a business within a particular niche is both an opportunity and a challenge. Yes, there is demand for what you do, but the onus is on you to make yourself visible to as many members of your potential audience as possible. By nature, niche businesses will often be smaller businesses, too.
Consequently, budgets will likely be smaller across the board. This then means businesses aren’t in a position to spend a huge swathe of money on things like marketing.
At the same time, without a strong marketing campaign, a niche business will struggle to succeed. Here are some ideas that will help any niche business construct a strategy and execute a campaign on a budget.
Understanding the Market
Just how much of a niche is there for what a business does? There are no guidelines that surround when something stops being in a niche and becomes mainstream. However, it is important for businesses to understand where the opportunities lie before they get started.
The key factors to gauge are demand for the niche, competition within the niche, and potential for a niche business to grow and continue to thrive when the market becomes saturated.
Developing a Distinct Marketing Persona
Small businesses get noticed because they do something unusual, and have a marketing strategy that we all remember. A niche business needs to stick in the heads of as many people as possible in order to enjoy long-term success.
It is vital they develop an individual marketing persona that identifies them, so whenever a person needs to use one of their services they think of an advert they’ve seen, a website they visited, or an article they read on a blog.
Growing the Offer
Every business in every industry lives by the old cliché of ‘going the extra mile.’ Niche businesses, however, have the greatest opportunity of all to do just that.
Clients of niche businesses will often have other needs, many of which won’t yet have been considered. Simply by asking, “What more can we do?” a business can easily unearth incremental revenue channels.
Sell Something
Many businesses underestimate the power of selling something, whether a product or service, from a marketing perspective.
However, one book binding contract, for example, followed by a client tweeting or telling their LinkedIn group how brilliant a service was, will have a huge impact on the potential of a business.
This is because people interested in niche services talk to other people who either work in niche areas or share their interest. Immediately, the business has earned some free word of mouth advertising, and the message is going to people certain to listen.
Measuring Success
A niche business can measure its success by how many sales it achieves, but the ambitious one should be looking at how much money it makes from clients who didn’t realise they needed their service or product until they encountered the business. It is easy for a niche company to sell to the captive audience, less so for them to convince and convert newcomers to their industry.
David is a marketing enthusiast passionate about learning the power niche businesses have to make an impact on their audience and appeal to new clients at the same time. David hopes to take a distance learning marketing course in the New Year before pursuing a career in the industry.
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