written by Bonnie Chomica
Without a targeted micro-niche marketing strategy, your business will be dead in the water.
I hear it all the time, “I can help everybody.”
You might be able to help all kinds of people, but you cannot market to everybody.
There’s so much competition for people’s attention online, offline, everywhere. Everything starts looking the same.
You need to stand out.
You need to serve a specific market.
You need to niche down.
Take the flamingo in the picture above. He’s pretty specific. He’d have specific needs or desires versus the swans and geese standing on the same rock.
Consider the thought of serving everybody. Could you serve every bird?
I mean, besides our feathered friends in the photo, could you serve budgies, peacocks, or chickens? All birds?
The Micro Niche
A micro niche is a smaller targeted market pulled from a broader market. Here are some random examples to show how you couldn’t just market to people with shoes, cars, or dancers. Each broad market is a niche, and each has micro niches.
Broad Market – Micro-Niche Markets
Shoes – runners, flip flops, dress shoes, water shoes, orthopedic shoes
Cars – luxury, sport, utility, electric, economy
Dancers – ballroom, tap, hip-hop, ballet, highland
You would certainly market differently to someone looking for flip flops vs orthopedic shoes.
So, with our bird story, you can’t support all birds. But consider that even chickens (a broad market) have micro niches.
Chickens are bred for plumage, egg colour, comb type, even number of toes. 😲
People breed them for their primary use like meat, eggs, ornamental purposes, and competition. Yes, there are even world-class chicken races. I kid you not.
And would your product or service support a backyard chicken coop owner, versus an operation that ships chicken products across the country?
You can’t market to both.
You need to position your product or service to the specific micro-niche market for whatever their issue is or what they’re trying to achieve with their specific chicken objective.
The mom who’s raising a couple of chickens to get fresh eggs for her kids is going to have different chicken requirements than someone with a 1000-chick hatchery.
Start to position yourself as an expert in a micro-niche market. Look at a bigger market first, divide it up into smaller pieces, then focus on one of those pieces.
Do you see what I’m getting at?
Micro-Niche Marketing Strategy – How to Find One
When you’re trying to create a micro-niche marketing strategy, look first at yourself.
What are your experiences, your skills?
What are you good at? What do you like?
Where do you think you can make an impact?
Research what markets are growing. Some profitable, yet highly competitive niche markets include:
Dating
Health and Wellness
Pets
Weight Loss
Insurance
Stock Market Trading
Digital Marketing
You can imagine how many millions of people are trying to compete in these markets. They’re too broad. But discover a particular smaller, growing niche in one of them, and you could be set.
Example 1 – Purses for carrying a pet chihuahua
Example 2 – Dating app for widowed executives
Example 3 – Insurance for female seniors who drive North American hybrid cars
Do you see how very specific each example is? There are people out there that you can target.
If you already have a business and are being too broad, start brainstorming who you could serve in a specific area. Create an avatar or ideal persona. Get specific on why they are different, or why their pain points or desires are different from others in the broader niche.
Niche Marketing Strategy – Discover the Pain
When you’ve found your target audience, your niche marketing strategy needs to unearth that customer’s pain points, frustration, or fears. That will allow you to position yourself as the ideal person to provide the solution to solve their issues.
Let’s try another micro-niche market - pet blankets for racing dogs. Think of the dog owners’ worries and concerns about their investment in and emotions for their animal. You provide something that dispels their fear.
Maybe they want to look good in front of other dog owners. In the kennels, where the dogs are kept before the race, they would like a blanket that looks special, something that stands out.
They want their dog to look like a winner, so maybe the design looks like royalty – something The Queen would use for her dogs.
Or, maybe it has to be a special fabric that helps their hair or muscles, before or after a race.
In order to find out the pains and fears they have, you need to research that niche market.
Find blogs, videos, and forum posts and find out what people are complaining about. Learn about racing dogs and their care, how they travel, what happens before and after a race.
What are their owners feeling? Remember you’re selling to the owner, not the dog.
Adapt or create your product for someone or something specific, and you’ll make a big difference in your business. You’ll make sales faster than trying to market to the whole bird kingdom.
Be micro-niche focused. If over time you appeal to other clients, that’s great. But serve your micro niche first.
Micro-Niche Strategy – Be the Expert
When you really zero in on someone to target, you can become more focused on what to offer, what to say, how to say it.
You’ll learn how to speak their language, and by doing so, you’ll make a stronger connection with who is paying attention. You will appeal to people because you’ll be positioned as the expert, the authority. You’ll understand their pain and how to provide them with relief.
And they’ll think, “She gets me.”
Remember the flamingo and the budgie speak a different language. Make sure you’re talking to the right target bird.
There’s some work involved here. I didn’t say it was easy.
Start your research with some self-reflection. Then put Google to work for you to dig deeper into what might be trending, or even who would be fun to serve.
Good luck on your journey to build your successful micro-niche marketing strategy. It is an evolution, so have patience, and don’t limit your ideas.
Do you want help building content for your new found niche? Contact me to find out how.
Resource: Have a look at niche marketing expert, Susan Friedmann’s Riches in Niches.