Uncover Your Niche

How often have you found yourself talking to someone about your product or service to find that they never knew you were even in business? If you haven’t had this experience then you are one of the lucky few. Defining your perfect customer can do a lot to help avoid this scenario.

Begin by asking yourself who would best benefit from the purchase of your product or service. Be as specific as you can. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that your customer is the whole world. Not everyone will need or want what you have to provide. Just think about the time and energy, not to mention money, you could save by only marketing to potential customers or clients. Also, discovering where they hang out will be a whole lot easier if you know specifically who your target market is.
Once you discover your target market and find the radio stations or podcasts they listen to, and magazines and ezines they read you will be armed with the information you need to market to them effectively. If you can’t afford to advertise in those places why not try marketing to the publication itself. Send them a press release or offer to provide them with articles.
When you know exactly who you are talking to you know what to say and what not to say to properly inform them. And we all know that a properly informed customer makes a better customer. This will also enable you to speak to the challenges that specifically affect them and provide a viable solution.

Without this information you will have a hard time convincing Mr. or Ms. buyer that you are the answer they seek. For example, if you were selling financial planning services to young adults you wouldn’t tell them this product will help you reach your retirement goals, that is just too far off for them to pay you any attention. Instead, you might want to tell them that starting a savings plan, that you can pull funds from when they need it, will guarantee them a safety net for those unseen emergencies that are bound to crop up. However, if you said the same thing to a group of middle age buyers with a family to provide for the results would be quite different. So you can see, trying to sell to “everyone” is like going for a hole in one with a 9-iron.
To begin think about who your most likely prospects would be.

What specific type of individual would benefit the most by using your product or service? Does information such as age, income, education, sex, geographical location, or some other criteria have any bearing on who would most likely be a prospect? Don't guess. Do your homework. A little bit of research now will save you a lot of aggravation later.

Another thing to consider is what you have to offer. Recently I was speaking to a young lady who wanted to provide Virtual Assistance (VA) services. She was confused as to how to effectively market her business. I asked her what services she offered and she replied that she provides a long list of services which included answering phones, press release writing and distribution, and image design. As you see from the list all of her services required a diversity of skills and unless she had employees or contractors most likely what services she did provide were elementary at best.

My follow-up question to her was, “What is your niche? What type of business would benefit from using your services?” Her eyes began to sparkle and a smile came across her face as she proceeded to tell me, “Everybody!” All I could do was shake my head.

If you are not clear on what you provide how can you possibly determine who your niche market is? Besides that, if you have to constantly learn new skills, how can you ever hope to gain the talent and experience necessary to enjoy entrepreneurial success? I suggest you stick with what you are good at and have experience doing rather than trying to be a jack-of-all-trades. Instead of taking the time to learn a new skill you might consider being a source of referral. Time spent learning is time taken away from earning and that’s where the problem lies for many a new business owner.

There are several techniques you can utilize to help you determine your niche. One that I personally believe in is to sit down with pen in hand and write out a list of benefits that you provide. Keep in mind that a benefit is not the same thing as a feature. A benefit is something that your customer is looking for while a feature is what the product provides. If you find yourself having a hard time coming up with this list you might enlist the aid of a few friends or family members to give their opinion on the subject.

Now make a list of types of people who would be most likely to utilize your product or service. Look for information in trade magazines , talk to people you think will buy and ask friends, relatives and business acquaintances who they think would be interested in the product or service. You might end up with several or just one or two. If you find that your target market is too wide, more than four or five, start out focusing on the first one or two and once you have made a name for yourself in that sphere of influence you can expand out by changing your marketing materials so they will resonate with your next group. Never use the same marketing materials for a different target audience as I explained above.

Remember, if you don’t have the skills, refer out. Chances are that the person you are referring business to will take note and reciprocate in kind. This is what makes for a win-win relationship for all three of the parties involved. In this way you will slowly but successfully grow your business and your referral network.

Copyright ©2008 Ginger Marks