Niche Marketing

“If you want to go broke, market to all the folk, but if you want to get rich, market to a niche”

Today we will be focusing on the importance of niche marketing and ensuring your customers know what you want them to do when they find you.

It has been recognised online that if you focus on niche marketing and connecting to a particular market you stand a much better chance of getting an income from that target group than if you try to help everyone.

There are thousands of people who want to start a business online and if I tried to help them all my messages will be completely mixed.

Multi-millionaire Stephen Pierce (he started online homeless and broke and now has a 2 million dollar ranch in Texas) uses this phrase to describe niche marketing:

“If you want to go broke, market to all the folk, but if you want to get rich, market to a niche”

Choosing a niche doesn’t have to mean leaving all your customers behind – it just means you focus in one delivering a particular message. Even tissue manufacturers take part in niche marketing!

Think about tissues – is there just one variety? Not anymore.

There are mansize tissues,  tissues for women,  decorative tissues,  pocket tissues, mansize pocket tissues, cold and flu tissues, tissues for kids, oval tissues, ultra soft tissues and on and on the list goes!

There are loads of different varieties of tissues and one company may make several varieties but they market them all in different ways because they have recognised the value in a niche and a target market.

McCoy crisps – are they for women or men?  What about Yorkie bars?

Does it mean a woman can’t buy a yorkie bar or eat a packet of crisps made by McCoy? Of course it doesn’t – but they still target in on one particular market. They have a message for that market and they promote using that message. They recognise that it is better to have all the men in England buying their product than it is to try and reach out to both men and women but attract neither.

50% of something is always better than 100% of nothing!

You will find the more you niche the better chance you have of being able to speak directly and personallyto the people you want to do business with.

If my market focused on any business how could I possible connect and relate to them all. It is impossible – but I can connect with local businesses, especially as I have helped many of them and I can connect with solopreneurs because I understand their need to get their message out and I know how to make it happen.

If I tried to work with a corporate company and a small local business how do I structure my message?

Knowing your audience will help you to focus in on your niche marketing too - the two go hand in hand together. Once you know who you are looking for and why, the keywords they may use to find your business and you know the niche market you are looking for it is important when they arrive at your website that they know what to do next.

What do you want them to do?

After local keyword research this is the other huge mistake that many local businesses make. They believe that just by being up on the net this will encourage loads of their potential customers to buy something or visit their shop but it won’t – you need to tell people what to do next.

Your homepage will introduce them to your business. If they have just performed a local search where will they go next on your site – do you know?

Is it clear that if they are looking to book a table they have to ring your restaurant  to book? Or do they have to go hunting around your site to find that.

Is it clear that if they are looking for an emergency plumber you can help them and what they have to do?

Maybe you just want them to become a subscriber first and receive free information from you.

Whatever you want someone to do you need to make sure it is clear when they hit your site

1.    You can help them (do you explain who your ideal customers is on your site?)
2.    How you can help them
3.    What they have to do to get help from you

Summary:

You need to make sure that your target market hits your site and can see how you can instantly help them. After all they are looking for a local business and you could be the local business they need so make it easy for them and let them know exactly what they need to do next.

Action:

If you have a website or blog take a look at how you direct your potential new customers and how easy you make it for them to find the information they need.

If you don’t have a local business blog up yet get us to set up your business blog for you - we include keyword research and write content for you. It is a service created especially for local businesses and niche marketing.

  The next part of your local search marketing plan will provide you with an opportunity to develop passive.