Niching as a client attraction tool
Would you feel nervous at the thought of focusing your business on a subset of your current market? I’m basically describing a very standard marketing approach that focuses on targeting your marketing message on a defined niche. Does the thought of that make you nervous? I see this a lot when I work with my clients to get them to do the same. The nervousness comes from their perception of the size of the pond they are currently fishing in (their current target market size) versus the size of the pond they would fish in if they were niched, as by definition it will be smaller.
Like most things in business this comes down to mindset. Let me explain. Imagine you are fishing in one of the American great lakes.
These lakes are absolutely huge (to the average English person they look like an ocean!). You have your fishing line, complete with bait, dangling in the water and you are waiting for your first bite of the day. You wait very patiently. Every now and then a fish bites and you pull it ashore (and keep it in a big net in the water so you can throw them back in to the lake once your day is over!). At the end of the day you examine your haul. You have caught numerous fish but of all different varieties. On your way home when you reflect on the variety of fish you have caught you realise that you didn’t enjoy catching most of them. In fact you only enjoyed catching 10% of them. You then realise that if you had changed your bait to one that was specifically targeted to the 10% of the varieties you did enjoy catching you would have caught more of them in the same amount of time in took you to catch just 10%.
What I’m trying to explain is that the size of the pond you fish in with your marketing message isn’t necessarily the challenge when it comes to growing your business. The challenge is to make sure you use the right bait, i.e. the correct marketing message to attract your favourite fish.
And it gets better…once you know exactly which fish you want to catch you can then make sure you are fishing in ponds that are more highly stocked in those specific fish so not only do you have better bait you have more ideal fish to target.
Targeting a niche is a very effective way to grow your business. When you niche you can create a perfectly tuned marketing message as you know the precise pain points of your target market. This in turn starts to position you as an expert. It also starts to remove your competitors as most people don’t niche.
Let me give you one last example. When I first started out with my own business I called myself a business advisor who could work with any business and help them with any business challenge. I then evolved into a business growth specialist but stayed focused on any business. I then niched and focused on new businesses where they have made the leap form employee to business owner. My marketing is targeted directly at that niche which enables me to easily attract my ideal clients.
What would your niche be? What type of clients do have a good track record with, have testimonials from and love working with? You could turn them into your niche.
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