“Don’t become a wandering generality. Be a meaningful specific.” ~Zig Ziglar
How Niche is Too Niche?
Niche, niche, niche. If you are a networker you will hear this a lot. And it’s great advice.
Niching – or catering to a niche market – is simply being very specific about who your target customers are and focusing on providing a product or service which addresses their needs.
This definitely applies to networking. Think about it – would you be more inclined to refer business to me if I told you:
1) I am looking to work with ‘anyone who needs a business consultant’ or, 2) My target market is ‘ladies who would like to launch a small business but aren’t sure where to start’?
Whilst you may know ‘anyone who needs a business consultant’ the target market is too broad to know whether I would be a good match. I can guess that you have thought of at least one person in the second category and if you haven’t you are bound to meet someone matching those criteria soon. It gives you a crystal clear idea of who I am looking to work with and your brain is now specifically wired to look out for them. Have you ever been thinking about buying a specific car in a particular colour? Suddenly, the exact same model and colour appears everywhere you go, almost as if there are more on the road than ever before. That is because the Reticular Activating System (RAS) of your brain is now tuned in to noticing them.
So the more niche you are, the more memorable you become. The more memorable you are, the easier it is for your network to connect you with the right people. And making it easy for others to recommend you is one of the keys to networking success.
Niching works in product sales too. Marketing mogul Seth Godin points out that Apple did an excellent job of creating a cult following for iPhone by asking ‘How do we make a phone that almost no one will like but a few people will love?’ The iPhone was too expensive and unconventional for most people but Jobs turned it into a mass market and a ‘must have’ item. A great example of how niching a product can pay off.
[Star Wars fans may also note that Tyranus also serviced a mass market from a niche when he used Jango Fett as the genetic template for the clone troopers that formed the Grand Army of the Republic. From one renegade Mandalorian warrior-turned-bounty-hunter, Tyranus created one of the most efficient military forces in galactic history.]
But how niche is too niche?
I was shopping in our local supermarket yesterday and saw this publication: The Essential Guide for Asian First-time Mums & Dads from Pregnancy to Preschool
In one fell swoop they have eliminated, 2nd (and 3rd, 4th…) time parents, non Asians, pre-pregnancy and post pre-school parents (not to mention same sex couples!)
Presuming that the publishers want to achieve high sales targets, does being this specific make it easier or harder to achieve their goal? Or is creating a niche this tight simply the only way to enter a market that is already saturated?
I would love to hear your comments.
Photo by By JD Hancock
A New Era under a Creative Commons Attribution license
About Gina Romero
Hmmm, niche networking.
I agree that you have to be as specific as possible in order for people to understand exactly what you’re after. I find this a problem at networking events – what does our company do? It does everything (if we’re talking computers that is). Who is our target audience? Everyone who uses a computer. However, we have circumvented this somewhat at our regular networking meetings by picking on one product or service to promote, and you’re right – it works! So whilst we are not “niche” we can still pick and mix elements from our business to be temporarily “niche”.
Excellent point Lorelei, promoting your services or products in rotation gives your network a good overview of what you can offer without overwhelming them with too much information.
Being really specific in terms of target clients can seem a bit scary at first but I do find the more specific the better. When I was in IT, I consistently asked my network for “small private high revenue investment banking firms based in central London with 5-10 employees who considered IT critical to their business”. It worked and we signed up 5 high value contracts. Of course we had all sorts of other clients too!
Remember – people will always ask you for other services or find out what have to offer once they decide they want to work with you!
Hi Gina,
Love what you do on your website.
Keep up the great work!
Kenneth
Smal...@blogspot.com
Thanks Kenneth, I’m glad you like it. I hope we can stay in touch, it would be great to collaborate in the near future!
Hi Gina,
I love this article, esp. the biology lesson and the detail on Star Wars.
Your book example is an interesting one, and demonstrates how you can niche in a saturated marketplace.
As there are soooooooooooooooo many baby books out there, going for a tiny segment of this giant market is probably a really smart move on behalf of the publishers. I would love to know how different the content actually is though…
tx
Thanks for your comment Tamsin, I’m glad you enjoyed the post! It’s great to have feedback from a marketing expert & I guess this proves the point that there is pretty much no such thing as ‘too niche’.
I’m also curious as to how specific the content is, although I didn’t buy it because I’m not a first time mum!
Hello Gina, great article. I agree that you have to focus in on a niche which is something we did in one of my businesses, we set up a company like 4 years ago and we wanted to break into the advertising industry for SMEs but we were young entrepreneurs (my business partners & I) going up against established newspapers & magazines.
So what we did was we focused, created a publication that was strictly ads, ensured the ads were superbly designed in full colour, dropped the price and it was a single leaflet in A3 size and we coined a name for it which was new, fresh & unique, we ended up creating a new segment in the industry that soon after became flooded with imitators but basically, taking on a niche gives room to actually gain more (ROI and expertise wise)
Hi Adegbenga and thanks for commenting. You’re right, creating a niche market opens the opportunity to become a specialist in the field, which definitely raises your profile above any competitors who provide a more generalised service.
What a great strategy you and your business partners used – and you know what they say “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”!