Positioning yourself in a niche is powerful.

It is a strategic process to match your expertise and passions with the people you are targeting. And it sets you apart. You are competing with a lot of noise in the marketplace to get your potential customers’ attention – and their business. If you can stand out with a unique benefit (your niche specialization), you are a lot more likely to get noticed because you are unique from your competition.

One way to define your niche is to evaluate your current customers. What group are you serving right now? What do they find unique and valuable about your company? If you don’t know – ask them. It is important to understand your services from the customers’ point of view. You can also use Survey Monkey to send on online survey to them.

As you examine your current customer base, you may be surprised to find you have already carved out a niche. If you haven’t, choose an area of focus in which you are passionate and have some knowledge. After all, if you don’t enjoy working with your customers, why bother? It also makes it easier if you pick a niche you already know well or one that will be fun for you to learn EVERYTHING about.

I can hear you protesting, “But I’m good at a bunch of things. Do I really have to choose?” The Marketing Maven answer: “Yes! You have to choose if you want to make more money, work less, and make your business life easier.”

Let’s look at how this might work…

Jane the new attorney decides to position herself in a niche. She narrows her area of law expertise to Estate Planning. But Jane wants to go big, so she narrows her niche even more to Estate Planning for Doctors in Seattle. Ahhh…now we’re talking. Jane can begin to advertise her services very precisely.

Instead of just being that new lawyer in town, Jane positions herself as THE attorney to go to if you are a Seattle physician who needs to get their estate planning in order. You think she starts to get known well? You bet she does! And guess what else? The longer she serves this clientele, the more her name gets known and the more of an expert she becomes.

Dr. Joe says to Dr. Maria, “Hey, I just got finished with Jane tidying up my trusts and working on such and such. Oh…you need to do some revisions, too? Well, Jane works exclusively with the medical industry. She understands us and she knows what we need. Here’s Jane’s number - you should definitely call her.”

Are you seeing how this works? No physician worth their salt would DARE go to any other attorney for estate planning. Jane has to hire two paralegals to serve all the business that is coming to her now.

Most successful self-employed individuals offer a highly specialized product or service to a particular niche that few others are adequately serving. Instead of offering generalized management consulting, you can choose to consult to the hotel industry on staffing issues. Instead of being a public relations consultant, you can offer public relations consulting to the California wine industry. Instead of just being a photographer, be one that specializes in portraits of infants and toddlers.

By choosing a precise niche, your prospects and sources of referrals understand precisely what it is that you offer. Your services are clear and precise. The narrower your niche, the easier it is for clients, prospects and referrers to remember what you do. And, the simpler it becomes for you to become the expert at what you do.

Additionally, the narrower you make your niche, the simpler your marketing program will be. You know where they congegrate, the associations they are part of, the publications they read, and what they struggle with. Once you become clear and become an expert at your specialty, there really is no limit to your business growth (and the amount you can charge for your expertise).

Hugs and success, Wendy Maynard
Your friendly marketing maven

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