One topic has resurfaced lately in many of my coaching discussions. Small business owners are hesitant to niche their brand. What does that mean? From a marketing standpoint it means to focus your marketing efforts on a specific niche. This is usually a specific target audience for your services or products.
I wrote about this topic 9 years ago. Most of the points made are still 100% valid. The one point I left out is the benefit niche marketing is on your total advertising and marketing budget. It feels like our budgets don’t stretch very far in the marketing arena. We spend so much just to get creative done. Then to reach people with our messages, the spending opportunities are unlimited. You can have much more reach and frequency of your message by focusing on one specific target audience. Your marketing budget is not diluted across multiple audiences and you do not have to create a custom message for different audiences.
So, for those of you who still are not convinced that finding a niche for your business is the way to go, here is the original post with all of the other reasons to niche!
Are You a Niche Marketing Unbeliever?
For those who struggle to narrow down to one niche…
I am with you. If God gave us skills to help a variety of people and groups and confirmed it with the passion, then how can we only focus on one group? And if I only focus on one group, which one? I love them all. And so goes the questioning and doubts of the niche marketing unbeliever.
I am with you in heart, but my intellect and experience tell me otherwise. My intellect says:
- It is much more cost effective to market to one particular group.
- My services will be more focused and in-depth if I niche.
- I don’t have to keep watering down my message to make sure it is applicable to everyone.
- I will become more of an expert if I stay focused on working and learning in a narrower field.
But the interesting thing I see with my experience when I niche and others niche is:
- Richer, deeper relationships with my customers/clients.
- A more interactive community because we are all on the same page.
- An opportunity to add value to my clients by connecting them with each other as they have a common bond.
- An ongoing path of future products and services as we grow together.
- The ability to service more clients as the products and services I work on will almost always be applicable to multiple clients instead of just one.
I have the conflicted heart, the logical brain, and some positive personal experience…am I on board yet? When I read the description of my experience it seems like a Godly path. The niche focuses on deeper relationships, effectively helping more people, and doing better, more in depth work, which all would glorify God. So my last hold-out argument would be “But what if God wants me to help all kinds of people? What if He doesn’t want me to niche? After all, He has sent me clients in all of these areas in the past.”
That has honestly been my reasoning. However, if we think this through, even if we niche our marketing, and focus on our niche in our work, God can still send us other business. He can open doors and close doors. If our plan isn’t what God wants, I believe if He knows us to desire His will and to be obedient, He will redirect us. If a more focused approach was His plan all along, we will see the fruits in some form. It may be more clients or it may just be clients who are a better fit.
I guess what I am saying is that I am ready to take the plunge all the way. I won’t keep hedging and shifting. I will stay focused on helping Christian small business owners lead their organizations based upon biblical principles and sound business strategies. I am a niche marketing believer. Are you?
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