The majority of people have heard the wonders of niche marketing. Although, some may have opted to ‘play it safe’ with a generalist positioning in an attempt to appeal to everyone so that they don’t exclude key market segments.

This article explores the power of niche marketing as opposed to generalist marketing.

WHAT IS A NICHE?

A niche is a focused subset of a particular market group.

For instance, when it comes to niche blogging, there are millions of generalist “travel” or “home” blogs out there, all vying for the world’s attention, yet when you think about the blogs or magazines that you’re genuinely engaged with – the ones that hold your interest – probably have one common component; relevancy.

See, engagement is driven by relevance; whether this is a product, a blog, or anything else that can be marketed – the best way to engage people is to be relevant to them. Within this theme of relevancy; you want to be relevant to helping the end user solve a particular challenge they are facing.

Now, this isn’t necessarily complicated stuff.  You don’t need a master of arts in education to understand that people will pay attention to and learn about things they feel are relevant to a particular outcome; and we all have outcomes, whether we are conscious of them or not.

For instance, the person that’s hungry around 11am has a problem and is in need of a solution; his outcome is to put some food in his stomach in order to resolve the challenge of hunger.  Therefore, when he walks past the vending machine or a hot dog seller, these services stick out and he is drawn to them because they are suddenly relevant to his life.

With your product, service, or even website, you want to make sure you are relevant to people’s lives, and the only way to do that is to focus on a niche challenge or subsection of your market so that you become more relevant to them and less relevant to everyone else.

WHY HAVING A NICHE IS IMPORTANT

In broad markets, you are up against competitors with massive marketing budgets and often leading global brands that you can never compete with.

For instance, if you were to launch a brand new drink,  does it really make sense to compete against Coca-Cola?  Or would it make better sense to launch a new drink within a much smaller niche, such as weight loss drinks?

Similarly, with the energy drink market, there’s little point going up against Red Bull as the main play here would be to undercut the price.  However, if you were to come up with an innovative energy drink that relied on ancient natural herbal remedies, you might have something that will get attention and be relevant to people.

Now, some people will want the instant high and kick of energy associated with drinking Red Bull, but there are plenty of health-conscious people that would be interested in an energy drink that is natural, healthy, and doesn’t cause the spike effect of comedown associated with caffeine based drinks. These are just a few examples of how your brand can stand out in a niche environment.

When it comes to online marketing, it also means the person clicking on your advert is likely to be a more relevant customer that is actively looking for your specific solution; meaning they have an itch that needs scratching.  This is helpful, as you don’t want thousands of people clicking on your adverts – as this would cost a small fortune; you want qualified prospects – and the more niche-focused your marketing is, the better the conversion rate will be meaning the higher the return on your investment.