
Photo credit: larbelaitz
The Important First Step
Narrow Down Your Focus
A niche market enables you to target your sales messages with great precision. The more narrowly you define your niche market the easier it is to cater to the specifically defined interests of people in that market.
For example, some businesses describe their target market as “opportunity seekers”. But this is a broad audience. You cannot cater to specifically defined personal interests of individuals in this group because it may include all of the following:
* Executives who want to get out of the corporate environment and start their own business
* New mothers who want to start a home based business
* Students who want to generate some extra income
But people don’t respond to general talk. They respond only when they feel you are talking directly to them about their individual needs.
SPECIAL ADVANTAGE: A highly defined, small niche market can insulate you from competition. Other small businesses are likely to overlook it. Large businesses will find the market segment too small to bother with.
So now that you have narrow your niche, let’s talk about how to a niche market for yourself.
How To Find Your Own Niche Market
One way to find a good niche market is to evaluate your existing customers. Can you uncover a segment of customers with similar characteristics? All you have to do, is to ask! It’s really so easy!
Another way to find a niche market is to work backward from the benefits you offer.
Start by listing all the benefits provided by your product or service. Then list some of the characteristics of prospects whose current situation can be dramatically improved by those benefits.
You should begin to see a narrowly defined group emerge as a niche market.
Feel free to give some comments if you have more ideas to share. Thanks!








January 31st, 2008 at 5:20 am
It definitely includes students. While everyone was out at the BK working at the BK lounge, I was niching…
January 31st, 2008 at 3:27 pm
good article and very useful to the beginner
January 31st, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Niche blogging beats normal blogging by a mile. You make more money from search engines because users are targeting your niche when they come from search engines which pushes up the chances of them clicking on your ads
February 5th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Great post!
Now I know where to find my niche market. Thanks!
July 18th, 2008 at 2:46 am
Good article. I’ve always preached finding a niche when it comes to IT Consulting — be the got-to guy or gal for that specialty, and you’ll always have demand. The only trick is to make sure that the niche isn’t too narrow or nearing obsolesence.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Sterling..
Great to see you in here.. How’s the flushing with the cat?
July 29th, 2008 at 1:49 am
It keeps getting away and hiding from me now. But then, it does belong to the neighbors…
July 29th, 2008 at 2:00 am
Maybe it’s time to shop for a new one?