Find your niche and your customers will find you

Hana Dickinson, MD of The Bridge – Strategic Marketing & PR Specialists and creator of SuffolkWire has some key advice on finding your own unique selling point….

Can too much choice be a bad thing? Imagine walking down an unfamiliar high street looking for somewhere to eat.  The first place you see sells pizzas, fish and chips and kebabs. The second place is a pizza parlour.  Further down the road there’s a curry house and a Turkish restaurant.  Which venue do you choose? it depends on what you fancy of course, but let’s say you’re after a pizza.

Do you go to the first place, the one that offers all those options? Surely they can’t be an expert at making all those dishes? What if they’re stretching themselves too thin, like the base of a badly made pizza?

Or are you going to go to the pizza parlour? After all, there’s a good chance they’re going to know how to do a pizza well, and because they make pizzas all day every day, you’re willing to trust them that little bit more.

Why? Because nobody can expect to be the best in the world at everything. However, it’s possible and much easier to be good, or even the very best, at doing one specific thing, or a narrow range of things. It’s called picking your niche, and it’s time you found yours.

Why limit yourself?

Identifying your niche makes life easier. You don’t have to compete with generalists, for a start.  Once you build a reputation in your niche, people will know where to find you and word will spread.

It’s also a great way to maximise your marketing budget. In understanding your niche, you can work out exactly where you need to advertise, optimising your website to make your offering easily found on Google.

Finding your niche

• Study your competition. Is there already a lot of competition in your niche? What can you offer that others don’t? What is going to set you apart from all those pretenders to the throne?
• Research your niche. Who wants your product or service? What blogs and publications cater to your niche?
• What are you passionate about? The more passion you have for an idea, the more time and effort you’ll put into it. It’s true that you’ll never work a day in your life if you do something you love. Think about your greatest passion, and then find a way to make it a part of your business.

Finding your niche will not only focus your creativity, energy and marketing, in one concentrated direction, it will help give potential customers a clear picture of who you are and what you do.  The perfect way to rejuvenate or begin your business career.

The Bridge will help you identify, understand and reach your target audience – get in touch.