Before spending all your time and effort creating a business and a business plan it is important to see if your business can fulfill a need/want in your specific area. You want to create a business that has a specific audience that you can offer a product or service to that no one else can.
It’s important to consider steering clear from a business geared towards a really specific audience, only to find out that the audience does not exist—or is extremely limited—or creating a business that is too broad, to where people do not know what your specialty is, exactly. It creates confusion and in turn does not make people want to do business with you.
The last thing you want to do is take more time than necessary, or money, when it comes to getting your business off the ground, so here lays the importance of finding your niche. A niche is a specific want or need that you are fulfilling for a specific audience. Instead of being a “marketing firm” you could specialize in one specific area of marketing; like public relations or social media management.
Finding your niche might seem overwhelming. It also might be tempting to create a business that “serves all”, but finding your niche, in the long run, allows you to specialize in a particular aspect of business and create higher revenue.
Finding your Niche
1. Figure Out Your Wishlist
If you are looking to enter the world of marketing, for example, you would research all different aspects of marketing, write a list of every single thing that you could do in the marketing world, and then go through the list. What on that list excites you? What previous experience do you have that could make you a master in that specific area? Identify the specific areas you would excel in and that you want to research further.
In this step, it is important to have a couple of ideas to move forward with. Let the ideas grow with you, so do not get stuck on one initial idea.
2. List What You Can Contribute/Problems You Can Solve
You have your nifty list in your hands of a couple different, specific areas you could excel, so now you need to figure out what you can contribute to those areas that no one else can or figure out how you can do it better. Can you write a blog like it is nobody’s business? Can you write code in your sleep? Can you create and manage a press event? What can you do?
Figuring out what you specifically can contribute to the world that you are trying to define your niche in, allows you to start narrowing in on your product or service and create a specific audience to market that towards.
If you decide you are the master at creating blogs, then you can start to think about offering a business that solely writes blogs for people. That audience can be broad but you could narrow it down—maybe write blogs specifically for fashion designers or travel companies. You want your service to be specific but not so specific that you have little to no audience.
3. Identify the Profitability
You have started to narrow down your list to specific areas that you could excel in your area of business, now you need to see if it can actually make you money. Because what is the point of putting energy into a business that will not make you any money in the long run?
Look at other businesses and see how much people pay for similar services or simply go to your clientele and ask. Take the survey option with caution—just people say that they will pay a certain amount does not mean that they actually will. The important part of this step is to know your worth. Just because you are new to the business world does not mean you have to offer products or services for severely discounted prices.
If you see that there is a decent number of clientele who will pay a reasonable amount of money for your services then you have found your niche, if not, then revisit the past two steps to narrow down a different niche.
4. Understand Your Competition
In an ideal world, you will not have any competition in your niche (go you). But, let’s be honest, that is pretty unrealistic. 99% of the time there will be someone out there in the world that offers the same services as you. Researching those people and their services not only will educate you but benefit you in the long run.
Understanding competition will allow you to see how your services can differ from them. Although you might offer the same things, what are the ways that you can stand out from them? Is it through your marketing efforts or your social media game? Or, maybe by the outstanding customer service that you offer? Having the edge on your competitors will allow you to be one step ahead of them and create more profit and customers for you.
3. Test, Test, and Test Again
You might have done all the research in the world but you will never know if your niche is profitable until you actually test it. Do a business launch. Put your name out there and see how many people you can get interested in your products. From there see if you can transfer that interest into actual clients who pay money for your services.
This test might go smoothly and result in proof that you have found a profitable niche. But it might not go smoothly. If your test is not successful, then it is time to reevaluate. What is good about your niche? What could change to make your niche more broad or profitable? Taking time to evaluate and really understand the results of your test allows you to see the probability of your business succeeding or needing to be tweaked.
Finding your niche might seem unnecessary or a burden, but in the long run it will benefit you. Creating a niche allows you to establish a particular aspect of your general business that you can create a want or need for. Creating this particular want or need helps establish that your business is unique and creates value for other people, who in turn, pay for your services.
If creating your niche feels overwhelming or if you have found your niche and now you need to market towards it, reach out to Monkey VA today. We can help you find your audience and reach them in an effective way. Gone are the days without your niche. Find yours with these five helpful steps.
