Do you have a sense of the potential niche your brand could operate in?
Although niche markets are much smaller than broad markets, successfully tapping into them can be incredibly lucrative in the long run.
In this article, I’ll show you the value of penetrating niche markets and how to reach the target audience of your chosen market.
Do you have little time? Here are the key takeaways
- For brands with little reputation or awareness, niching can be a fantastic way to gain a foothold in the desired market by building a loyal customer base.
- Niche markets can be found by checking competitor behavior, selecting broader categories, and defining niches from there.
- Niche markets may seem like a step backwards because they are smaller, but a loyal following is crucial for any startup brand to gain traction in a broader market.
What is a Niche Market?
But first, I should start by defining what I mean by a “niche market.” To put it simply, a niche market is a smaller segment of a much larger market. For example, the broader market could be male coaches and the niche market would be male Olympic strength training coaches.
The target group of these trainers is much smaller, but also much more specific. Catering to this particular group of consumers means catering to their specific needs and preferences, in this example that would be sneakers with a flatter sole and a wide toe box.
When deciding whether or not you have identified a niche market, here is a quick checklist you can use:
- How big is the market? Niche markets tend to be much smaller than broader markets.
- What is the target group? For a niche market, you should be able to identify a clearly defined group of customers with common interests, characteristics and needs.
- Does this audience show signs of brand loyalty? Customers in beautiful markets are often incredibly loyal to brands that cater to their individual needs.
Why are niche markets so important for startups?
Now I know what you’re probably thinking. “Why on earth would I reduce my audience by up to 75%?” Surely as a new brand I should try to reach as many people as possible?”
The truth is that if you take a generalist approach to your target audience, you will struggle to fully meet their needs, making it difficult to convince them to deviate from their usual brand purchases.
Remember, as a founder, you’re fighting a fun (albeit uphill) battle as you compete with established brands and try to convince their customers to jump ship and give you a try.
So put yourself in the shoes of your target group. If you don’t meet their specific needs, why should they change their consumer behavior?
If you instead focus on meeting the needs of a few, you have a much better chance of converting them into loyal repeat customers who can then lay the foundation for your business to grow into a larger market in the future.
How to reach a niche market
With that in mind, let’s look at how you can reach a niche market.
Start differentiating yourself from broader categories
The best way to find a niche market is to start in a broad market! For example, let’s say you’re interested in starting a new clothing brand. You can start by looking at clothing for men and women and find niches from there.
For example, you could specifically focus on sportswear for men and women and from there carve out a niche for specific clothing within specific sports.
You could become the go-to brand for brand new golf pants before later venturing into other golf apparel, other sports, and so on.
A great example of this is Three Putt Golf Clothing, a brand that has established itself from the broader clothing market into the intersection of golf and streetwear culture. Instead of trying to compete with the big sportswear giants in all categories, they have focused on a specific demographic of golfers who want something different than the traditional corporate look that dominates the sport.
You may know Amazon as one of the biggest brands in the world, offering almost everything there is, but it didn’t start out that way.
Instead, the company began focusing on the niche market of selling used books online and has gone from strength to strength ever since.
Identify niche market keywords
Once you’ve piqued their interest, it’s time to reach out to your target audience. Using our golf pants example, you can then search for related golf terms that will attract the right audience for your brand and write SEO-friendly content that meets their needs.
Another benefit of finding a niche market is that ranking difficulty becomes much easier.
Take a look at this data from Ahrefs and use the golf example again.
Keyword: golf
Keyword Difficulty Level: 84
Search volume per month: 81,000
Keyword: Golf clothing
Keyword Difficulty Level: 56
Search volume per month: 5,300
Keyword: golf
Keyword Difficulty Level: 84
Search volume per month: 81,000
Keyword: Golf pants
Keyword Difficulty Level: 5
Search volume per month: 7,500
As you can see from this data snapshot, the term “golf pants” is much easier to evaluate than “golf” and still offers a lot of traffic potential for new brands.
As a new business, Google needs to make sure you are a reputable business before giving you what it calls a high “domain rating.” Without high DR, it doesn’t matter how great your content is; Google won’t rank it high in the results.
However, with low competition keywords, this problem largely disappears, and the more customers come to your site from these sources, buy from you, and leave reviews, the higher your DR will be, and you can then move on to bigger terms.
Identify potential groups on social media
Another way to reach your niche market is through social media, either by creating content they want to see or even sending them a DM directly. It’s a tactic that several of our founders have used to build hype and anticipation before brand launch, with great success.
Engage with your target audience in a friendly manner and try not to be too pushy or “sales-oriented” in your messaging. This can be a huge turn-off for potential customers as they are often bombarded by brands trying to get their attention.
Track competitor performance
Finally, a good way to identify and target your niche market is to track competitor performance and behavior. Identify brands in your niche, find their social media profiles and note their followers.
As your competition, you know that these followers are already interested in the product or service you offer, so targeting them is likely to be much more successful.
Have you found your niche? Now is the time to grow your brand
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