Friday, December 14, 2007

What is Niche Marketing?

Got lots of magazine-style content and need a stylish frame? Serenity's a great choice for sites that have a lot to say. Serenity Child Theme for Genesis Framework.

Choose from an amazing selection of widgets that support everything from video to in-depth articles.

Niche marketing instills trusting and long-term buyer to client relationships for a company willing to invest the time and money. Most other marketing campaigns seek to bring in immediate clientele or profit and often do not have dedicated repeat buyers. Niche marketing requires delicate information regarding the target group. Companies seeking out niche markets realize the grounds of sale seem relatively simplistic but find difficulty in actually obtaining customers from within the group.

Niche marketing targets groups of interest for people bound together by a certain hobby, activity or common belief structures. This makes it difficult for prospective salesmen to get a word in about a product or service. Your company must be dedicated to researching details about the group of interest before looking into ways of making a sale. A niche marketing company has a good advantage over others because time, investment and dedication to clientele secure life-long, business relationships. You will not have to depend on the marketing campaign to spark public interest in order to keep the business running.

Companies interested in niche marketing need to know a few key points about niche marketing success before creating a business plan.

Key Points to Niche Marketing

1. Finding a niche for your product or service is only the beginning.

2. Time must be dedicated to researching the niche, learning inner-circle jargon and getting to know real reasons why the niche might like to buy your product or service.

3. The most difficult and time-consuming aspect of a niche market pertains to establishing long-term, trusting relationships with prospective clientele. This could take anywhere from 1-3 months and the more time you dedicate to establishing the relationships before making a sale, the better your future selling market will be.

4. Talking with the community and participating in events provides a foot in the door. Be careful not to come off arrogant about details you know about the niche. Your target audience has been at their interest or hobby for quite a while and won’t take very well to what seems to be a “know-it-all”. Try and side yourself with the group leader and learn from them as if they were your mentor.

5. Make sure to have a business plan including after-sale customer satisfaction mechanisms. Letting a customer know they were more than just a sale secures the individual’s return business.

6. Niche marketing requires work. There is no way around the investments you need to make when targeting a group of interest. Don’t be discouraged. The investments often return two-fold or three-fold in niche marketing success.

Ad campaigns, eBook or mass advertising tactics do not hold much ground within niche marketing. Most advertising campaigns should be done by word of mouth, being involved in the community. Providing excellent customer service will help ease the buyers into your product or service. Never move too fast, and don’t go to slow in the beginning stages of niche marketing. There stands a fine line between being accepted or trusted by the group of interest and having the door closed to sales because you came off as a shady ‘sell and run’ salesman. Keep your morale up when starting off in a niche market. There’s nothing more appealing to a group of interest than confidence in one’s product or services. Niche marketing can be fun and extremely profitable in the long run given the right investments.

1 comment: