It is incredibly difficult to market to the entire world at once: A message meant for everyone often means something to no one.

When you market to a niche, it becomes much simpler to create meaningful marketing messages that they can relate to.   You actually don’t have to do any marketing at all if you just listen to what your niche needs/wants and then simply give it to them.

But, what is a niche? The simplest definition of a niche is:

“A group of people with the same problem who congregate together.”

Here are some groups that might be considered a niche but aren’t:

The problem is that marketing to these groups is little better than trying to market to the entire world!  Yet, they are all examples of a demographic groups that I’ve seen people try to market to.

To get the most bang for your buck, your group must share a common PROBLEM.

It is their common problem that makes them a niche, rather than simply a demographic.

Take a look at who you are currently marketing to:  Is it a demographic or a niche?  If it’s not a niche, find the pain that you can uniquely and brilliantly qualified to solve and create a niche around that.

Here are some questions to ask yourself as you narrow your niche:

• What are the problems that I solve for my clients?

• What one problem is their core problem?  This is that one problem that is the cause of their other problems, or is the umbrella problem, or may be the one problem that can easily identify themselves.

That last point is so important, it bears repeating.

It is vitally important that you niche self-identify as having the problem that you see them having.

The customer buying process begins with need recognition and problem awareness.  When your target market doesn’t  see themselves as having the problem, they won’t be interested in the solution that you provide!

This is so important, yet I’ve seen so many business people make this mistake.  This is especially a problem with those in the healing professions as they mistake their understanding for the problem with how their client sees their problems.

Let me give you an example.

One of my clients helps women balance their hormones.   Female hormones are complicated and many things can send them out of balance, including extra weight, diet, lack of exercise, and stress.  Her entire marketing campaign was based around this idea of “bringing your hormones into balance.”  The result: she couldn’t get anyone to sign up for her programs.

The reason was because women don’t have the same understanding of their bodies that she does!

All they see is that their PMS gets in the way of their life.  Their periods are heavy and their cramps are bad.  They’ve lost interest in sex.  And they are cranky all the time.

When she changed her focus to peri-menopausal women with out of control PMS, she saw her programs sell out.

This is because women who have out of control PMS know it and are actively searching for ways to change it (often because their husbands and boyfriends have begged them to).

Your marketing will be much more effective when you are marketing to a specific group with a specific problem — a niche.   Pick a problem that you are uniquely and brilliantly qualified to solve, and you have the makings of a very successful business.

Think you are marketing to a niche?  Share it in the comments and we’ll let you know if you are on the right track.

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