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Get clear on your niche, claim expert status and get more clients

Written by: Shona Partridge

Article Overview: One of the most important things you will ever do in your business is to decide on your niche or specialism. Having this pinned down is vitally important, yet many people try to be far too general in what they offer. A clear niche can get you more clients.

Get clear on your niche, claim expert status and get more clients

One of the most important things you will ever do in your business is to decide on your niche or specialism. Having this pinned down is vitally important, yet many people try to be far too general in what they offer. When you ask some people what they do they reel off a long list of different services or products. There's an old saying in marketing circles: "A confused mind always says no." One of the best ways to stand out in a crowded market is to be very specific about what you do and who you do it for. As a result you'll attract more of the right clients.

Some clues to help you find your niche:

What type of clients do you enjoy working with most? Often your best client is in your own mirror! You'll generally enjoy working with people who are like you; who have the same challenges, ambitions and enthusiasms as you do. Make a list of all your past and current clients and prioritise them from favourite to least favourite. Notice what patterns emerge.

Remember a niche can be a niche market - that is, the type of people that you serve - for instance in my case - self employed women and small business owners. And within that niche you may also have a specialism, mine being: I teach self employed women and small business owners how to do their own marketing and publicity and how to be confident while they're doing it.

Someone may be a career coach but specialise in working with IT professionals. A literary agent may specialise in cookery writers or children's authors. A life coach may work with teens or parents of teens. Do you start to get the picture?

Some of the key benefits to having a niche are:

1. It radically simplifies your marketing
2. It makes it so much easier to say what you do and who you work with
3. It builds your reputation as an expert
4. It also builds your confidence
5. People can refer potential clients more easily because they understand what you do
6. You develop a "Personal Brand"
7. People prefer to work with a specialist and expert
8. You can more easily identify your target market and where they congregate
9. And - you get to work with your ideal clients

If you do several different things but for a specific target market, remember to concentrate on one offering at a time. When you are networking or writing pages for your website, be very clear on which service or product is on offer. If necessary have separate websites for different sections of your business.

So pick your specialism and stop trying to be all things to all people. Make a decision and choose your niche. It really will pay huge dividends.

(c) Shona Partridge Women Mean Business 2009

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Article Tags: ambitions, career coach, challenges, circles, confidence, confused mind, cookery writers, different services, important things, li li, life coach, literary agent, mirror, niche market, own marketing, parents, publicity, reputation, small business owners, strong one



Related Forum Posts
Re: When can you call yourself an "expert" in your industry? - I agree with Russell and GT too. You are an expert when you know you can do for other what people did for you, help, answer question, etc. The actual proof (blogs, articles, etc) can also help establishing your expert status and the soon you make it the better. However, there are those who believe in "fake it till you make it". Personally I don't believe in this way, it works for some people, but in the end you will have to show your true face. Hard work is the only way.
Re: Great start, but no finish - Hi Keven, By good idea or niche I mean the area where you have good knowledge. Here is how. I want to start my online business. And I must find the good topic for my business. WHat can it be? I 'm lawyer and have enough knowledge about it. THen why not to start a blog giving legal advice to people? Or if you are weight loss expert, then weight loss i a good idea or niche for your online business. Also the monetization potential of the niche is important too. If there is good mon. potential and I have special knowledge about my niche then I can have advantage in the competition and it can be a good idea for my future business. This is what I mean by" good niche" After finding my pofitable niche, it will be easy to build business on it. Orxan
Re: Social media question - Hi Rachel, I'm a member and active user of both Twitter and Facebook, but more so of Facebook. Yes, there is a lot of power between the two when used correctly. The nice thing is that you can link the two by having your Twitter tweets show up on your status updates on Facebook. This alone is powerful as my tweets get responses from my Facebook friends, who are potential business partners or clients. One thing with Facebook is setting up a group about you, your product, or your business. As you build up targeted friends you can invite them to your group and build a reputation for yourself. This is kind of the same angle you want to use with Twitter as you tweet about your niche. Another aspect of using Twitter and Facebook is setting them up to automatically post a link and description of your blog posts. As others have mentioned, you should set up a blog and post content relative to your niche. As you can see by setting both sites up like this, part of your marketing efforts are on autopilot. This is just a small example of what's possible, and do read over the other suggestions that you were given because they are great as well. Hope that helps and best wishes, Alan
Re: Social media question - Hi Rachel, I agree with Alan. I just started using both Facebook and Twitter to gain more exposure and so far it's working out well, not just in driving more traffic to my site but also in building rapport with people who belong to my niche. Both mediums are effective but like with any endeavor, you need to exercise discretion and responsibility. [quote="Alan Mater":3ue520rn]Hi Rachel, I'm a member and active user of both Twitter and Facebook, but more so of Facebook. Yes, there is a lot of power between the two when used correctly. The nice thing is that you can link the two by having your Twitter tweets show up on your status updates on Facebook. This alone is powerful as my tweets get responses from my Facebook friends, who are potential business partners or clients. One thing with Facebook is setting up a group about you, your product, or your business. As you build up targeted friends you can invite them to your group and build a reputation for yourself. This is kind of the same angle you want to use with Twitter as you tweet about your niche. Another aspect of using Twitter and Facebook is setting them up to automatically post a link and description of your blog posts. As others have mentioned, you should set up a blog and post content relative to your niche. As you can see by setting both sites up like this, part of your marketing efforts are on autopilot. This is just a small example of what's possible, and do read over the other suggestions that you were given because they are great as well. Hope that helps and best wishes, Alan[/quote:3ue520rn]
Create a niche - I think it's all about focusing on the smaller niches... not such a broad 'marketing to the masses'... leave that to the big players and their safe and boring marketing messages. If the product or service is ideal for the masses, that's great, but tailor it down to smaller niche bases. Have a localized approach. When they find you, their already qualified because they did a specific search for your niche. Then create a personalized experience, and yes, make it ALL about solutions for them. Be the expert in the niche, give information willingly via articles, case studies, or reviews... give away a free mini-course, or ebook, get them on your mailing list. Create intriguing follow-up messages that encourage them to buy. Give, give, give... If you're creative and you can tell a story about it, all the better. Who am I fooling here... you guys know this already...


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