Seth Godin said:
“There’s no such thing as a niche that’s too small if the people care enough.
If you think you need a bigger market, you’re actually saying that the market you already have doesn’t need you/depend on you/talk about you enough.
You might not need a bigger niche. You might only need to produce more value for those you already serve”
Yes, we’re talking about the often dreaded N word: Niche. Love it or hate it, to me, it’s a necessary conversation that we need to have regularly.
It’s the conversation that’s going to help you with your marketing, your content, your videos, your digital presence. It’s going to help you with EVERYTHING.
My friend and colleague Jo Muirhead (of Jo Muirhead and PurpleCo fame) echoes my thoughts on this when working with her private practice building clients: Niche is not just about the demographics of a person, it’s about seeing them as a whole person.
We’ve been friends since 2011 and share a lot of the same philosophies when coaching clients to grow their businesses and practices, which is a blessed relief!! It makes life so much easier when you share beliefs about something, right?
I want you to imagine that you actually BECOME the person that you want to work with.
Can you imagine what their life is like at any given moment throughout the day? What their relationship is like? What their job or business or work is like?
You see, we can demographic ourselves out of the market. And that’s not going to help you. ‘Everyone’ in your industry is targeting women 35-45 years old who want to lose weight.
They’re busy creating content and marketing on the latest diet, the latest hack, the latest fad or whatever in order to try to HOOK their audience into listening to what they have to say.
Tell me honestly: Do you really want to compete on that?
I’m thinking no.
Demographics is a great place to start but I wouldn’t leave it at that. Not if you really want to stand out from all of the other people who are out there marketing their wares.
How about we do this instead: Let’s look at the psychographics of the person. What this means, is that we drill down into the psychology of the person. What they’re thinking. What they’re worried or stressed about. What their goals, dreams and desires are.
Not only is this going to give you more inspiration for your marketing but also it will help you to transform from marketing your products and services to building relationships with the audience that you want to market to.
This is the kind of thing that’s going to help you to stand because your people will feel like you understand them. They’ll feel like you ‘get them’. They’ll feel like you can relate to where they’re at.
And then, they’ll see that in addition to them feeling like you know them, they’ll see that you are someone who can be trusted. They’ll see you as someone who can and will help them to solve a problem that they have.
This is one of the reasons why I get messages and emails from people regularly saying things like “you know exactly what to say every day!” and “how did you know what’s going on in my head?”.
The best advice that I can give you is to know your audience intimately. It will help your writing, your blogs and your rapport building.
Nicola
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Originally published at nicolamoras.com.au