This month’s newsletter is focused on niche marketing. Among the many benefits of niche marketing is the ability to improve your placement on search engines through narrowly targeted search engine optimization. To illustrate this, try doing a Google search for “marketing.” This is an extremely broad search term that produces 1.7 billion results. Now try “marketing writer.” This brings you down to 27.6 million results.

Now try searching for “marketing writer Orange County.” This will narrow things down to about 2 million results – with my site coming up right at the top of page 1! This is the difference that niche marketing can make for your online presence.

While some companies try to be “all things to all people,” most find it much more profitable to focus on well-defined niche markets. A niche market is a targetable portion of a particular market sector. Your goal in focusing on niche markets is to address the specific needs of a specific group of potential customers that are not being addressed by your competitors.

There are many different ways that you can “slice and dice” your overall market into narrow niche groups. The trick is to look for segments of the market that have clearly defined needs or preferences that differentiate them from the market as a whole. Depending on your product or service you can focus on:

• A Particular Aspect of Your Field. This is what I do. Although there are many marketing generalists out there that claim to do everything imaginable that has anything to do with marketing, I focus exclusively on marketing writing and editing.
  
  
• A Particular Demographic. Try looking at geography, age, ethnicity, or other demographic factor. For example, a photographer can advertise as “The Best Photographer in South City,” specialize in baby portraiture, or focus on the Quinceniara or Bar/Bat Mitzvah markets.“
  
  
• A Particular Set of Needs or Preferences. Niche markets can also be defined by things like price (both Saks Fifth Avenue and the 99 Cent Store sell baby clothes, but probably to different portions of the baby clothes buying market), convenience (think of dry cleaners that offer pick up and delivery services), or the desire for instant gratification (such as “1 hour” or while you wait service).

Why target a smaller segment of your market rather than the entire community? Simple: it’s more effective, less costly, and produces better results.