How to find your niche audience

Have you ever thought about marketing to a niche audience? It’s no surprise that businesses want to get as many customers as possible. That’s why most of them want their products and services to cater to a wide range of people. After all, it wouldn’t make any sense to serve the needs of a select few, right?

The world is going through major changes right now, so you need to adapt as well. This means trying new methods that you might have never considered before. You will have to challenge the old rules of thumb, specifically when promoting your brand. Marketing to a niche audience is truly a daring idea that may yield surprising results!

I’ll start by explaining what a niche audience is and why some businesses use it. I will also show great examples of brands that serve a specific market, so you can better understand its benefits. After that, I will discuss how you can find your audience niches. Later, you’ll see that you may need to use unusual marketing methods to reach a niche.

What is a niche audience?

When a business selects its target market, it often chooses a large group of people that share certain characteristics. Yet, some of them will have needs that differ from the rest.

That’s what you call a niche audience. Otherwise known as a niche market, it’s a small group with preferences that set it apart from the larger demographic.

Let’s say you have a bakery. You might want to serve the health-conscious by providing gluten-free baked goodies among bread-loving people.

If you have a business, you could find people with specific needs within your customer base. You could break that down into some of the following criteria to make it easier:

• Price – You may provide a more affordable version of a typical high-end product.
• Quality – You might want to sell food or drinks that are “hand-crafted” or “artisanal.”
• Interests or attitudes – Let’s say you have a fitness brand like Nike. You could make sportswear that’s made with eco-friendly materials, so you can cater to folks who want to save the environment.
• Location – Some brands source their materials from an area outside the cities. That could be a selling point if that region is popular for that specific product.

To help you find your audience niche, we will explore some of the brands that already have theirs. Perhaps they could give useful clues about it:

• Lefty’s San Francisco – Only 10% of the city’s people are left-handed, so most are made for right-handed folk. That’s what inspired Lefty’s to sell goods for left-dominant people.
• Whole Foods – If you tried to lose weight during the quarantine, then you might have bought dieting food from Whole Foods. You may recognize it as the organic counterpart to Walmart or Target. It’s a great grocery store for the health-conscious!
• Powell’s Books – Fewer and fewer people read books in the United States. That’s why Powell’s is a great place for America’s remaining book lovers. Despite the trend, it hosts brick-and-mortar stores with rows of full bookshelves.

Read More: How To Become A Successful Entrepreneur

How do niche audiences help brands?

Photo Credit: stackla.com

At first, serving the needs of a small group may not make sense. It’s common for businesses to want more customers, right? Wouldn’t a niche market limit a brand?

According to Stackla, 86% of consumers believe authenticity is important when choosing the brands they like. Serving a niche audience lets you do just that!

When you try to sell to everyone, you tend to cater to the shallow characteristics they share. Meanwhile, selling to a few means getting closer to the things that matter to them.

This shows clients that you’re about serving people’s needs, so they’re more likely to increase your target audience. Here are the other reasons why you should market to a niche audience:

• More profits – People are more willing to pay a higher price if nobody else serves their needs. Eventually, they will develop brand loyalty, so they’re more likely to keep purchasing from you.
• Fewer competitors – Serving a niche audience means you keep an entire customer base for yourself. This means you’ll need less effort for marketing!
• Reduced marketing costs – Loyal customers can increase organic traffic for your brand. Those who love your brand will mention it whenever they can on social media. As a result, they end up promoting your company, and you don’t have to spend at all!

How can you find a niche audience?

Your current customer base has a niche market within. You just have to find a way for your brand to connect to it. This is when the adage of “thinking outside the box” applies.

That “box” contains the usual types of target audiences, such as age and gender. They’re so common that business marketing platforms like LinkedIn let people choose them from a list.

You won’t find interests like “gluten-free” or “left-handed” on that list. Yet, brands like Lefty’s and Whole Foods earn well from these specific qualities.

Another important thing is to act with honesty and openness. This has been a great way for various brands to connect to customers. Click here to see some examples.

Lastly, go to social media to take a closer look at your customer base. Read a few of their comments on Facebook and Twitter, and you may find concerns that you may address.

This may involve a few minor adjustments to your products and services. Otherwise, this could be the sign of a new niche audience for your brand!

Final thoughts

Digital marketing is a great way to reach a niche audience. It lets you use various types of content that can encourage that small group of people to try your products.

It has a lot of strategies within it, such as email marketing, social media marketing, and affiliate marketing. If you want to learn more about those, click here.

Learning all about them would take time, and so will implementing them in real life. You can do this quicker and easier, but you’ll have to try something new: outsourcing!

You can leave all your digital marketing needs to LeadAdvisors. That way, you can focus on the other parts of your business. Click here to see how it can help with niche marketing.