The RICHES are in the “Niches” – How to Choose a Market for Your Business

Choosing the right niche for a new business may be one of the most important factors in your planning.  You need to either have experienced in the particular market you are addressing or be capable of learning a new niche and have a realistic outline for doing so.  That being said, how does one choose the right niche to go into?  How many competitors are there locally and globally for a particular market?  Their advice is narrow down into the niches.

In this great article by entrepreneur ideas they get into the details of effectively working through this decision process:

Analyze what you are selling or what you want to sell. It should be in an area that you know a lot about or want of learn about. It may have wide appeal, but think of those it appeals to most. For example, does your product appeal to musicians? That’s a pretty wide market. Narrow it down. Who is most likely to be interested, singers or instrumentalists? From there you might want or need to narrow it even further. For example, your product might appeal to musicians of a certain age, or musicians who favor a certain kind of music or even a particular singer.

After narrowing it down as far as you can, think of appropriate keywords. Check with Google to see how many sites come up using these keywords. Next use a site that tracks keyword usage, such as Google Keyword Planner or Word Tracker to see if there are plenty of users looking for that information. If there are enough potential customers and the competition is low, you may have found your niche.

After you have chosen your niche, try to use it in your Website title. This can help your Website ranking. Another tool for choosing a niche is to study the competition and find out how to make your site unique.

Great advice so far.  And these tools alone are free and should give you a big advantage in your process.  Here are more tips:

• Know what you are selling

It is clear that you fundamentally know your product – it is your creation, but make sure that you look at it from the customer’s point of view. Know what you are offering and you will be able to determine who will be buying it. Know why you are choosing the niche and make sure that the product you offer is the right product for this market place. No marketing strategy can sell systematically your product to the people who have no or less interest in it. The relationship between the demand and supply in specific niche, along with taking under consideration the competition, will help you determine if the niche you want to enter is the right for your startup.

• Trust your vision

The niche market you are aiming for must have some kind of bound with your own personal vision, goals and business understanding. If you need to compromise with your business understanding and approach and completely change the course of your startup in order to impress the targeted customers, probably you are aiming at the wrong market. As an entrepreneur, you should trust your intuition and believe in your vision.

Think about what that means?  Once you are in motion, you have to trust your decision.  Listen to data, adjust your model but do not second guess yourself.  Be confident and execute your plan!

• Be aware of the limits

How far you can go? When choosing your niche, make sure that you will have the ability to grow in this niche. Entrepreneurs run companies which are to grow and the target niche market should be able to expand as long as the company’s products and services develop.

• Create niche marketing strategy

Knowing your customer is the number one thing which marketers have to work on.  Make sure that your startups message will be sent to the right people in the right way.

Here is a quick list of niche marketing techniques you can use in your strategy:

• Targeted Facebook Ads according to of course the niche. 

-they give you so many ways to get granular and hyper focus by location, interest, age etc.

• Google Adwords

-similar to Facebook ads, you can get very specific in who you target and track your performance

• Bing Ads

-pretty much the same as Google Adwords except not quite as much volume

• Link and Banner Purchases on Niche Websites

-narrowing down some of the better sites in your particular niche and make some banners and links to test with an advertising inquiry

• Tastefully Posting On Niche Forums

-find the mos engaging forums and chat boards and have conversations.  note the key word is tasteful.  you don't want to be too salesy, just polite and informative.