Focusing on Your Niche Market

When it comes to marketing, you have to cater to your market’s special needs. This is niche marketing. A niche market is simply a specific portion of a bigger market. It is nothing but a narrowed group of probable customers that the mainstream provider often overlooks.

To make things clearer, let’s use a definite example. If your business is all about home insurance, divide that into several niches like mansion house insurance, bungalow insurance, and flat unit insurance. That way, you will be able to focus more on your segregated market. By following the niche concept, you can give the mansion house insurance market the package it wants. This will include all the necessary provisions and even freebies, which it might not get from any other general insurance companies. Going into niches would enable you to raise the quality of your products. This will position you as an expert and attract more customers to you.

A Niche and It’s Needs

Always remember that every niche market has its own needs and requirements. That is going to be your focus. In order for you to meet all their specific needs successfully, the first thing that you have to do is to select a profitable niche, carefully. Choosing the right niche starts it all. When choosing, consider its profitability. Keep in mind that a niche’s group of potential customers is relatively small, so focus on a highly lucrative group of people. Analyse your market. Who are you competitors? Are they offering niches as well? If they are not, then you are lucky. All you have to do is to choose one specific area and focus on that. If unfortunately, they are offering niches as well, try to determine which area they are not servicing. Be creative.

If your business is about home decor, a good niche is an exotic collection of decorative items from different countries all over the world. Your main goal is to be the best provider for that certain group. Maintain an inventory of the best products given at the best price.

So you will be properly guided when serving your respective niche, talk to real people with real needs, belonging to your chosen category. Look for an ideal customer. Ask him questions relevant to what he expects to get about your line of products. Include in your query the things that he thinks he should not be getting as well as his suggestions as how to make the whole thing better.

Going back to the home décor example, your ideal customer will be a well-traveled middle to upper class homeowner. This person will have an idea as to what things you will be asking about and the things that you should know. He must have seen, and maybe even touched, exotic culture. He will be a reliable source of market information.

Market Research

Then couple what you have found out from him with real market research. Do this to verify the information you have gathered. Is your ideal customer’s taste the same with the rest of the community? Are his ideas feasible? Along with answering these questions, you should also be able to determine the right s on penetrating the market. Include the production costs as well as your close competitor’s product line.
You can do the market research yourself. First, try to talk to more potential customers. Still using the home décor example, you can also read current home décor magazines to get market leads as to where your possible suppliers and buyers are. Search the Internet for the sites that are more or less similar with your idea. Doing so, you will be able to adjust your market and products accordingly.

Finally, go deeper to the personal preferences of your potential customers. Know what qualities they look for and feel more about your line of product. For home decors, a good feature will be the history embodied in a particular item. Sell pieces that are reflective of a nation’s tradition and culture. More people will surely come to you. When that happens you don’t need to go to your market anymore; everything becomes simpler.
Other related product characteristics will be quality, price, convenience, or reliability. Once you have pinpointed the particular trait that they like the most, you can then sell your products effortlessly. Selling has just become one-step easier.

Using Analysis To Understand Your Market

Your success as a salesperson greatly depends on your market’s current saturation. Your competitors will all have a share of your potential customers. For you to identify your market fully, try to answer these ten questions. They will guide you in your selling goals.

1. How many competitors exist in your market?
2. Which of them are new and which are already there for the longest time?
3. How many of them are bigger than your business?
4. How much do they affect your sales? Are you losing big profits because of them?
5. How do they price their products?
6. Are their products and/or services similar or different from yours? In what way are they different?
7. What advertising tools do they use? To what extent do they use them?
8. Are they selling to the same customer group as yours? Do you have customer groups that they can’t sell to yet?
9. How do your customers buy? What motivates them?
10. Do your competitors employ a large number of salespeople? Do they use different selling techniques like door-to-door, retail outlet, telemarketing, direct mail, or business-to-business?

Once you answer these questions, you will be successful in analyzing your customers. You will know more about your competitors as well. With all this knowledge, you will be able to plan and select the best possible selling method. By doing so, you will have taken the first step in becoming a very successful salesperson.

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