4 Rules to Find Your Niche

It is said that if everyone is your customer then no-one is your customer. If your product offering has been moderated to appeal to everyone then it becomes bland, ordinary and worse – average.

No-one wants average. Don’t try to appeal to the masses to broaden your market. Having a broader market brings it’s own problem – too much competition. If you don’t have a point of difference then you have nothing to offer that people can’t get somewhere else.

If you’re selling dog collars, one Google search will return thousands of results, thousands of competitors. However, if you’re selling dog collars made of carbon fibre, so Butch can’t chew it to pieces, the results are less abundant. That second search is specialised because it sits within a niche market.

So what is your niche and how do you find it? Here are four steps to help find your niche:

1. Understand the need and desire

   Understand the need for your offering and then you know how to sell it. You can’t execute a strategy for selling high-end frying pans if you don’t cook as you don’t understand what makes them work. Understanding the need enables you to appreciate the requirements and expectations of your niche.

2. Have a genuine interest in your niche

   If you don’t have that interest then providing for it will be impossible to sustain. A good way to identify your true niche is to focus on what you follow personally or as a business.
   Whether it is on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, a blog, a website or a Google alert. Use those groups to identify your niche and do your research to see if the perceived need you are working on exists. Facebook and Google+ are full of niche markets groups that can be a great source for research.

3. Assess the competition but never, EVER, be governed by your competition

   To be reactive is to abandon all creativity. If you become defined by the masses then you blend in, and again, become average – remember, no-one wants average.

4. Have a point of difference.

   Finding what your competitors consider unimportant can be the edge that leads to success. A coffee shop may have
   standard coffee and the expected ambiance. BUT, if they have raw and organic sweets this could give them an edge. The edge is the point of difference that ensures continued custom from those who consider raw sweets a vital factor in their choice.

As Seth Godin says “A brand that stands for what all brands stand for, stands for nothing much”. Find your niche and work for that demographic.