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Most New Marketers Get This Wrong!
Of course, this topic comes up in almost every guide and ebook talking about making money online. They will all tell you one of the first exercises a new marketer needs to do is find or pick the niche he/she will be focusing upon.
But you know what? Most of the authors of this advice don’t really understand what a niche is!
Usually their advice goes something like this:
“A niche is the topic you choose to focus on … like dating, travel, affiliate marketing, or health and fitness.”
Here’s another similar definition of a niche that you might hear: “A niche is the subject of your web site.”
Here’s yet another example of what I’m talking about: “Choose a niche that has a very large audience but not much competition.”
In my mind, the people that are spouting this advice have no clue what they’re talking about.
Let’s go to the dictionary, first, to find out the meaning of the word “niche.”
Quite literally, a niche is an ornamental recess in a wall designed to show off a statue or other decorative object.
Here is a good visual representation of what a niche looks like:
It is literally a space carved out where something of value can be showcased or highlighted, like the small statue of the virgin Mary in this picture.
So what does the term “niche” have to do with small business and Internet marketing”
When applied to Internet Marketing, a niche is a specific segment or portion of a larger market that can be focused upon and can become the subject of your small business.
Think of the wall in the photo as the marketplace and the niche is the recessed area that has been carved out of the wall in order to highlight and position your business.
When you think of a niche as something you create or you define, a small area of the much broader overall marketplace where you are going to operate your business, it makes sense that you don’t really “pick a niche” as so many people say. Every niche can be different depending upon how you choose to focus your own business.
Really, you are defining the boundaries of your business operation. You are “carving out” a specific place or target where you want to do your business online.
“Picking a niche” is really a misnomer. You don’t “pick a niche” the same way you might “pick a sandwich” off the lunch menu at your favorite fast food joint.
It is better to think of this activity as “discovering,” or “creating,” or “carving out” your own niche from the broader market. When you think of “going into a niche” in this way, you realize that your niche can be whatever you want it to be … it is really something unique, personal, and one-of-a-kind because you can set the boundaries for whom you want to serve. You niche can look like whatever you want it to be. You can position your online business in any way that you like.
Why is positioning your business to be unique important? It allows you to go into a crowded marketplace and brand your business as one-of-a-kind … as different and unique from all the other businesses in your space. And when your business is unique, it can be branded and marketed to a unique audience made up of prospects that want exactly what you offer.
Two business owners may say they are in the “organic tomato growing” niche, but their businesses may look very different. That’s because they have each chosen to “position” their businesses most differently.
One owner, for example, may have an authority site where he sells reports, ebooks, and other digital content on how to grow organic tomatoes. A second business owner in that same “organic tomato growing” marketplace might have chosen to sell tomato starts, fertilizer, canning jars, tomato cages and other accessories. Each owner has created, defined, and carved out his own niche in the same marketplace.
You see, a niche isn’t really the marketplace that you choose to go into … it’s better defined as your response to positioning your business so you can bring value to the prospects and customers that you define as your audience … and that can be anything you want it to be.
To you online business success,
Steve Browne
www.SteveBrowneDirect.com