Niche marketing is a favorite topic on the internet. It’s a highly competitive keyword for good reason. Word is out that defining your target market as narrowly as possible is an essential KEY to marketing success.
Over two decades ago, Joan Elias, the founder of the regional advertising agency Business Development, took me in (actually, she hired me… but in hindsight I view it as ‘taking me in") and taught me the key to developing successful marketing messages. She taught me that the KEY to successful advertising was to tightly target your audience and create a marketing message that "broke through" the clutter. While other, less tightly targeted, messages were being "filtered" by the human brain, the tightly targeted messages we were creating were making an impact on listener’s/viewer’s behavior. What a happy day it was for our clients when the actually began to see a positive impact on the bottom line as a result of our tightly targeted marketing messages!
Enter the internet and, over time, the value of Niche Marketing has been discovered. It didn’t take long for web site developers and SEO experts to discover that by tightly targeting their marketing message they increased the effectiveness of their web message. The reason was simple: Log files don’t lie. It’s one thing to run an ad on television and have it not produce results. It’s easy to delude yourself and explain away the dismal failure. It’s quite another thing to look at your log files and see that 100,000 people visited a web site and did NOTHING! OUCH!
As a result, many web developers have embraced the Niche Marketing concept… however sometimes the explanations get too simple. For example Webene says:
To be absolutely positive about what isn’t a niche market product, go to any big box store. If they carry it, it is not a niche product. For the most part, niche markets are too small for big companies to bother.
Um… I have to disagree with the statement … "If they {a big box retailer} carry it, it is not a niche product." because there are certainly a number of ‘niche market’ items being carried by big box retailers. However, while big box retailers may be carrying niche market items, they truly can NOT compete when it comes to knowledge and expert advice.
For example, Walmart, Dick’s Sporting Goods and the Sports Authority all carry soccer gear. They even carry a limited selection of cleats, soccer shin guards…even a few soccer training items.
However, if you want expert advice on soccer equipment … I don’t recommend going to any "big box" retailer or even to a "category killer"…. instead you need to visit your local soccer store. While you might be able to pick up a pair of cleats at a big box retailer, you’ll never get the personal attention of an EXPERT there. Instead, you need to visit the local specialists store…. the one which is targeting soccer players as their niche market.
When we lived in Indiana, it was the Soccer House in Fort Wayne, while here in Port Saint Lucie, Florida the local specialists store is called PK’s Soccer. In either case, whether you wanted expert advice in which cleat to purchase or you simply wanted to know when league sign ups began, the only place to go was to visit the local specialist’s store. It’s where the serious players went for equipment not to mention their coaches and league officials.
So while you may find a few "niche marketing" items at a big box retailer, what you won’t find is the SERVICE… the additional advice which is only available from someone who eats/drinks/sleeps the niche market.
While it’s true that most niche markets are too small for the big box retailers to target, more often than not you’ll find the big box retailers taking a half – hearted swipe at competing in the niche market. They’ll carry an item or two, but they don’t have the depth and breadth of product, not to mention the skilled staff, to truly compete in the niche.
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