When you ask business owners who their target market is, many tend to respond with “everyone.” In reality, this means no one. In their zeal to acquire as many customers as possible, many business owners try to serve the widest market possible.
On the face of it, this seems logical. However, it’s actually a huge mistake. Many business owners worry about narrowing down their target market because they don’t want to exclude any potential customers.
With this type of marketing, business owners are like an archer in the middle of dense fog, shooting arrows in every direction in the hope that one or more of them will hit the intended target.
If that sounds a lot like our disoriented archer, flailing about in the fog, shooting his arrows in random directions, and hoping for the best, then you’d be right. However, you might be thinking — if he just shoots enough arrows in all directions, surely he’s bound to hit his target. Right? Maybe, but for small to medium-sized businesses at least, that’s the stupid way of marketing because they’ll never have enough arrows (i.e., money) to hit their target enough times to get a good return on their investment. To be a successful small busi
ness marketer you need a laser-like focus on a narrow target market, sometimes called a niche.
A niche is a tightly defined portion of a subcategory. For example, think of the health and beauty category. This is a very wide category. A beauty salon can offer a wide variety of services including tanning, waxing, facials, massage, cellulite treatment, and much more.
A niche is a tightly defined portion of a subcategory. ~ Allan Dib
If, for example, we take one of these subcategories — let’s say cellulite treatment, this could be our niche. However, we could tighten it up even further by focusing on cellulite treatment for women who’ve just had a baby. This is a t
ightly defined niche. Now you may be thinking why on earth would we want to limit our market so much?
If you’re a woman who’s just had a baby and is concerned about cellulite, would an ad targeting this specific problem grab your interest? Most certainly. How about if the ad was a general ad for a beauty salon that reeled off a long list of services, one of which was cellulite treatment? Likely it would get missed in the clutter.
Did you know? Targeting a tight niche allows you to become a big fish i
n a small pond. It allows you to dominate a category or geography in a way that is impossible by being general.
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