“My marketing is HOPELESS, I am hopeless! All because I can't decide on a niche!”
Yep! That old chestnut….
As I drift around the sea that is social media, over and over again, I find otherwise wholly sensible people, experts in their own field, crying out for help on finding their niche so they can ‘do online marketing properly'.
Why has this become like the Holy Grail of #marketing (along with Ideal Client Avatar!)?
How can you be clear about what you can offer and how to niche if you are still not clear about YOU?
I tried to trace it back and I think I found the source.
The marvellous Frank Kern. He is one of the godfathers of online marketing. It seems a lot of what we talk about round niching today comes from him or people round him.
There are elements of niche marketing which I find appealing:
• It creates a focus for marketing
• It differentiates you in a busy and crowded marketplace like social media
• It helps you hone in on being the expert at one thing which is easier to message online
However it also is a BRILLIANT method of prevarication – procrasti-planning your niche and never getting anything out there and sold.
So, I don't particular teach niching in my #businesscoaching practice.
It is because I come from the angle of long experience in professional marketing (teaching my techniques to non marketing and sales pros for almost all my career).
The concept of niching simply does not work for everyone. In fact when you are getting to grips with your focus, it can do you a disservice as you explore exactly what impact you make on your clients and the transformations you create.
These tell you so much more about how to promote what you do without a sniff of a niche.
Get out there and serve small to start. Find out about YOU first, what your Unique Strengths and Passions are and the TRANSFORMATION you serve with. What you solve…
Your SOLUTION becomes your niche. Your niche/tribe/audience will self select if you can be super clear on what you solve for them.
Get it out there and done, imperfect, without a niche – not waiting, hyper sensitive about NOT having a NICHE for goodness sake and end up DOING NOTHING!!
For more about how to use SEGMENTATION rather than worrying about your niche (see this is pukka marketing!!) and develop CAMPAIGNS instead of doing nothing (!) please keep in my world – find a link to my resources below and sign up to stay in my world (or link in first comment) and there's a new course coming soon.