As I’ve been serving entrepreneurs with my brand strategy and messaging business for years now, I have firsthand experience in seeing how off-putting the idea of creating a niche for your brand can be.

Business owners feel like in order to maximize profits they need to cast as large a net as possible.  You may have felt this way too at some point in your business.

Insert the reminder you’ve probably heard multiple times:

When you try to serve everyone, you’re serving no one.

Why?  Because you can’t get specific enough to evoke emotion, become relatable, form genuine relationships and interest from your customers if you’re trying to speak to everyone at the same time.

EXAMPLE:

Let’s say a sports drink brand thinks their beverage is so revolutionary that anyone who works out is going to want to have this drink.  They named their drink, ENDORPHIN.  

If they try to talk to everyone, they can’t create a brand personality or voice that could speak to all.  Imagine, if they created a niche market of Teen Boys as their target audience.  Now imagine if they created a niche market of Women as their target audience.

Can you see how these messages and positioning would need to be drastically different to resonate?  If they simply chose one path, they could create huge success, expanding their profit potential.

Creating A Niche

When you create a niche for your brand’s products and services, you’re not leaving money on the table, you’re simply getting really specific to make your offers feel custom-made for the audience you’re looking to serve.

A niche market is simply a segment of a larger market that you define through its unique need, interests or values.

More Niche Examples:

• Vegan face wash is a niche market in the face wash market.

• Sleep therapy is a niche market in the occupational therapy industry.

• Multifamily commercial real estate is a niche market within the real estate market.

A Niche Doesn’t Mean The Audience Is Small

Finding your niche doesn’t have to be limiting or anxiety-inducing.

In fact, a niche can be made up of a huge amount of people, and can make you feel great because it’s a group of people you either understand really well or simply love to serve.  

Let’s breakdown a few examples for service providers, creatives and product makers:

Service Provider Niche Example

You’re an HR consultant for businesses.  Could you work with any kind of business?  Sure.  But your career thus far has been in a leadership role in the early childcare industry.

Choosing to direct your HR consulting expertise towards early childcare business owners doesn’t limit your business, it would expand it because you can be so specific and relatable with insider knowledge about what’s really needed from this group of ideal clients.  

[Plus, you already know that it’s a huge industry and they all have a need for HR and no one else is providing this service…win-win!]

Creative Niche Example

You’re a wedding photographer (mainly), but also do some family sessions and some brand photography on the side.

Good news!  You already have niches - engaged couples, families, and female entrepreneurs.  It’s ok to have multiple ideal clients as long as you have a way to speak to each group distinctly (i.e. tagging them for different emails in your email service provider, different pages on your website, and potentially different social media pages, too).

In this scenario, you can “niche your service” - - - or have a stand out style to your photography that specifically grabs the clients you get in all 3 categories.

Product Maker Niche Example

You’re a candle maker using toxic free ingredients, infused with natural essential oils that specifically inspire people to pursue certain goals (i.e. lemon verbena to help with focus, lavender vanilla to promote low stress and tranquility, etc)

Could you sell these candles to anyone?  Of course.  Could you market them to a niched audience to really hone in on why that group of people might looooove these candles?  Absolutely.

You choose to market your candles to busy, ambitious women who appreciate sustainably made, toxic-free beautiful things that inspire them.  Now, you can be even more specific in your messaging and marketing to this niche.  It doesn’t mean if someone outside of this niche wants to buy them, they can’t - it simply gives you a way to resonate more deeply and get the essence of why you created this product in the first place across with more meaning.

The Point & The Benefit

The point?  You niche to be more specific.  To resonate more deeply.  To connect more authentically.  It’s the point of defining what your brand stands for…and the only way to position your brand?  It’s to know exactly who you’re talking to.

If you fear “the niche,” just remember that narrowing your niche might just be the things to broaden your income opportunities and grow your business exponentially. 

Need help developing your brand strategy?  Book a Brand Consult Call and let’s chat about how to clarify and refine it to take it next level.