Episode 8Finding the Best Niche for your Business
The market is saturated? Far from it – looking closely you will find that many needs of businesses and consumers are still not met.
Therefore, it’s all the more important to know how you can detect these needs and how you can then create a product to fill the gap.
Case study
Founded in 2013, Botanica produces cold-pressed green juices. Realising that there is no such market in Australia, Nadia and Richard imported this business idea to Down Under. They knew that it will be a niche market, so learning how to present their product to new partners and customers was essential for their brand to survive.
Case Study Key Takeouts
- Find a gap in the market and create a product to fill it. Make a product that has a function and understand what your customers want.
- Partner with people who know what they’re doing, for example distributors, while maintaining a strong rapport with the seller.
- There’s no magic to it, marketing is a game of persistence. Cold calling, showing your product to as many people as possible and trying to attain already successful businesses as partners is very important to connecting with your niche and keeping them interested in your product.
- Offer something unique to your niche, use the current trends in products to build up your brand with a wide range of consumers.
- Get potential business relationships excited about a long-term partnership. Give them reasons why they should invest in your business by showing them your plans for the future and your marketing strategies.
- Create a co-brand product with businesses that have the same mindset. This will allow you to reach a wider market and get a win-win-situation out of it.
- Break consumers’ habits and try to add your brand to their daily schedule. This can be achieved through many marketing strategies, for example, allowing for free sampling of your product.
- Have future goals for your business and have a plan on how to get there.
Marketing Panel
Martin Whelan
General Manager
NRMA
Susan Werkner
Managing Director
Interactive Investor
Ben Kagan
Managing Director
Down ‘N’ Out
Panel Key Takeouts
How to Find Your Niche?
- To identify a suitable niche, follow the 4 P’s of niche marketing:
- Passion: Be passionate about the industry you will work in because if you are not, how can you get your customers excited about what you sell?
- Problem: What problem will you be solving?
- People: Do you understand the people you will be marketing to and the customers? What are their needs and fears?
- Profit: Make sure the problem you are solving is big enough, there are enough people who have the problem you are solving, and they are willing to pay in order to have the problem solved.
- When figuring out how profitable a niche is, don’t only look at how much it will cost to build your product but also how much it will cost to deliver it and service your customers.
- Identify the competition in your chosen niche. A bit of competition can be a great indicator of a profitable niche, however, too much competition will make it hard for you to stand out.
- Consider combining more than one niche, e.g. a Yoga studio for pregnant women, a hairdresser salon for kids’ hair or an all-female ride-sharing service.
- Think about what products are already existing and how you can improve on it.
- Marketing to a niche can often be easier than marketing to the masses. It means you don’t have to be all things to all people but can tailor your offering and messaging.
- When marketing to your niche don’t be afraid to adopt a different voice in order to stand out as long as it resonates with your customers.
- Don’t worry about putting a ceiling to your profits by focussing on a niche. You can always get started in a niche and then grow it from there by expanding with more products or offering your products to different markets.
- Stay loyal to your brand’s identity while investigating different niche markets; choose what fits to your brand
- When promoting your business, think about getting publicity. The media is content hungry and if you have an interesting service for a new niche, they might be willing to pick this up in their reporting.
How can SME’s use and benefit from digital strategies?
- What is the difference between marketing technology and digital marketing? Marketing technology is the software you use in order to facilitate, automate and/or track digital marketing. Digital Marketing refers to the way you reach out to your customers, be it via your website, profiles on social media, ads on Google, email marketing etc.
- When identifying marketing technology to adopt as a small business, focus on technology that can help you get repeatable business as it is much more cost-effective to retain a customer than to acquire a new one. A great place to start is technology that can help you stay in touch with your customers.
- If you don’t know much about digital or technology, it is best to obtain external advice on which technology can help your business and get third parties to help you implement these technologies.
- When introducing new technology to your business, make sure it is applicable to your business’s situation and objectives. For example, if you are small, don’t buy something with too much scale.