What is a Niche Market?
Dec 17th, 2007 by admin
I have thrown the term niche market around quite a bit in recent weeks. Well today I received an e-mail asking what exactly a niche market was. So first, let me apologize for not explaining sooner. Here is your word of the week:
A niche market is a smaller, more targeted segment of a larger market. For example, women and teenagers are both large target markets, while retired women and college-bound teenagers are focused niche markets. There are many benefits to niche marketing. By focusing a smaller segment of the market, you have the ability to provide specialized services and products which are often more valuable and in greater demand. Smaller markets also allow you to get to know your customers better and as a result, develop effective marketing and sales programs.
Remember the old saying, “The world is your oyster?” Well, in business sometimes going after the one blue oyster is more beneficial than trying to please all the gray oysters in the sea.
Hey, nice article, again. Even though I know few things about business, ‘niche market’ was something that was missing in my head. You should publish something about the places where you can target your audience. For example, I know that advertising on TV usually is a small-life-span-type of advertising, but you can target you audience when you post advertisements on during specific shows or channels. But TV is expensive, any other ways to advertise that would target the “niche market”?
Looking at it from another point of view a niche market can limit your earning potential.
True, there is always the potential for lower earnings - going after a smaller market or not. But focusing on a niche market can boost your sales. The idea is that instead of trying to be all things to all people, market what you do best. You can compete with a thousand other players in a cluttered marketplace, or you can compete with a select few in a narrow marketplace. By offering a specialized product or service, you are offering something with perceived value. Let me ask you… Would you rather sell to less than a percent of 10,000 potential customers or 10 percent of 1,000? Basically, if you sell a product for $19.99 to 0.5 percent of 10,000, you’d gross $999.50. If you sold that same product to 10 percent of 1,000, you’d gross $1,999. You really have to do your research, however, before deciding on a niche market approach.
Too often people try to be too many things. Generic on the web these days equals disaster. To compete, you actually have to position your website to speak to a market to get conversions. People concentrate on getting the site up and then marketing it, leaving out the part where they need to define the market and create a website as a sales and marketing tool.