Get the Right Match

Over the past few weeks we’ve been talking about niche marketing, and how a narrow focused, laser targeting marketing effort gives you a huge advantage over your competition. To see where we started, visit the first post here at my blog. So see the last post, visit this one.

Today we’ll wrap up our discussion on the topic with the last of the marketing advantages niche marketing gives you, plus a great example, one of the best I’ve seen. Again, Thanks to Dan Kennedy for allowing me to share some of his thoughts on this topic. To get two free issues of Dan’s newsletter, plus a ton of other freebies, visit this link.

The movement of a product or service from generic to niche link to one of the most fundamental but also one of the most powerful strategies we talk about often: Message to market match. We’ve talked about this in the past, so I’ll only briefly cover it here. For more, visit this post. The basis is Dan Kennedy’s famous triangle connecting message with market with media:
The broader, looser and sloppier the match of message to market, the less it resonates, the harder it is to command attention and create interest. The narrow, tighter, more precise and comprehensive the match, the easier it is to secure attention and interest.

Alright, so how about a real world example? Here’s a link to a PDF you’ll want to check out. (I apologize in advance for the quality. It’s a scan of a copy, but it’s really good) This is an ad from a National Rifle Association publication. In reality, it’s an ad for a relatively common, widely available type of nutritional supplement intended to improve eyesight. You can find this and other supplements just like it in many vitamin retail stores, online and in catalogs.

BUT, in this case, a unique ‘wrapper’ was put around the product to make it specifically for the hunters who use rifles and a scope. Doing so makes this ad and the use of the publication possible. Merely running a generic ad for a generic product that does exactly the same thing would be a failure. When you study the ad you should also note how few words are about the product vs. how many are about the customer.

A Distinct Marketing Advantage

Last week we started talking about ‘riches in niches - and subcultures.’ I told you that when you do target specific niches, you’ll have a distinct marketing advantage, specifically a distinct price advantage. To review, see the blog post. Today we’ll dive a little deeper into two other advantages you gain when you hit targeted niches.

Thanks to Dan Kennedy for allowing me to share some of his thoughts on this topic. To get two free issues of Dan’s newsletter, plus a ton of other freebies, visit this link.

First, you’ll get a distinct advantage in readership. For example, avid fly fisherman who subscribe to Fly Rod & Reel are infinitely more likely to consistently scour ever article and every ad for things that interest them than is the diverse population subscribing to a general interest magazine, like Newsweek. Avid fly fisherman will never NOT open and read a piece of direct mail clearly about fly fishing, but routinely discard all sorts of other mail unopened. To be honest, even “fly fishermen” is probably too broad of a topic. You’d be wise to narrow it down from there but where they fish (geography) fresh water vs. salt water, river vs. lake, etc.

Second, your costs will almost always go down. Niche and subculture advertising media often costs less than big, broad, mainstream media. It is easier and often much cheaper to buy traffic online and to succeed at search engine optimization for ‘odd’ and narrowly defined niches than for generic information.

Third, there is a big absence of competition. Because most marketers are too committed to “bigger is better, everybody needs to be my customer” thinking, you face a lot less competition when you laser target your marketing to a certain niche or subculture.

Lastly, and this is a big one in today’s economy, but when you target a specific niche, you get as close to recession immunity as you can. The last thing people cut back on is the thing that interests them the most. Later in the week I’ll show you some specific examples of what we’ve been talking about the past week. Stay tuned! Again, thanks to Dan Kennedy for his help with this post.

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Riches in Niches

We wrapped up last week with a few thoughts on branding, and specifically the way small business owners should think about branding (hint: it’s NOT like big, nameless, faceless corporations). To see where we ended last week, see the blog post. Today we’re going to start up a new topic, something that every business can use and implement immediately.

Today we’ll start a discussion on riches in niches and subcultures. This, on the surface, can seem rather elementary, but mastering this concept is certainly not, and once you do, you’ll have a big competitive advantage over all your competition.

“When everybody’s your customer, nobody’s your customer.”

America (and most other countries for that matter) are divided into niches and sub-cultures. Simplistically, niches are occupational and vocational. Subcultures are sorted by interest, belief, activity, etc. So, “insurance salespeople” are a niche; “deer hunters” are a subculture. There are life insurance sales people, property/casualty, auto/home, etc. There are deer hunters who only use bow and arrow, only hunt in the Midwest etc. Virtually any product or service can be customized, semi-customized or at least “have a wrapper put on it” to match it to a specific niche or subculture. You may think that’s not necessary because your product or service is useful or beneficial to everybody, including both insurance salespeople and deer hunters, but that misses the key marketing advantage born of human nature: people want, prefer, and place significantly higher value on what is (is perceived to be) specifically and exclusively for them vs. what is generically for everybody.

Here’s a biggie. The movement of a product or service from generic to niche permits price increase, which provides you better profit margins, which in turn affords you more money to reinvest into marketing and advertising and allows you to out-spend your competition in order to get a client. This is a very good position to be in!

That’s it for this post. As we move forward over the next few posts I’ll show you some real world examples from my clients, and other businesses, who are successfully selling to very targeted niches and subcultures. I’ll see you then!