When Marketing to a Niche Audience Makes Sense

Casting a wide net is one approach to marketing that established companies can use with good success. But if you’re a smaller company or one with an established brand, marketing to the masses might not be the best or most profitable way to advertise. No one company or brand can appeal to everyone, and the ones that try are the ones that can afford to take risks, wasting money in order to reach more people more quickly. So when does marketing to a niche audience make sense? Take a look.

You’re Just Starting Out

It stands to reason that if you’re a newer company, you might not have the brand recognition or the budget to try to appeal to an entire population. Instead, it would make sense to spend your marketing dollars in a way that will maximize your return on the investment you make by trying to reach only the customers who can most benefit you. You can’t be everything to everyone, so choosing a specific subset of the market to focus your attention and money on can help you reach consumers in more intimate ways, demonstrating to them that you want to really know what they want and need. It builds more personal relationships with customers, making them more likely to trust and remain loyal to you.

You Want Less Competition

If you’re a more established brand, you can also benefit from niche marketing. By narrowing your market, your company can actually make products that seem more desirable because they are harder to get. Limiting a consumer base implies exclusivity and reduces the amount of competition. Think about Louis Vuitton. Lots of companies sell handbags and luggage. But Louis Vuitton has decided to focus their attention only on consumers with disposable income who value luxury items and a recognizable label. This immediately reduces the number of competitors; there are fewer luxury handbag retailers than there are mid and lower range ones. You can apply this concept across all types of industries and professions. Consider, for instance, an eb5 attorney who, instead of working with all types of immigration cases chooses to only work with investment immigration ones to Bakon Vodka, a company that exclusively sells bacon-flavored vodkas. The point is, the more exclusive your market, the fewer battles you’ll have to fight with similar businesses –– who may have more resources or capital than your operation.

You Need to Build Brand Loyalty

Struggling to establish a well-known name amongst the competition is another good reason to reduce the size of your company’s audience. It’s much easier and cheaper to address a smaller group than a larger one. And once you have the smaller group’s attention, you can focus on expanding because you will have a solid base on which to build. Ford did it with the Model T. It got a small number of people to buy a very specific product and then diversified its offerings from there, becoming the industry leader it is today.

There is certainly a time and place for niche marketing. Carefully consider your company’s objectives to determine when it might be right for you to quit trying to appeal to everyone and instead focus on the right ones. Increasingly, successful marketing has become about building relationships with leads. And you can’t do that if you’re trying to appeal to everyone under the sun. Keep that in mind next time you’re thinking of mixing up your marketing and advertising strategy. A switch to a more measured, intimate, and niche approach just might provide the boost your company has been looking for.

Published by Kidal Delonix (1196 Posts)

Kidal Delonix is a contributor to Mr. Hoffman's blog. The views and opinions are entirely his/her own and may not reflect Mr Hoffman's views.

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