New businesses and growing businesses will only become more profitable by defining and refining a niche. If you can discover who it is that is likely to use your products, you can focus your marketing entirely to them. Creating a niche helps you provide better customer service and is an inexpensive and natural way to separate yourself from the competition. (For example, if you offer a great business opportunity, you’re going to have a hard time being heard among the many that are already out there. However, if you offer a great business opportunity to steelworkers, you have many ways to advertise where no one else is advertising great business opportunities).
When you’re defining and refining your niche, you should have one rule: go where the money is! Unless you have an absolutely essential product or service that is affordable, don’t bother marketing to first time home buyers or college students or people with credit problems. They don’t have any money!
Here are five niches that you can start with (and maybe further refine!). They have money to spend and time to spend it.
- Automobile owners. Next to homes, cars are people’s second biggest purchase. And there’s money here; it’s North America’s largest industry! Automobile owners love their cars, trucks and SUVs! Their hobby, their image, their convenience, and their mobility are all connected together with their vehicle. They want to make it their own, they want to make it unique, they want to make it show other people how important they are. If you can create a business (or shape your current business) to serve them, you’ll enjoy high speed profits.
- Pre-teen girls. This group of consumers is very concerned with what others think. If you can get some of them buying, and provide a popular product or service, you’ll find built- in loyalty, support, and unbelievable viral marketing! Just look at how someone like Britney Spears or Hilary Duff can make millions of dollars. Although they have talent, it has very little to do with it. Instead, they are a package that Pre-Teens buy. And what’s great about this niche is that they have money to spend and no responsibilities to compete with their purchasing dollars! You may not market the next Britney, but this group likes clothes, accessories, and things that make them feel accepted, popular, and grown-up.
- Work-at-home moms. This is a great niche to market to. They are already hard-working as they care for their children but they are motivated to find fulfillment in other areas as well, while earning money (either as a primary or secondary income earner). They usually have money. What they lack is time, energy, and social interaction. If you can provide these resources to this group, you will fill a niche that is open to new business right now.
- Children. Advertisers of breakfast cereal have it right: show kids enjoying their exciting breakfasts and the boxes will fly off the shelves. The children don’t buy the cereal but they are the ultimate decision makers on many products purchased by families with youngsters. If you’re able to market to children, do it! However, if that’s not possible (for example, in online businesses) you may want to consider advertising to parents who want to give their child every opportunity they never had. That’s a good opportunity for you!
- Elderly. It wasn’t that long ago that the stereotypical elderly person was helpless and unable to fend for themselves. (Remember the popular advertising phrase, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”?). Now the elderly are a niche of people who are enjoying a second youth! Only this time, they don’t feel the same social awkwardness that comes with finding your place in the world during adolescence. And, they’ve worked their whole lives to have money to spend. This group wants to enjoy social interaction in a safe, elderly-friendly environment. Your business can help them do just that.
