A recent newspaper review of a new book, Selling Sickness, got me thinking about niche marketing (The Globe and Mail, Saturday, August 6, 2005, D8-D9). The book in question considers case studies that purport to show how “Big Pharma” (the entire pharmaceutical industry, from manufacturers to drug salespeople) manipulates data to “create” a disease that they have the “cure” for.

Regardless of how one feels about the pharmaceutical industry, the book does demonstrate one thing?the ability of this industry to correctly identify small-but-profitable niches and exploit them for huge profits. The book, as indicated by the reviewer, identified a “familiar pattern” for the “selling of sickness”:

A pharmaceutical company identifies a wedge condition, set of symptoms, or “risk factors”; hires a PR firm to come up with a “disease” name, ideally something catchy with a pronounceable acronym (e.g., SAD); develops a drug, or adapts an existing one, to tout as a “fix” for this new medical problem; and begins massive marketing to physicians and the public. The media pick up the story, suggesting that the “new” disease is greatly undiagnosed/undertreated; the market expands; drugs sales rise. And voila! Another blockbuster is born. (Direct quote from the review)

Do you see the building blocks for a niche business in this description? Following Big Pharma’s lead can help you begin a small niche business and grow it into a financial success. Simply follow these steps:

Tip! Niche market sales offer tremendous possible rewards to those able to find the right target areas and to supply the right materials. A smart marketer can easily outsource the work associated with these two keys to Easy Niche Product, a subscription service that understands what it takes to make niche marketing work.

1. Within your industry, identify a “wedge” that you can target.

2. Create a fancy way of describing the number one problem your product or service solves; make it stand out from any other site that offers the same thing.

3. Demonstrate, by way of strong benefits, how your product or service will solve the problem.

4. Tailor your marketing efforts to your “wedge” by these means.

5. As your marketing catches on, you will grow from marketing to just a “wedge” to marketing on a larger scale.

6. Voila! You have your own niche blockbuster business!

Such a process certainly takes time, but these 6 steps provide a solid foundation for any niche business to gain a foothold and grow into a success.

Jeremy M. Hoover is an online article and content writer. If you need articles for promotion or for your website, contact Jeremy at his website, http://www.jhooverwebcopy.com. Read more marketing articles by Jeremy at his blog, http://www.jhooverwebcopy.blogspot.com.

My clients and students are surprised and delighted to discover that a refined niche marketing strategy not only attracts significantly more business but also provides richer opportunities for self expression. To help you discern your own market niche, try using “where” and “who” questions like the following:

“WHERE” QUESTIONS

Where do you consistently find kindred spirits?
Where are you most credible?
Where is there the greatest need coupled with the greatest appreciation for your work?
Where do the people who need your work most often have breakdowns that would cause them to hire you?

“WHO” QUESTIONS

Who is naturally drawn to you and to your work?
To whom are the things that seem obvious to you a revelation?
Who is traveling a path that you have successfully walked yourself?
Whose language do you speak?
Whose concerns can you reliably anticipate and address?
Whom is it easy for you to serve?

KNOWING AND WORKING FROM YOUR STRENGTHS ARE ESSENTIAL PARTS OF DEVELOPING YOUR NICHE MARKETING STRATEGY

There are probably several ways in which your strengths can add value in the marketplace. Therefore, developing a niche is a process of exploring several possibilities and gradually refining them.

You might think about developing a market niche as akin to planting a garden. You start by planting lots of seeds rather close together. As these germinate, you keep the strongest sprouts and remove the others. As your garden grows, you will continue to thin and prune until only the strongest and healthiest plants remain. Along the way you give away or compost the seedlings and trimmings; nothing is lost.

Tip! Example: if you’ve concluded that ‘blue widgets’ best suits your USP and you feel that you can compete for page 1 listings on the SERPs with the sites that come up on page 1 for the keyword ‘blue widgets’, then a good domain name for your niche marketing site would be ‘bluewidgets.com’.

As you refine your niche marketing strategy, you’ll grow in integrity and confidence. With time, you’ll know with certainty which customers are right for you, and you’ll attract more of them.

ARE YOU AFRAID OF USING NICHE MARKETING BECAUSE IT MAY TURN AWAY BUSINESS?

As you refine your market niche, you may experience some anxiety that focusing on your niche will deprive you of needed business. What do you do if someone outside of your niche wants to hire you?

Talk to them. See how well you fit. There is nothing about a focused niche that says you cannot work with a variety of clients. The point of a niche is not to confine you, but to create the healthiest ecosystem for your business. Focusing your market niche is like focusing a great searchlight that can be seen for miles around. Your searchlight may attract people from beyond your niche precisely because you have defined that niche.

Tip! Effective niche marketing requires a defined niche market. In the initial stages of your planning, you will want to clearly define who your target marketing audience is.

While you always have the option of working with anyone who is attracted by your focused niche market, do beware of trying to be all things to all people. Not only are you likely to fail at this, but you run an increased risk of coming across as inauthentic and insincere. The cost of not applying a niche marketing strategy is not being recognized for the offer that you are and not having a fulcrum from which to leverage that offer for increased effectiveness, service, and prosperity. The longer you persist in marketing to everyone and anyone who could conceivably hire you, the more certain it is that you will burn out, leaving yourself and your clients or customers dissatisfied. In order to make a compelling declaration of what you are up to, you must be willing to say “no” to those clients, projects, and possibilities that are not well within the scope of your passion and your expertise.

Tip! Reading articles of related topics, interviews by other marketing professionals and using other techniques developed by successful business people will also help you build the key to niche marketing. Here is where Go.

It is important to look to the market to see what your prospective customers and clients want. But look with a keen eye for how the needs and desires of the market match your strengths, talents, and passions. Say “no” to the opportunities that are a poor match, so that your vision and resources can be focused on the projects and relationships that are most likely to succeed.

Molly Gordon, MCC, is a leading figure in business
coaching & personal growth coaching, writer, workshop leader, frequent presenter at live and virtual events worldwide, and an acknowledged expert on niche marketing. Join 12,000 readers of her Authentic
Promotion? ezine, an invaluable self promotion and small business marketing resource, to
grow your strong business while you feed your soul.

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The key to attracting new customers to your business, whether online or off, lies in understanding a few simple things about how the brain works. Usually at an unconscious level, people are constantly scanning their environment to separate the relevant from the irrelevant, the safe from the potentially hazardous, the desirable from the unappealing. The major challenge for the small business marketer is discover what motivates their target audience, and then to speak as directly as possible to those fears, desires, goals, priorities, and needs.

But it Worked in the Movies

You’re only kidding yourself if you think you can be all things to all people. That insidious form of self deception falls in the same category as ?If you build it, they will come’. Woody Allen is quoted as saying that ?Eighty percent of success is showing up’, but bear in mind that comedy (and sometimes drama) is often based on exaggeration. Showing up — which can range from creating an Internet presence to attending networking meetings — is a good start, but it generally won’t get you too far unless you throw in a dash of originality, competitiveness, and a strategic plan of action.

Tip! There’s many things to learn to be successful and profit from niche marketing and your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) will dictate exactly how to plan your attack to successfully market to customers in your niche.

Since people are constantly looking for specialized information, services, and products, a strategy worth pursuing is to devote at least 50% of your marketing efforts to reaching niche markets. Granted, marketing is no more of a ?one size fits all’ endeavor than anything else, but what isn’t going to change is the fact that people are generally drawn to things that are customized, personalized, or otherwise geared to their personal preferences.

Are You Talking to Me?

Considering that your prospective clients and customers are continually scanning the Internet, the media, and their environment for information that’s relevant to them, why not tip the scales in your favor by tailoring your marketing message directly to the different niche markets you’re trying to reach? Whether it’s senior citizens, new homeowners, parents to be, recent graduates, newlyweds, or frustrated job hunters, capturing people’s attention can sometimes be as simple as recognizing them as individuals or as a member of a specific demographic group.

Tip! Effective niche marketing requires a defined niche market. In the initial stages of your planning, you will want to clearly define who your target marketing audience is.

For example, have you ever inadvertently ignored someone who was saying to you ?excuse me’ or ?you dropped something’; but if they called you by your name, you’d immediately snap out of your haze and pay attention. Again, it’s just a matter of breaking through people’s filtering systems and being noticed. That’s often the number one step to effectively marketing your products, your services, or yourself. Actually, I’d break that down into three parts: get noticed, connect with your prospect, and put them in a receptive state of mind. If you convey the impression, right off the bat, that your service or product is tailor made for their needs, wants, or specific situation, then you may have fulfilled all three requirements in one fell swoop.

Once you’ve clearly and compellingly presented your case for making your prospect’s life easier, more secure, healthier, more comfortable, prosperous, convenient, happier, or more problem free, your remaining challenge is to anticipate objections, lower sales resistance, and inject your offer with a subtle, yet perceptible sense of urgency. If you’ve painted a vivid, benefits-filled picture of your service or product, their motivation to experience those advantages will help you convert them from a prospect to a customer.

Tip! One element abandoned by the key to niche marketing is the principle of place. With the rise of the Internet, advertising, promotion and service have never been easier to get the key to niche marketing.

Copyright 2006 Joel Sussman

Joel N. Sussman, a New York business writer and Internet marketer, has created an online small business resource, called “Marketing Survival Kit.com”. Get access to hundreds of free and affordable business marketing ideas, strategies, and tools by visiting http://www.marketingsurvivalkit.com

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A niche market is a group of people with common characteristics, issues and concerns.

For example, attorneys, couples dealing with infertility, parents of children with ADHD, children whose parents divorced and career women over 40 are all potential niches.

Defining your services and target groups are an important step in effective marketing. It is not enough to say you are a therapist. “Therapy” is too broad and non-specific.

Marketing is simply getting the word out about what you do.

Not choosing a target market or markets is like trying to get your voice heard over the din of your whole community.

You aren’t going to be heard.

If you want to effectively communicate and get the word out, you need to know to whom you want to communicate.

Tip! You don’t need to have high tech advertising solutions to create a niche marketing plan that works. It sounds over simplified but know yourself, know your product and know your customers.

That’s the idea behind the exercise of choosing a niche market. No one can effectively market to everyone.

Great marketing goes in depth with a specific target group. Surface attempts to get the attention of the masses does not work.

Niche Marketing Explained Niche Marketing Tutorial plus Software.

Sometimes a niche can be a clinical specialty. Specialties attract clients more than a general practice. It will also attract your ideal client ? the type of client and services you most enjoy in your work. Sophisticated consumers today are more likely to seek out a specialist if they can find one.

It may take some time and reflection to identify ideal niches for your practice. It may evolve over time. Or maybe one day, your niche will jump out at you.

Richard Bolles said, “Your mission is where the world’s deepest hunger and your heart’s greatest gladness intersect.” The same can be said for identifying your niche.

Some questions to stimulate your thinking:

• Think about your previous clients. What profession was your most enjoyable client?
• What characteristic of clients do you tend to attract?
• What similar problems do your clients seem to have?
• What type of situation have you been most effective in?
• What knowledge and skills have your accumulated? How have you utilized (or underutilized) them in your work to date?

Developing a Service Line

As you define your practice, you will want to select a niche or maybe a few niches and get to know them well. You will research their felt needs and urgent concerns. You will shape your services to meet these needs and develop effective ways of communicating to your niche.

Tip! Niche market sales offer tremendous possible rewards to those able to find the right target areas and to supply the right materials. A smart marketer can easily outsource the work associated with these two keys to Easy Niche Product, a subscription service that understands what it takes to make niche marketing work.

Do some market research. What are the felt needs and issues that appear to be of urgent concern to people in the target group you plan to serve? Talk to and interview a number of people in your target market to find out. Read the newsletters they read. Attend meetings they attend.

Make a list of the kinds of services you have interest in providing and what interests and energizes you.

Examples:

• Helping ADHD executives increase productivity
• Assisting struggling college students to achieve better grades
• Helping singles to have greater success in dating relationships.

The basic idea is to match the felt needs of your market with solutions that you can offer, based on what services command your interest and is within your capability. You may need to receive some training if a service is not within your current skill set.

By zeroing in on a specific niche and line of services, you will develop a competitive advantage over other providers in your area, due to your specialization. You will eventually develop a reputation for the service that will attract referrals to you.

Tip! Utilize the search engines to make it easy for your niche market to find your service or product. Niche marketing is the easiest way to be successful on the Internet if you do the proper research.

Speaking of competition, there are advantages to having services in our line that are not covered by managed care. Although many people will opt to pay out of pocket for customized, quality services, others may not. Examples of services that are not covered by managed care include child-custody evaluations and other court-related services, psycho-educational evaluations, business consulting and coaching business owners or executives.

Opportunities In Niche Marketing. In Demand Products For Small Niche Markets.

Other examples of specific services include resiliency training, co-parenting counseling for divorcing parents, divorce recovery groups, marriage enrichment retreats, career counseling for professionals in transition, court-ordered psychological evaluations, forensic consulting in personal injury cases, or a 10-week group for business professionals with ADHD.

Again, more traditional services, such as psychotherapy for anxiety or depression, are fine as well. There are effective ways to market these services and gather private-pay referrals. I have a steady stream of referrals based on my reputation for cognitive therapy of anxiety and depression. If this applies to you, keep it as a part of the mix.

The Niche Marketing Strategy – Guarantee top placement in Google This strategy will guarantee you top placement in Google and other search engine for the keyword you are optimizing.

William D. Morgan is a psychologist, author, and private practice business coach. He coaches human service professionals and others who want to build thriving practices. For more helpful information and tips, visit http://www.TodaysPrivatePractice.com/membershipinfo.html. This is an excerpt from his NEW BOOK – Today’s Private Practice: Strategies for Building a Thriving Managed-Care Free Psychotherapy Practice, http://www.TodaysPrivatePractice.com.

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Starting a business, whether it’s retail products or services, must establish their own “niche”. It doesn’t matter how great your products or services is, how great your sales letter is or your headlines, offers or what a great price you’re offering. If you try to sell your products or services to the wrong market, there’s a strong guarantee it’s not going to work.

What is a niche? A niche is a particular specialty in whicha business or person finds they prosper. Niche strategy inmarketing is to market to a small but lucrative portion ofthe market. The small size of the niche generally ensures efficient marketing efforts and few if any direct competitors.

On the other hand, if you take an average product or service, and maybe your ad copy is only medium grade, maybe your price is only medium grade, that I’ve actually seen these marketing campaigns go to the right targeted audience and pull a decent response. The point I’m trying to make is, to help you understand the difference between the right target market and a good marketing campaign.

Tip! There’s many things to learn to be successful and profit from niche marketing and your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) will dictate exactly how to plan your attack to successfully market to customers in your niche.

What can you do to make sure you get the right audience? You have to begin by knowing who your products and services actually appeal to. Then find the largest market that can actually buy your products or services or the best market that can afford to pay for your products or services.

niche marketing For Real Estate Agents. Helping Real Estate Agents Identify, Develop And Build Profitable, Under-served Local Niche Markets.

You might find multiple markets. You don’t want to leave any markets out. You want to be sure you target a specific market tightly enough so you can appeal to their interest, but not so tightly that you don’t appeal to anyone at all.

If you have a product that appeals to multiple markets, you can develop multiple campaigns. If it’s a service business, that goes into the home, then you really appeal to many markets. A home owner that is a doctor, a homeowner that is a dentist, a homeowner that is a business owner, you can target to these specific people and treat them as a particular market.

One great way to get into a particular market is to find a professional that is already in that market or is already a customer of yours and get them to be a cheerleader for you. Ask them if they will endorse you. Usually they will if they like your products or services.

For example, here’s a story about my good friend Janice, a letter she created.

Janice wanted to use her doctor as a reference for her business and she asked her doctor if she could write a letter from him to all of the other professionals in that market on their letterhead in their envelopes and send out that letter on top of one of his sales letters. Shockingly, Her doctor said yes.

Tip! Research and choose your keywords carefully so you can acquire the best domain name for your site. Niche marketing most often includes maximizing the way search engines work to make sure that your web site gets listed n the first page of the SERP’s from your chosen keywords.

Her letter read like this; “I don’t do this very often, but I’ve received such good service from Dr. Blevins, I thought the rest of you should know about this.” And on with her message she explained the good service and at the end she left her business information.

The results were staggering and Janice Then gave her doctor a free gift. She bought Dr. Blevins a box of his letterheads being that she used theirs, and she sent her Doctor an organizer to put them in.

You see, what this does is it makes sure the envelope gets opened from her market because other doctors will open information on other doctors. Always give your niche some kind of position to help you increase your business.

Copyright ? 2005

You may publish this article in your ezine, newsletter on your web site as long as the byline is included and the article is included in it’s entirety. I also ask that you activate any html links found in the article and in the byline. Please send a courtesy link or email where you publish to: support@multiplestreammktg.com

Tip! One element abandoned by the key to niche marketing is the principle of place. With the rise of the Internet, advertising, promotion and service have never been easier to get the key to niche marketing.

About The Author
Abe Cherian is the founder of Multiple Stream Media, a company that helps online businesses find new leads and more customers without spending a fortune. http://www.multiplestreammktg.com

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Ask yourself this question: “Before you were in real estate sales, how many of those flyers, newsletters, recipe cards, and even calendars that you received from an real estate agent “farming” your household went straight into your wastebasket?” Studies indicate that return on direct mail advertising is somewhere below two percent. Wouldn’t it make more sense to direct all that time, energy, and money formerly spent on developing a geographic farm into building relationships or a niche with potential clients? Now ask yourself: “How many other agents in your community are also marketing to the same geographical farm that you do?”

So with your farm saturated and “Do Not Call” what’s an agent to do? Consider niche or target marketing also known as relationship selling. niche marketing was the success story of consumer products advertising in the 1990’s. Consumer product manufacturers realized that generalized marketing was expensive and was not generating response or sales because they were attempting to reach too broad a market. Targeting specific groups or niches and building a relationship with them brought manufacturers increased sales from a more focused message to a group that has shared goals, beliefs, or history. The message wasn’t “buy now” it was “we understand you have specific needs and we want to build a relationship with you”.

Tip! Niche market sales offer tremendous possible rewards to those able to find the right target areas and to supply the right materials. A smart marketer can easily outsource the work associated with these two keys to Easy Niche Product, a subscription service that understands what it takes to make niche marketing work.

This new marketing strategy paid off because manufacturers took the time to study and survey their potential consumers on how they developed an affinity for a product or service. You can utilize their results in developing a niche in your real estate business. First you must have a sincere belief and interest in the niche. Second you have to give back to the niche with your time or financial support. Some examples of niches are: community interest, political and professional organizations, spiritual, intramural sports, and gender. Let’s look at how we take one of these niches and develop a more focused sub-niche to market to.

Original niche: Gender
Sub-niche: Women
Sub-sub niche: Women single heads of household
Sub-sub niche: Women single heads of households who are first time buyers
Sub-sub niche: Women single heads of households who are first time buyers in Deerfield

Tip! One element abandoned by the key to niche marketing is the principle of place. With the rise of the Internet, advertising, promotion and service have never been easier to get the key to niche marketing.

Finding women single heads of households who are first time homebuyers in Deerfield would start with an Internet search in a search engine such as Goggle. Inquire about support groups at the library, social services or village hall. Day care centers and park districts could also provide you with resources. This is an under-served niche from my own experience. A referral client Renee never thought she could afford to buy a home as a single head of household. She cried the day she closed on her own home after conditioning herself that she would be a life-long renter. She went to her single mothers support group and shared her home buying story. Other single mothers from her support
group are calling to begin their home searches. A mortgage broker and myself have proposed to sponsor and host a quarterly home-buying seminar for Renee’s group.

Niche Marketing For Real Estate Agents. Helping Real Estate Agents Identify, Develop And Build Profitable, Under-served Local Niche Markets.

The professional and personal rewards from having a niche in my real estate business makes my geographic farm look like finding needles in a haystack.

Mark Nash is the author of “Fundamentals of Marketing for the Real Estate Professional”, “Starting & Succeeding in Real Estate”, “Reaching Out: The Financial Power of Niche Markeing”, and “1001 Tips for Buying and Selling a Home”. Mark is a contributing writer for: Realtor (R) Magazine Online, Broker Agent News, Real Estate Executive Magazine, Princilpal Broker, and Realty Times. His tried and true real estate tips has been featured on CBS The Early Show, CNN, HGTVpro.com, The New York Times, and USA Today. Purchase his books at http://www.1001RealEstateTips.com

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