Why is Niche Marketing Important?
With the construction industry being in a fairly buoyant state at the moment the apparent need to focus on marketing does not seem to be a high priority. This may appear to be the situation on the surface, but ignoring it can lead to a roller coaster of leads coming in and result in a feast or famine of work in the longer term. Why not take the opportunity to proactively refine your marketing and provide a solid lead generation machine of your ideal projects? A corner-stone of this is the strategy of niche marketing.
Niche marketing, or specialization is used by industries of all types because doing a few things with a high level of expertise will bring recognition and a reputation of excellence quicker than doing many things well. The medical field is a good example of an industry that is filled with niche marketing. If you have a general ache or pain, you go to your GP. If you have a chronic issue however you go to a specialist, because they have the specialist knowledge, experience and equipment to solve your problem as fast as possible.
The Benefits of Niche Marketing.
The benefits of niching your business in a particular market segment are many and varied:
- More effective advertising
- Cheaper marketing costs
- Being viewed as the expert
- More efficient (thus lower cost) field operations
- Able to charge higher prices
- Better understanding of customer needs and emotional “hot buttons”
Some business owners don’t want to take the seemingly braver path of niching their business and remain a generalist. They fear missing out on jobs because they are not in their chosen niche. This is a fair point, but not a strong one, in my opinion. I think the benefits outweigh the negatives, if the niching process is carried out well and followed through consistently. Leads in non-niche areas will still probably come to you anyway, from past clients and the like, so you can still say yes to those jobs if you wish. The niching process is more in how you proactively MARKET your business to attract new leads in your favoured area. So how do you niche your business?
How Do You Find Your Niche?
Finding the best niche market for your company is as simple as answering a few questions. A sample questioning process could be:
- What area of our industry does our company excel at?
- Do we want to specialise in commercial or residential?
- If we chose residential –
- Do we want to work with the general public?
- Or do we prefer to work with investors who have rental homes?
- Do we want to do jobs all over your region; if not, define a specific area of the region, city or community that we ideally want to service.
- Do we want to do jobs of all sizes or stay within a certain price range?
As you answer these questions, you’ll get a clearer picture of the type of jobs you want to do, in what radius you prefer to work and the type of client you want to work with. Once you have done this you will then have a very clear framework to develop and measure your marketing activities against. When offered an opportunity to promote your business somewhere, you can ask, “will this promotion opportunity target and reach my chosen niche?” If it will you can go forward with more confidence. If the answer is no you can keep the money in your pocket and wait for a better opportunity.
If you’re having problems defining what you do better than your competition, start by examining the needs of your best customers – especially your repeat customers. Why do they keep coming to you? What do you do that puts you at the top of the pack when they need work done?
Consider niching your business in the next 12 months and aim to dominate your chosen market segment. It is better, in my opinion, to be a bigger fish in a smaller pool than a small fish in a bigger pool.
For help with deciding and developing your business niche contact me here and we can have a no obligation discussion on the best option for you. Become that bigger fish and dominate your chosen market.