👋 Welcome
Hi there! We have 15 new friends joining us this week. How's your day going? I'd love to hear from you - even a simple "Hi!"🙂 would make my day.
It helps Google know that this isn't spam.
🎯 "Targeting Niche"
Today, let's talk about a special word called "Target Niche". I know it sounds big, but it's just a fancy way to say "a small group of people you want to help with your product or service".
I know you’ve heard a million times already about “Niche down your market”. But let me just quickly repeat for people who heard it for the first time.
I promise, I will get into ‘how’ part of niching down the target.
(This article is a big long but it is such a crucial insight you should read!)
🤔 Why is it Crucial to Target a Niche?
Aren’t you struggling with getting the word out with your MVP? Are you thinking only if you had help with marketing, your product will fly? Aren’t you always wondering on how to drive more traffic to your landing page?
You are wrong, because you can’t!
I hear a lot of people struggling and hoping to get help from “Marketing”.
But let’s first set it straight what “Marketing” is.
The Truth about Marketing
You may think marketing is some kind of magic trick that brings huge traffic to your site or product without spending much. If you've found such a wizard, send them my way because I've never met one in over 10 years!
In reality, marketing is either a big-money game or a long-play strategy.
For the long game, marketers craft strategies around branding, positioning, messaging, and more to build distribution channel. This could be through blogs (SEO), newsletters, social media, you name it. But here's the catch - you need to know your target customer, their problems and your solution before a marketing whiz can really help you grow. But it takes time to build any of these channels just like anyone else, except they are a bit more effective than non-experts. There is no magic here to create 10K followers or subs in 30 days. No way.
On the other hand, if you want quick wins, you're talking about ads. This is where you're borrowing someone else's distribution channel, whether that's blogs, newsletters, influencers - and you're paying for the privilege. This can be pretty pricey, especially if you're just starting out or on a tight budget.
So remember, marketing isn't about pulling rabbits out of hats. It's about carefully crafted strategies and sometimes, a fair bit of cash!
In either scenario, it is not ideal for many of us because we need real customers, now!
Get Customers by Niching Down
When you have no distribution channel and no branding, megaphoning your product is not gonna work. No one really hears voice when there are endless marketing, MVP launch announcements and Ads in your audiences world.
At this stage, he only thing that matters to survive this is to stand out and to be seen. How? By niching down, you click with them 100x stronger than other generic ads/projects. Get to them like their wife is talking about their husbands problem. You really have to hit home and click with them.
“Video based Social Network to connect with your friend”
vs
“Connect with your SDSU alumni network via Video”
If you graduated SDSU, wouldn’t you click on that? Don’t you think the chance of grabbing their attention is 100x higher?
You get the idea in Power of niching down, right?
Niching down your market is the only way.
Then you want to ColdDM, Cold Email and all the manual approach you hate. It is like a door to door sales. Not scalable, but highest chance to grab someone’s attention.
But hey! You only need first 10 customers for this. Then you can move into more scalable way later.
Okay, enough of explaining.
This is how you actually “Niche Down”
📖 How to Niche Down your Target
1. Who Might Like What You're Offering?
Think about your idea. Now think about the kind of people who might find it useful. your "potential customers". Write as many as you can and as specific as you can.
Let's say you have an idea for an "AI Email Writer". You can narrow it down like this:
Office Workers -> Marketing Team -> Email Marketing -> Cold Email Outreach Marketing Campaign.
Office Workers -> HR -> Employee Engagement -> Monthly Newsletters.
Or maybe you've got a "Food Recipe Generator". Try this:
Moms -> Working Moms -> Meal Prep for School Lunch.
Students -> Health Enthusiasts -> Gym Rats -> Keto Diets.
2. Find community for the Niche
Communities exist all around us! They can be on websites like Reddit or Facebook.Look for these communities and see if they exist!
3. Niche Down More
You found a community? Great! Then Niche that down in even more and find the community again for the niched down target
Using our previous example,
I am sure you can find a community for ‘Moms’.
Then you look for ‘Working Moms” community
Then you niched down more to find “Meal Prep for School Lunch”. Now you can’t find the community as it is too specific. “Uh Oh 😬”
4. Your Niche is One Level Above
That is exactly how far you want to niche down to. Your perfect starting point of “Niched Down” market is the level above of where you couldn’t find the community.
You see, existence of an community is a signal that validates there is enough of demand and targets. No Community likely means No obvious demand/needs. Even if there was, there is no obvious distribution channel you can tap into - makes it really hard to find your customers.
You don’t want to be targeting the community too wide or general as it doesn’t cater to them and feel as personal. The most niched down community is the perfect pace to start.
❓ What do I do after I found the Niche?
Now, join the community and blend yourself in. Watch if they are already talking about your problem or not. If they are, home run! Start engaging, asking more. Do not try to sell too early. It is always the best to blend in, try to be their friends and slip in your ‘sales’ later.
By joining the community, you also get to learn their language. Create a landing page specifically targeting the community. Use their language and reflect on your landing page. That is what clicks with them the best.
You can create this in your subdomain “AmazingRecipe.com/SchoolLunch”. You can do this with multiple niches targeting different demographic at the same time “AmazingRecipe.com/Keto”, “AmazingRecipe.com/gymbuddy”
Now, you promote or slip in your niche specific landing page to the community or via DMs, that speaks their language and talks about their specific problem.
You have to speak their language and need to sound like them. It would sound something like
"Tired of writing personalized email for cold out reach? Send 100s in minutes"
"Stop feeling guilty for your kid. 5 min prep time recipes for what you have in your fridge"
"No time to cook organic food? 5 min prep time recipes so you can stop relying on your Protein Shake"
📉 It Didn’t Work
If you don't find strong signal, time to try different niche. Ran out of niche to test? Come up with a new niche! If you are truly out of niche to tackle, roll up a niche and try again. Rinse and Repeat until you find the strongest signal in particular community.
🔑 Takeaway
Finding your target niche might take some time and patience, but it's a very important step.
I know you are hesitant to reach out in person, approaching one by one.
We all wish that if we built it and announced it some where, people will come and buy and grow without me interacting with the real world.
Sorry. It is not going to happen.
Aren’t you already suffering with no traffic?
Trust me.
This is the only way and it works.
(unless you already have big personal brand, a distribution channel, or willing to pay for ads)
Do not make the same mistakes I made over years. Fast track your growth by stealing from my learnings
For more actionable tips and Tear Downs
📫 Apply for a Tear Down
Want to be on the next Tear Down issue?
A free 30 minutes mentorship specifically for your business
💌 Share with a friend
If you found value in reading this newsletter, please share it with your friend.
To view previous newsletter issues, check our library.
👋 Come Say Hi
If you want to know more about me and stay closer, come visit my Twitter 🙃