Niche-based marketing.

Most businesses sell their products and services to a niche base of clients. Even if you think your product or service is a commodity (and hence you are struggling to maintain your margins), you will intuitively migrate toward a niche marketing and selling arena. In a "niche" environment, the competition is value-based versus price-based, which typically gives you higher margins and a healthier offering. Taking a systems view of your market allows you to define your niches and adopt new ones. In this article, we will explore niche marketing and offer examples and ideas on how to create or add niches to your existing offering.

Goal Of Niche-Based Marketing

Your overall goal in a niche-based marketing plan is to "win-over" a new category of clients. These clients will justify their purchase of your products or services based on the very niche you created or developed.

Your Target Market

The first step in creating or defining your niche is to answer the question, "who is my target audience?" If you don't know, then make one up by focusing on the personal satisfaction a client will get from using your product or service.

Tip from the business lab: With your team, get as specific as you can about your target audience and define how your product or service offers greater productivity, reduces hassles and problems and/or offers greater satisfaction or enjoyment. Keep your own goals in mind, too. Often times your target audience evolves as your business evolves. You might start out in business being all things to all clients. As your business matures, you may find narrowing your audience and focusing on fewer, more select products or services is a better match for your overall corporate goals. Define your target audience in terms of your ideal clients -- what do they look/feel/sound like?

Defining Your Niche-Based Offering

You've already defined the personal satisfaction your client will receive from using your product or service. Now all you need to do is leverage these preferences (satisfactions) into higher margin returns via a niche-based marketing plan. The good news is you can leverage what is already inherent in your product or service with no or only minor modifications.

Start by taking a systems view of the market and ask, "What can we offer our target audience that they will pay more for but will take little or no investment on our part?" Take the following steps: