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Successfully marketing a niche product requires a unique set of strategies and tactics. It starts with a deep understanding of your potential customers.
Marketing a niche product means you’re not selling to everyone. A narrow pool of potential customers comes with challenges and ultimately means more work on your part to find people who fit your niche. Marketing niche products also has its advantages.
If you are targeting a small number of buyers, you need to understand who is most likely to buy your product and how your product can directly tap into their needs.
Asking yourself these questions will clarify your customer’s needs and the value your product will bring to their lives.
- Where are your customers (virtual and physical)?
- What are your key demographics, such as age, income, education, and gender?
- How do they buy products and services like yours?
- What physical or emotional need drives them to seek out products like yours?
- What do they expect in terms of quality, price, delivery time, etc.?
- How will your product outperform your competitors?
Engaging with target customers is another challenge for niche products. To attract them, you must put your unique selling proposition directly in front of them. This is often accomplished through attendance at industry events and conferences, participation in social media platforms, guest interviews in industry trade publications and podcasts, and guest blogging on industry-specific blogs.
If none of these highly targeted strategies are viable, a powerful way to reach the targeted demographic mark is through search engine advertising such as Google Ads. Google collects information about everyone who browses the internet using the Google search engine, so advertisers can often reach the exact target market they want to connect with.
It’s a little creepy considering how much information is gleaned from internet searches, purchases, and social media interactions every day. For example, each time you click on an advertisement about a weight loss product, you are classified as a potential customer of this type of product through a “cookie”. And guess what? As you browse, you will start to see more and more advertisements for the weight loss industry.
Google Display Network targeting allows you to set where and when your ads appear based on characteristics of your ideal audience, such as personal interests, age and gender. This means that your ads will appear on sites that are relevant to your business or on people who meet certain criteria you specify.
Future SCORE workshops will explore the powerful potential of Google Ads. To learn more about this marketing tool for your niche product or service on September 27th at 9am, sign up for this free workshop at www.traversecity.score.org.
Donna Probes (MBA) is a SCORE mentor and professional musician. For more information about this organization, visit traversecity.score.org.