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The following guest post is by Alisa Johnson.
Recession and business are not the best of bedfellows, but there’s a certain kind of business that does do well no matter how bad the economy is in general. And that’s a niche business, one that offers exclusive services and products to a targeted range of customers. Take for instance the hotel and hospitality industry — when people have no money to spend, they don’t take vacations or pleasure trips. As a result, the occupancy levels are low and business starts to suffer. But not all hotels are affected by this situations — the ones that cater to the high end customers still do pretty well as do the ones that are frequented by those who don’t have much money to spare.
The point I’m trying to make is that if you can identify a niche that will always be in demand among a particular segment of people, you’re going to be able to keep going even through a recession. You may not rake in the dollars, but your demand will be steady as will your income. Marketing a niche business takes a little more skill than advertising the general kind, so if you’re looking for niche marketing tips, here’s what you need to do:
- Talk the language of your target segment: If your customers are the baby boomers, you need to talk in a language that they will understand. The older generation has a value set that’s different from the teens and adults of today, and it is this core set of beliefs and ideas that you must take advantage of to position your services as the best in the business.
- Broaden your repertoire: If you’re marketing products related to fitness, don’t just settle down with a showroom and an office. Set up a gym, get customers to try it out for free for a day or two, provide them with a whole package that helps them reduce weight and become fitter, and organize events to create and increase awareness of general health and the importance of exercising. This way, you’re increasing your profile even as you remain in the same niche.
- Maintain an online presence: It’s a reality today that everything is going the way of the World Wide Web, from newspapers to shops. You can buy and sell anything on the Internet, gain any kind of information you want, and pretty much do anything you want except touch and feel people and things (something that may happen sooner than we think with the advances being made in the field of haptic technology). So it’s important that you set up a website and a blog and also maintain a presence on social media like Twitter and Facebook so that you’re able to keep a finger on the pulse of your customers’ thoughts and ideas.
- Expand through innovation: You could expand your niche by focusing on a sub-field within the same if feedback from your customers is positive. Alternatively, you could position your product in a different way so that it appeals to a target group different from the one that comprises your present customer base.
Good niche marketing is all about ideas and customers, both new and old. You need to be able to put a spin on the old to make it sound new and thus appeal to a variety of people. It goes without saying that the more your customer base grows, the more of a success your business becomes.
This guest post was written by Alisa Johnson, who writes about top online mba schools. She welcomes your feedback at Alisa.Johnson1982 at gmail.com.