To successfully market to a niche of
consumers—whether they’re individuals or
businesses—you have to understand the customers
in that niche. What are their common
characteristics? What differentiates them from
customers who don’t buy your product or service?
If no common traits come to mind, set up a
table. Start with the list of customers you used
earlier to determine your product niche. Once
again, make six columns. If your customers are
individuals, title the columns age, sex,
ethnicity, education level, buying habits,
occupation or any other traits that you think
are important. If your customers are companies,
label the columns annual sales, location, main
business, contact person, user rate (light,
medium and heavy users) and annual purchases of
your product or service.
Now look at the worksheet. What characteristics
do your customers share? Maybe most of your
customers are men in their 30s who like to play
golf. Perhaps your clients are start-up
businesses that need low-cost Web site design.
That’s the niche you’re serving.
After you identify your niche market, do a
little research to calculate the potential size
of your niche market. The basic reference
material for this research has been compiled as
census data by federal government. You can check
out the research data available from the U.S.
government online at
www.census.gov. Or you can
save yourself some number crunching by checking
out various publications that present census
data in a more digestible form. These
publications include:
The information you glean should help you
judge the potential size of your niche market.
Now ask yourself these questions:
-
Is this the niche
I want to be serving?
-
Is this niche
large enough to support my business?
-
How can I market
to this niche more effectively?
You may find that you need to investigate
other niche markets that are more profitable,
easier to reach or predicted to expand in the
near future. If that’s the case, you’ll need to
target a new niche market.
