What is Niche Marketing?
In simplest terms, a niche is a very small segment of a larger market that targets a specific demographic. This demographic could be identified by age, gender, hobby, interests, or needs.
The way the product targets that demographic is through attributes such as price, style, color, size, manufacturer, or some other attribute.
When searching for niche markets, it’s about drilling down to the specific aspects distinguish the product or offer from others in the same category. The goal is to find a niche that is specific enough to easily target, yet with a volume of searches worth investing time and effort to capture.
Internet Marketers use niche marketing to target small segments of much larger markets. The reason we do this is so that we can more quickly and easily develop and promote a website to serve the niche and the niche’s audience.
By being so specific, we attempt to target buyers looking for something very specific who are close to the end of the buying cycle and ready to make a purchase. We monetize through the use of affiliate links or ad-share advertising such as Adsense. We then repeat this method, building multiple niche web sites with the goal of achieving a steady stream of income.
Health and Fitness is a very large market with a very large audience. Weight loss is a popular subset of that market. But weight loss isn’t a niche–it’s still too broad and thus too competitive. We need to drill down further. Weight loss for teens, weight loss for seniors, and weight loss for children are good examples of a niche.
Health and Fitness (market) –> Weight Loss (subset) –> Weight loss for seniors (niche)
An easy way to think about it is to consider the way a book store is organized. Book stores group book accord to genre (market). Fiction would be an example of a genre. A sub-genre would be a more specific genre within the main one. Horror would be a sub-genre (subset) of Fiction. Within the sub-genre, you have specific topics (niche). Vampires would be a topic of the sub-genre of Horror in the genre of fiction.
Fiction (market) –> Horror (subset) –> Vampires (niche)
Product examples:
DVD Player –> Pioneer DVD Player –> Cheap Pioneer DVD Player
Shoes –> Running Shoes –> Nike Running Shoes –> Nike Pegasus Running Shoes
Sweater –> Cashmere Sweater –> Woman’s Cashmere Sweater –> Woman’s Tan Cashmere Sweater
Umbrella –> Black Umbrella –> Black Folding Umbrella
The more closely you can define your niche and target market, the more easily you identify products and offers to serve the niche and market, and the more exact you can be with your marketing.
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