[ ebusiness_small_business ] How To Find Your Best Niche Market Bob Leduc | Contributing Writer | 2005-02-23

What is your target market? When I ask business owners that question I usually hear something like...

* Small Business Owners

* Opportunity Seekers

* Doctors

* Homeowners

Do you define the targeted market for your business similar to one of these? If you do, you're working harder and spending more money than necessary to promote your business. And you're getting only a fraction of the sales you should be getting.

When you target a broad audience like those listed above, you're only targeting prospects who CAN USE your product or service. Your marketing efforts will be considerably more profitable if you target prospects who are LIKELY TO USE your product or service.

One of the best ways to do that is to find a "niche market".

What Is A Niche Market?

A niche market is a narrowly defined group that includes all of the following:

1. Individuals in the group have the same specialized interests and needs.

2. They have a strong need or desire for what you offer.

3. You have (or you can create) a compelling reason for prospects in the group to do business with you instead of with someone else.

4. You can easily reach individual prospects within the group.

5. The group is large enough to produce the volume of business you need.

6. The group is small enough that your competition is likely to overlook it.

Why You Must Narrow Your Focus

A niche market enables you to target your sales messages with great precision. The more narrowly you define your niche market the easier it is to cater to the specifically defined interests of people in that market.

For example, some businesses describe their target market as "opportunity seekers". But this is a broad audience. You cannot cater to specifically defined personal interests of individuals in this group because it may include all of the following:

* Executives who want to get out of the corporate environment and start their own business.

* New mothers who want to start a home based business.

* Students who want to generate some extra income.

Any promotional message to this group would have to be very general. But people don't respond to general talk. They respond only when they feel you are talking directly to them about their individual needs.

Special Advantage: A highly defined, small niche market can insulate you from competition. Other small businesses are likely to overlook it. Large businesses will find the market segment too small to bother with.

How to Find a Profitable Niche Market

One way to find a good niche market is to evaluate your existing customers. Can you uncover a segment of customers with similar characteristics?

For example, I recently talked with a network marketer working with a health products company. About a year ago she noticed that many distributors in her organization were health or physical education teachers.

She now has a lot of success targeting a niche market of female physical education teachers who are married, have children and are members of the same professional association.

Another way to find a niche market is to work backward from the benefits you offer. Start by listing all the benefits provided by your product or service. Then list some of the characteristics of prospects whose current situation can be dramatically improved by those benefits. You should begin to see a narrowly defined group emerge as a niche market.

It's Your Bottom Line

How specific is your target market? Can you develop sales messages so sharply focused your prospects believe you're talking specifically to them?

If not, use the information in this article to help you find the best niche market for you. Then tailor your sales messages to the specific interests and needs of that niche market. You'll see an immediate increase in your sales and profits.