In today’s tough marketplace it can be difficult to stand out. As a result, FSB in Somerset and Wiltshire were pleased to be able to facilitate a national webinar on how to create a niche for your business.
Guest speaker George Swift, from Bigger, Brighter, Bolder used the example of dog grooming and specialising down into grooming poodles and their variants as a great way to demonstrate how fitting your business firmly within a well defined niche can make you more valuable, increase your expertise, simplify your processes and allow you to increase your prices. If you missed this recent webinar you can watch it here on our FSB on-demand web page.
We had so many questions that George didn’t manage to get to them all and so here are some supplementary answers that you may find of interest after watching the webinar:
Q What’s the best way to get known? Everyone hates cold calling. Social media is great but brings little business.
The best way to get known depends on your target market and where they hang out. Social media does offer a great opportunity to reach your client base but if you’re doing it half-heartedly then you’re just adding noise to an already very noisy space.
Q I sell loose leaf tea, how am I solving a problem for someone?
Tea is not our area of expertise but people buy on desire and necessity. The rules are fundamentally the same, you need to find a way of standing out to a specific part of that market. Ask yourself what makes you special or different and to whom are you most desirable.
Q I run a language school, how do I niche?
You niche by standing out to a particular section of the market. You can niche a number of ways – the product itself, how you deliver it, or the experience they get working with you. You’ll need to then find out who that’s important to in the market place.
Q As a niche architectural iron monger, how do we stand out from other similar suppliers?
Small businesses very often stand out by being able to offer a level of personal service and a degree of flexibility that bigger businesses can’t, however to niche with this you’ll need to find a customer base that really values those things.
Q Our mission is the generally simplify the events industry, which means we have a general market, how could we niche into this?
Not everyone will value your simplification, however there will be a cross section of the market that will. Your job is to find them and then niche into that, making sure you direct all of your conversation and marketing towards them. You can specialise in a market sector or a type of event.
Q I am running an exclusive holiday let business and have a problem reaching my niche customers
You need to have a deep understanding or your target customer base and then determine where they hang out. You’ll probably need to engage marketing experts for this space but do your due diligence as you can waste a lot of money here. Alternatively, partnerships can be a very lucrative strategy, if you can find companies that offer complementary services to your target clients, you can leverage existing relationships to access your client base.
Q Do I need to be explicit about who I am selling to?
Either, depending on what you’re trying to achieve. Being obvious about your niche and directing all of your conversations and marketing towards this niche will yield quicker results.
For more useful webinars to support your business why not have a look at our events page to see what we have coming up?