Niche business development strategies are hardly new, but too often they're overlooked in a rush to sell professional services to well-known, large, popular, ready-made market segments.
Taking a niche focus is the antithesis of scattergun, broad-brush marketing.
Niches which are small, specialised, low volume, or poorly understood may not yet have drawn large or strong competitors.
By focusing on niches which are:
- clearly definable
- closely matches for your skills
- good candidates for specialisation
- suitable for the economics and resources of your professional practice
- large enough to be profitable and sustainable
you may enjoy the many benefits of strong competitive advantage, including premium prices for your professional services.
Focusing your business development efforts in this way will:
- give you rapid traction in a niche
- help you to develop clear, appealing messages to prospective clients you're ideally positioned to serve
- reinforce your reputation and profile among your established clients in this niche
- allow you to carve out a position of strong perceived advantage
- give you opportunities to enter larger markets from your niche toehold.
Put possible niche opportunities to these tests:
- Does the niche really exist ?
- How many participants and who are they ?
- Where could we source data to assemble a list of participants ?
- Is this a niche where participants meet through professional bodies, industry associations, or interest groups ?
- What specific professional services will you offer to this group ?
- Can you make a distinctive offer which will appeal strongly to this niche market ?
- Is there an opportunity to achieve premium price for your services by focusing on this niche ?
You'll discover niche markets through a deep understanding of how markets segment and consumer participants behave. The best starting point will be some of those clients with whom your professional services already achieve the strongest resonance.
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