Niche Marketing Is About Narrow, Not Small
The evolution of our mature marketplace combined with technological advances has not only put consumers firmly in control (as marketers we’ve heard this drum for quite sometime now), but has empowered us with more detailed data enabling us to micro-target messages, engage consumers with new levels of intimacy, and customize-to-order with small-batch manufacturing and new distribution options.
This seismic shift from one-size-fits-all marketing to millions of niche markets of self interest has major impact on the economic model we’re all working in regardless of the category in which we compete. It’s both a big challenge and big opportunity. A great opportunity in fact.
But understanding the nature of niche marketing today is vital in overcoming what is often the biggest barrier in developing a smart plan — concern over the economic viability of customization to small segments.
I read a great article last evening in AdAge about this very subject.
“Rather than equating niche with “small,” think “narrow.” As in narrowly targeting a group whose self interest/self concept is so clear that a marketer can offer something ultrarelevant and vastly different from alternatives. Then the scarcity principle allows the marketer to charge a premium, reaping higher margins.
When you expand the relevance and differentiation to multiple products and services (even information, experiences, networking and more), you gain share of wallet and can experience volume and growth that makes up for the narrowness of the target.
So what’s really new about the new niche marketing? It’s realizing that while our targets have to narrow, our definition of marketing communications has to broaden. Today, everything communicates what a brand stands for, all the time.”
To harness the power of niche marketing to achieve your business objectives in the new economy, follow these principles:
- Position your brand as narrowly as is economically possible.
- Become the specialist that anticipates the needs of your target.
- Rapidly work with the target niche to co-innovate.
- Set as your goal such consumer centricity that the target niche will want to co-brand their identity with yours.
- Live by a higher standard of ethics.
- Embrace a business model and metrics that grow the most valuable assets of the new niched economy.
- Reap first-mover advantage by learning how to identify a niche of opportunity.
- Re-imagine your role as that of entrepreneurial founder of a special interest group.
- Forget push marketing; excel at pull marketing.
- Realize your brand is now “media” competing against all other media.
This post was written by: Kim Mickelsen