Marketing establishments are growing in staggering numbers and reaching an all-time high, which means fewer clients and higher competition. While this may be upsetting to some marketing agency owners, others are thrilled. Sense of excitement in these situations are a hint of confidence. Other marketing agency owners are experiencing sleepless nights due to the fear of failing for not being able to compete. Agencies that welcome new competitors have discovered their marketing niche through marketing segmentation. If you stand on either side of this paradigm then continue reading as we’ve got some gems for you!
Some may call it a marketing niche and others refer to it as specialization. If either one is absent, then you will face difficulties sooner or later. Due to the unprecedented increase in marketing companies, agencies are left with no options but to pivot. However this doesn’t account for the agencies that are in a particular niche and have truly understood the marketing process. The first step in the marketing process is to fully understand the problem that you are trying to solve. The issue remains that most agencies attack this objective incorrectly. This often leads to a marketing myopia, which surprisingly is one of the issues that marketing companies are paid to resolve.
Most agencies today enter the market with a generalized objective of helping businesses gain awareness, increase brand loyalty, and boost sales. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done when considering the 100,000+ marketing companies in the United States. More often than not, potential clients will being up competitor names during a meeting in order to understand why they are paying extra to work with you instead of another marketer who will do the job for a fraction of the cost. It is during these times that marketers will become nervous and start to ramble off about some B.S that they’re not fully confident about. So what’s the solution?
Choosing a marketing niche will be your lifesaver when all goes down. Although you must understand that choosing a marketing niche is a process of its own within our marketing process. Sadly, it’s not as easy as brainstorming or creating ideas based off of previous experiences. In order to successfully find a marketing niche, you must dig deeply into the census and other market research tools (which I will provide at the bottom of this page) in search for valid empirical data that’s not based off of personal emotions.
First, you must have a primary objective so you are not overwhelmed by all the data you’re going to discover. Your primary objective should be to discover an industry that you can best serve. It can be healthcare, entertainment, or food & beverage. Then you must begin searching for data such as per capita income, industry income, employee income, and their trends within that past few years. This is significant since at this step you’re trying to discover who actually has sufficient income to pay for extra help. Other factors that you must search are nearby businesses that are within your chosen industry. This is done to gain a better understanding of the potentiality of getting hired by local businesses. Another paramount factor to search is the target audience of that industry. For example, if you decide to go with healthcare, then research your local area and you might discover that most healthcare establishments are senior cares.So now you must know how to market a senior care business to their target audience, which is also seniors. You must choose an industry that you can best market to their target audience.
Now that you’ve found your niche industry, you can begin searching for competitors who are also marketing for that industry. Do not skip this step as most do due to being exhausted by previous research. You will be surprised to find the countless number of marketing companies who are specializing within industries such as plumbing, construction, and healthcare. But we’re done yet!
The final step to discovering your marketing niche is actually the first step of the marketing process. You must discover specific paint points that you can resolve within your chosen niche. Please do not speed through this step by creating generalized solutions to pain points such as “we’re going to help them gain awareness” or “we’re going to create irresistible social media content”. Those are all great services, but only if they’re solving their primary paint points. One of the most effective way in discovering your niche pain points is through surveys. Utilize tools such SurveyMonkey or if you don’t want to pay, then get out on the field and survey your industry face to face. The latter will also establish personal connection and therefore result in a higher possibility of getting hired in the future.
When creating your survey, make sure to not ask direct and generalized questions such as “what are some marketing issues that can be resolved by hiring a marketing team”. Instead ask more specific questions such as “how often do you publish content on LinkedIn” or “on a scale from 1-10, how important would you say content marketing is for your business”. Make sure to curate your questions to your chosen niche to receive better results. Ask indirect questions so that you not appear to be a hardcore marketer chasing the dollar (even though we all are). Instead you must sound like a curious scientist who is truly interested in finding significant results. Feel free to contact me and I will be more than happy to answer your questions and help you in finding your marketing niche.
Here are some of my favorite market research tools:
1. HubSpot’s Demand Generation Benchmark
2. US Census
- Written by: BuzzenDigital
- Posted on: January 7, 2020
- Tags: Digital Marketing, Exposure, Market Research, Niche Market