The most common mistake is.... thinking that everyone is your potential customer. Most experienced marketers know that 20 percent of buyers consume 80 percent of product volume. If you could identify that key 20 percent and find others like them, you could sell much more product with much less effort. In order to get your business running and profitable quickly many business owners consider everyone as their customer.
It is easy to think that everyone needs your product or service however this approach often overlooks the very customers you are trying to attrach. Niche Marketing.... by definition is a focused, target-able portion of a market. The term niche or niche marketing is a tearm that many of us have hear before however what does it really mean and how can we use it. A business that focuses on a niche market is addressing a need for a product or service that is not being addressed by mainstream marketers. You can think of a niche market as a narrowly defined group of potential customers. By narrowing the focus to a smaller group of perfect customer you now can match your marketing message and your criteria to a small market. As a strategy, niche marketing is aimed at being a big fish in a small pond instead of being a small fish in a big pond.
Your question might now be how do I define my Niche Market?
Here is a simple list of questions you can ask yourself about your specific customers:
1- What challenge do your customers face - that your product or service can solve?
2- What problem keeps your customers up at night and how can your product or service solve this?
3- What can't they live with out how can you help them get that?
4- How do your customers currently solve this problem can you make it easier or cheaper?
5- What would motivate your customer to use your product or service save money, more convenient, etc?
If you don't know your customers you might in fact completely miss opportunities to offer really solutions to them. Sadly many great business owners fail because they are trying to sell to everyone and their message is so general that their niche market does not hear the message. Take some time to figure out who you are marketing to then it is easy to deliver clear messages that talkes to them personally.