You Can’t Be Everything at First, so Find a Niche
I don’t know what happened to me. I save up a bunch of ideas to blog about. Then I don’t get the chance to blog. By the time I write I start writing articles - instead of blog posts. This is a phase I’m sure. So you’ll just have to ride this one out with me. I have no idea how long it will last.
What is a Niche?
The word niche has many different meanings. It can be a small subset of a large market. Or, it can be a what you are attracted to, feel comfortable with, and are best fitted to sell online.
When people are new to selling online they often make a mistake that can be tragic. Actually, it’s the same mistake anyone just starting out in business makes. They want to be big. They want to sell EVERYTHING. They are opening up the next general store.
Or, they don’t care what they sell they just want to make money. This will almost guarantee that they will not make money. Instead they’ll chase ideas and probably end up LOSING a lot of money. Funny enough, this doesn’t stop some people, it only makes them more determined!
To start out you must find a niche - you must specialize. You can’t be a big box retailer selling major brands, unless you have some deep pockets. There will be some high minimum orders if you even get the time of day. Most people starting out online are bootstrapping. They have limited funds to invest and usually limited time. So they’re going to have to get pretty targeted and serious if they hope to make money. Sometimes we dream up large plans that we have no hope of accomplishing at the level we are at.
Most people start out trying to make money online the very hardest ways there are. Like affiliate marketing. It’s going to be a long road to making much if you have no web site or traffic. You have to buy that traffic (paid search is enormously expensive if you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s pretty advanced.) or create it (better start creating a lot of good, unique information that people want to know…again it will take some time). You’ll probably be making around 10-20% per sale. You’ll have to get a lot of people to buy if you’re going to succeed.
Offline this may be easier to grasp. This is from an article in USAToday about finding a niche: “A local hardware store has a hard time competing against home improvement big-box retailers, but if you specialize in unique knobs and fixtures, you can build a national clientèle.”
How do you find a niche for your online business? Here are some ideas (and I’m not in a creative mood or I’d come up with better examples):
• Focus on a specific industry. “Specializing in an industry gives you credibility with potential clients, an easy marketing focus (you can go to conventions and trade shows of your target market) and enables you to develop unique expertise and become familiar with that industry’s practices and lingo.”
• Focus on a demographic. Like children, seniors, Hispanics, higher income moms, etc.
• Focus on a specific place - if that makes you unique in some way.
• Focus on a specific part of the work you do. Such as “a graphic design firm that specializes in preparing annual reports for publicly traded companies.”
• Unique or specialized knowledge. If you know things about something that very few other people do, you have an advantage (assuming it is marketable in some way).
• A Specific Style. “Choosing a specific style of service or product is another way to specialize. You can sell only all-wood furniture, open an all-organic restaurant, or provide hand-wash-only car washing.”
When you focus on one thing and do it really well you can usually charge more than a generalist who does many things. You may be surprised at what people are searching for online. Thankfully there are free ways to see what people are searching for and may potentially pay for.
Amongst my colleagues there is a joke about selling tumbleweeds - when someone doesn’t know what to sell online, we use this as an example. You know how you say when life gives you lemons, sell lemonade? Well, what if your life is full of tumbleweeds?
The idea started out as a joke but turned into a legitimate business. I don’t think that she has to worry that Walmart is going to start carrying tumbleweeds. She found a niche. Read about it on my new favorite blog that I’m afraid to share with some people: The Unusual Business Blog. The blog is about people who have found successful niches.
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5 Responses to “You Can’t Be Everything at First, so Find a Niche”
Leave a Reply
May 18th, 2007 at 7:11 am
Why would you be afraid to share the Unusual Business Blog with people (which by the way is great)?
May 18th, 2007 at 8:00 am
I would be afraid that some personality types would take it too far. As in, they watched The Secret and think their idea to sell belly button lint can indeed make them a lot of money.
Janet
May 18th, 2007 at 9:46 am
[...] Newspapergrl | Internet Marketing | Affiliate Marketing | Business Blogging [...]
May 31st, 2007 at 10:58 am
[...] Newspapergrl’s Janet Meiner wrote an interesting article on how to find a niche for your online business. She posted a link to the Unusual Business Blog with some great success stories about unique online businesses. [...]
June 8th, 2007 at 10:00 am
[...] Recommended articles from Janet’s blog: Top 5 Online PR Headline Writing Tips from Marc Harty, Top 10 SEO Factors,You Can’t Be Everything at First, so Find a Niche [...]