6 tips for identifying your brand’s niche
We know that finding a niche for your brand is great for business. It helps you to differentiate from your competition and allows you to be more tailored and specific with your service offering, making it easier to sell your services.
So how do you go about finding your niche? Here are a few things to think about when identifying it:
1. Know what you enjoy
None of us want to be stuck in a job we don’t enjoy. It’s even more important if it’s your business because you have to find ways to be passionate about it even on the hardest of days.
To find your niche, you might want to start reflecting on the following if you haven’t already identified the things you love about what you do:
The skills that come naturally to you
How you approach challenges
The topics you love to learn about and subjects you’re passionate about
What you enjoy doing outside of work
Anything specific that people come to you for on a regular basis
The ideal situation is to find the sweet spot where what you love doing and people you enjoy doing it for and who need it, come together.
2. Know your why
To really stand out in a crowded market you need to tell people why your brand is different from your competitors. Identify why you started your business in the first place. Is there an issue you’re trying to solve? Are you trying to do something for a particular audience?
Knowing your why can help you identify what’s unique about you within your industry. When it’s clear for all to see, you’ll naturally attract the people who align with it - and put off those who don’t. When it’s threaded through what you say and how you look, it’s much easier for your audience to understand that you are their kind of business.
3. Know the problems you solve
Don’t try to appeal to everyone. Understand the problems you solve and design your services around them. The benefit of designing services or products around specific problems is that they’re much easier to sell and you’ll attract the people who want the outcomes you give. If you do this, you’ll become known for what you do and have people coming to you for exactly that.
4. Understand your audience inside out
It's crucial to have a really deep understanding of your ideal customer to be able to articulate why you work with them. Get to grips with what their problems are, the needs they’re looking for, and what their values are. This is where you can identify common ground between why your business exists and what your audience needs and wants.
This is where I want to caveat that your niche doesn’t have to be for a specific demographic. Demographics are great for us to really get to grips with the type of person your ideal customer is, but focusing on values and needs is a much more surefire way to build connections with your audience
One of the best ways to get to know your audience is by asking them questions. You could talk to existing clients (the ones that are your ideal ones) and ask questions and use polls on your social channels. Another way is to reach out to people who you think might be your ideal client to see if they wouldn’t mind a conversation with you about their wants and needs.
5. Look at your competitors
Doing a competitor analysis is a great way to understand how you’re unique. We can often find ourselves looking at our competitors and comparing ourselves in a way that makes us feel as though we’re lagging behind or not as good as everyone else. It’s not about looking at them to copy. A competitor analysis is an objective look at your competitors. Things to note down for all your competitors are:
Who their audience is
What they say their USP is
They types of services they offer and pricing
What the outcome is from working with them
Their strengths
Their weaknesses
Once you’ve done this for all your competitors, do it for your own business. This helps you to look at everyone objectively, including you.
6. Try and test
I’m a big believer of developing products and services live. That may be offering a trial period, running a beta ‘round’, or doing a soft launch at a reduced rate with any new leads you have. The beauty of this is that you can actively ask for feedback and change things easily with real examples.
If you’re aiming at a whole new audience it’s an opportunity to ask them what they really need and evolve the service around them.
You can also test out your messaging to see if it lands well. Remember- if it doesn’t, it doesn’t really matter. Not many people will have seen it anyway! It’s always better to try things out and it not get very far, than to not try anything at all.
Wondering where to start when looking at how to define what makes you unique? Book a virtual brew with me to discuss how we can work together to define your niche.