Reaching more consumers does not automatically increase your sales. You can attract a thousand visitors to your website, but only a fraction of those individuals may be interested in what you have to offer. If you are receiving a steady flow of visitors to your website and it is not reflected in your sales, you may need to re-examine your market research.
By narrowing your focus to a niche demographic, you can make better use of your marketing resources and even compete with much larger companies.
Focusing on Niche Demographics is More Efficient
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Some business owners avoid focusing their market research on a niche demographic, out of fear that they will exclude other groups of consumers. This could not be further from the truth. Instead of excluding anyone, you are simply using your market research more efficiently.
When your marketing efforts are too general, you run the risk of not making any impact on potential customers. With niche marketing, you are reaching a smaller market, but these customers are more likely to make a purchase or hire your services. If this sounds like a good idea to you, learn how to perform basic market research on your niche demographic.
Performing Market Research on Your Niche Demographics
You will first need to perform some market research on your niche demographics. This process may seem complicated at first, but the payoff is tremendous. By looking at where and how you reach your customers, you can better focus your marketing efforts.
The process for performing market research on a niche demographic includes the following steps:
- Examine your current customers
- Look at your competition
- Analyze your product or service
- Determine your niche demographics
- Create personality profiles
Examine Your Current Customers
Start by looking at your existing customers. Try to find characteristics that link your customers. Where are they located? What are they buying from you? What input or feedback have they provided you?
If you have more detailed information, such as their background, income level, interests, or other personal details, make a list of these characteristics. They will be used when determining your niche demographics and making personality profiles.
Look At Your Competition
Next, look at your competition. You do not want to target the exact same market. This could help you choose your niche demographics. For example, if your competitors are selling similar products or services to large businesses, you may want to focus your attention on smaller business – if they are targeting customers with families, you may want to target single people.
Analyze Your Product or Service
You are getting closer to figuring your niche demographics, but you are not quite there. You now need to analyze your products or services. Create a list of benefits to using your products or services. Why would someone want to buy your products or hire your services? Use this list to start thinking about the type of people that would benefit most from what you are offering.
Determine Your Niche Demographics
You can now start figuring out whom you want to target. Think about who your existing customers are, whom your competition is targeting, and who would benefit most from your products or services.
Some of the demographics that you could consider include:
- Age
- Gender
- Married or single
- Geographical region
- Education level
- Income and wealth
- Occupation
- Ethnicity
You do not need to decide on a niche area using all of the demographics listed. Try to choose at least one or two demographics to make the focus of your targeted marketing. For example – if you are selling a video game, you may want to target single people in their twenties, if you are selling a luxury item, you may want to target wealthy individuals aged 50 to 60.
Remember to consider who is going to benefit most from your products or services and who is most likely to make that purchase.
Create Personality Profiles of Your Key Demographics
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After deciding on your niche demographics, it is time to create personality profiles. Think of this as creating a short description of your target customer.
Close your eyes and imagine the customer that is making a purchase. What are they like? What are their interests, hobbies, attitudes? Write down anything that comes to mind, including the demographics that you decided on in the previous step.
Find out which social media platforms your niche demographics use most. Determine their average spending habits. Look into whether they are more likely to shop impulsively or cautiously. Are they likely to use coupons? How much time do they spend on the internet? Do they prefer to shop from their desktop computer or a mobile phone?
These personality profiles can be very useful for targeting a niche demographic. You will use them whenever creating a marketing strategy, writing a social media post, or sending out targeted emails.
How will this help you? The process is simple. Instead of writing an email or a social media post intended to promote your product or service, imagine that you are writing directly to the person that you created in your personality profile. If it helps – give them a name.
Whenever you create marketing content, imagine that you are speaking directly to “Fred’ or “Wilma”. You know Fred and Wilma and you know why they want your products or services.
Focus on Your Niche Demographics
You can now focus on a specific niche demographic whenever performing market research. When you use marketing tools, such as Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, or any pay-per-click advertising, you can narrow down your focus and try to reach a specific group of people.
Instead of trying to reach everyone, focus on your pals Fred and Wilma.