Niche Your Business? 10 Ways People Get It Wrong

When you first thought about going into business for yourself, chances are you had a “vision”. You saw yourself doing one type of photography again and again – something that would make you happy every single day. That is the idea around niching. A niche is an activity specially suited to a person’s interests, abilities or nature. It’s a special area of demand for a product or service. And while niching may seem easy to accomplish, many people simply don’t understand the concept, and end up doing it wrong. And if you don’t niche in the right way, your chances of success aren’t high. Here are some tips to help you niche the right way.

Choose A Niche That’s Too Wide

You love people. You’ve always wanted a studio. So you decide to niche yourself as a portrait photographer. Is that a great niche? While it may sound like a great way to specialize your business, portrait photography is still broad. Think of all the different ways you can further split this niche out: baby, family, seniors, school, pets, business. Because you market each of these specialties in different ways, to different people, in different marketplaces, it still leaves you at a disadvantage when it comes to marketing. The clearer you become with who you want to photograph, the easier it is to build a business. [Read more…]

Are You Targeting The Average Client?

I just read an article titled, The End Of The Average American. It referred to the old mentality that marketers shared 25 years ago when they could easily target the “average” American, and be right on target almost all of the time.

Twenty five years ago, over two thirds of all households were married couples. The 2010 census shows that for the first time in history, married couples are a minority. And even in the married population, less than 21 percent of all households are married with children.

In our two largest states, California and Texas, no race or ethnicity is a majority. And the census itself shows how are population has changed – it now comes with instructions in 65 languages.

With this much diversity in the American population – and I would venture the same things are happening worldwide to some degree – can you really be targeting a clientele in the same ways as before?

Let me give you an example. How many portrait photographers send out a postcard or use a photograph like this in your marketing?

Yet now that we know very few people live “the normal lifestyle”, what if you used something like this?

It’s different. It’s unexpected. And it’s taking a new niche by storm, and possibly setting up your business to an entire niche that’s grateful to have you marketing to them.

Niches work well because you can target your client down to the detail.

Twenty five years ago, it may have worked to say “married couples with children under the age of ten”.

But today, going to the next level may help define you that much more: “gay and lesbian couples with kids under the age of ten”.

You are narrowing your niche even more. But you are also getting to the hearts and souls of the people you are targeting. And thanks to the Internet, your target market will be willing to drive a lot further, or even fly you out to them if you have what they want.