If you want to discover endless depth to your market, you need to get very specific about your niche.
I’ve lost count of how many marketing businesses will offer advice like “you need to niche down”, but when they themselves are asked about their customer, they’ll respond with “any small business really”.
Amateurs.
The fastest way to become an industry leader (and some might argue the only way), is to create the space that you’re going to dominate.
CREATE the niche that you’re going to be number 1 at. Create the category that you’re going to lead.
The awesome part? It’s not even that difficult. You can use the list below to create a killer niche for your marketing funnel business that no one else can touch.
If I narrow down my market, I’ll lose options!
Our biggest fear about choosing a niche, is thinking that we’ll narrow our options down too much. Maybe 20 years ago, when the internet wasn’t as widely accepted, that might have been true. But today, there is no such thing as “too niche”. It’s like saying you’re too focused.
When you define a category that you’re going to become a king in, you find depth and growth.
Use the list below to define a new category for your marketing funnel business. It has to be something you’re passionate about and willing to talk about every day. But you can become #1 overnight if you’re willing to define who it is you serve best.
We want to be able to complete the sentence “we build marketing funnels for…”
Now ideally, you’ll look at your category and say what you get for them. For example, rather than “we build marketing funnels for splinter products sold by online fitness coaches”. You’d change that to the result which that market needs.
“We help online fitness coaches sell more splinter products”. That’s your niche. Then we can make up a category name. The category could be “fitness engagement”.
Fitness engagement is what all online fitness coaches need to increase their sales. We start by selling a small, low barrier to entry product to your customers and prove that you’re the expert. Your online coaching business needs Fitness Engagement.
Use the list below to create a few ideas and decide what it is you want to be #1 at.
Part of the process
Email signups
Cold traffic
Warm traffic
Re-marketing
Video advertising
Facebook direct leads
Re-engagement emails
Product launches
Webinar follow ups
Core product consumption (increasing use)
Re-launching old products
Evergreen campaigns
New subscriber follow up
Types of product
Splinter products
Lead magnets
Webinars
Core physical product offers (be specific with industry)
Subscription products (be specific within industry)
Customer win backs
Refunds
Up-sells
Cross-sells
Digital downloads (be specific within industry)
Physical products (be industry specific)
High ticket items
Workbooks and programs
Live events
Marketplaces
Auction sites
Job boards
Industry niches
Pro tip: combine two of the below industries for a super specific niche. For example, medical and authors becomes building funnels for authors in the medical field. Or content publishing and applications becomes content publishers for app businesses.
Saas businesses
Online courses
Coaching
Physical exercise
Writers and authors
Manufacturing
Design and branding
Coding and development
Communities
Medical and veterinary
Application and software
Content publishing
PLR or public label rights
White-label
Outsourcing
Types of customer
New customers
Long time customers
Customers who have left
Un-engaged customers (people who have bought but never consumed)
Subscription customers
High ticket customers
White-whales (people who buy EVERYTHING you put out)
Promoters and evangelists (super fans who love what you do)
Loyal customers
Unhappy and disgruntled customers
Personal contact services (think personal trainers)
Off the shelf/cookie cutter products
Who need to…
Again, mix the results needed to get super specific. For example increase traffic and decide a target customer becomes increase traffic form a specific and high converting target market.
Grow an email list
Generate first sales
Increase traffic
Increase traffic to subscriber conversions
Generate core offer sales
Sell more products
Increase customer consumption/lifetime value
Increase average customer purchase
Increase event sign ups
Lower customer acquisition cost
Find a larger audience
Expand the number of products they sell
Decide on a target market
Create sales on automation
Have characteristics
Have a list of #
Have revenue of over #
Have # staff
Have remote staff or all in one location
At least # products
Products of value of at least # or between #
Are aged over # years
Sell in # countries
Have or don’t have a marketing department
Are or are not listed on the market
Traffic of over # a month/year
Have both physical and virtual stores
Are only available online
Are only available in store
Who are [blank] in their market
Category leaders
Disruptive
Unique
Commoditized and don’t want to be
Entry level (i.e. the option for start ups)
Enterprise level
New
Established
Specific and focused
Diverse
Unknown
Who get [blank] for customers
You’ll want to specify the result your customers get here, for their customers. For example physical trainers who sell online courses get a “physical” result for customers. But it’s probably closer to get fit or lose weight.
Physical results
Financial results
Self help and improvement
Market results
Measurable results (email list, traffic)
Clarity and consulting
Content creation and publishing
Safety and security
Adrenaline
Exposure and publicity
Break records
Customer acquisition
What if I don’t find customers? Or other customers come along?
The effort needed to find one perfect customer, in your category, who needs your services – is worth it.
It might seem like a longer period to find the right customers, but it’s 100% worth the investment to focus on finding and helping that market.
And you know what? Other businesses WILL approach you if you can get someone else results.
I understand that we have to pay the bills, I get that. But every time you’re working on a project which isn’t your chosen category, you’re missing out on dominating a space that you’ve created.
The only true, 100% proven method to become #1 in a large industry, is to create a category which no one else is focusing on. They don’t want to focus out of fear of missing out. So do you want to follow the same feelings of fear as everyone else? Or do you want to FOCUS and become the world’s #1?
Let me know your category below in the comments.
