This post is the continuation from the previous post on “Niche Marketing: How to profit from it.” you may recall in the previous post I talked about my story and how I came to be where I am today but the main point I really want to drive home to you is that I was not born an entrepreneur and as I explained most of my life I never thought about owning my own business or leaving a legacy behind. So, for those of you who say, “well I don’t know where to begin or I am not sure I have what it takes to be an entrepreneur,” then look at my story and realize you just might have an opportunity staring you in the face and telling you to go for it.

Okay, so let’s move forward with part II of Niche Marketing.

What is Niche Marketing?

If you ask a dozen marketers you will probably get a few different answers, but the one I gravitate towards is, niche marketing is a focused, targetable portion of a market that you try to sell goods to.

For example, one of the most recent and best niche marketing products to hit the market was done by Toyota. Toyota knew that there was a percentage of car drivers who were environmentally conscience and wanted a car that could go long distances without consuming a lot of gas. These individuals cared less about what the car looked like or how fast it went but was more concerned about the environment. Toyota exploited this market and built a car that these individuals would pay more money for and also be put on a waiting list to get one. No other major car company at the time went after this highly focused and targeted group leaving the opportunity for Toyota to capitalize. There are many more examples of niche marketing but the Toyota example is a real good one to study. Although Toyota had success many companies do not but here is a list of positives and negatives to niche marketing.

Positives and Negatives to Niche Marketing

Positives:

• Profitable – As I just mentioned Toyota was rewarded handily for their entry into the environmentally friendly conscience consumer, which helped their bottom line and profits for the entire company.
• Hungry – If you find a market that is dying for their need to be filled you have ventured into what I call a “Hungry” market. Finding a hungry market is key to successful niche marketing.
• Loyal – Most of the time if you find a highly focused and hungry market these individuals become raving fans and are very loyal to you. That is if your product and service are good!

Negatives:

• Too small of market – Sometimes you might find a niche that is too small to offset costs associated with bringing a product or service to market.
• Untapped for a reason – A big mistake that marketers make sometimes is that they think they find a niche market that is untapped but the market is untapped for a reason.
• Crowded – Sometimes if a market is hungry and there is a lot of competition that can lead to an over crowded market and lots of competition.

Most effective Marketing Strategies

Now there are many different marketing strategies you can implement, but for the sake of this post and for my presentation to the YEA I am going to focus in on the ones that have been effective for me and my business.

When I first started my online business I thought it was going to be as easy as building a website and having hundreds if not thousands of people come to it. Unfortunately, I was way wrong and the sad part is I should have known better. Having a product or service is one thing but getting be to know about it comes down to marketing. After some work with my business coach I implemented the following strategies to help sell my product:

• Email News Letter – One of the best ways for me to deliver information and build a trust with potential clients came from my online newsletter. I created an option for subscribers to join my list and every week I would send them an e-newsletter with tips, suggestions, and personal stories. By providing them solid and valuable information I helped build credibility and trust before I even pitched them something.
• Blog – I am sure you have all heard about blogs and what they can do for a business and this is the very first thing I started when I began my marketing. Several of my articles where picked up by the search engines and brought traffic to my site, which then allowed me to establish the relationship
• Facebook Ads – Facebook Ads really was one of the best strategies I implemented. As a marketer the ability to dial into a selective target market, which is what Facebook let’s you do is priceless. At one time over 50% of my traffic came from Facebook Ads
• Facebook Fan Page I created a Facebook Fan Page for my site Working Mom Workouts , which also allowed me to build a tribe of fans that I could build a relationship with before I tried to sell them anything.
• Mommy Bloggers – I reached out to a particular group of moms who blog and are well connected in the “mommy circle”. What I did was I provided them a sample of my product and in return I asked them to blog about it to their followers. Nothing more powerful then to get a good review from a person who has influence over a lot of your target market.
• Google Adwords  When I first started using Google Adwords I lost money and was not very successful but after taking a course I learned how to lower my cost per click and also write better headlines to get clicks to my site. Another great strategy that paid off.

Those strategies were just several that I tried but they were also my most effective. The key to any good marketing plan is to test, measure, and track your ads or strategies to see if they are working. Keep the ones that work and ditch the ones that don’t. Simple as that!

Well, with that I will end my talk on Niche Marketing and I hope you learned something that you can take along in your entrepreneurial journey!