If you’ve ever said “I have a niche marketing business” or “I use a niche marketing business model” this post is for you.
Listen, it’s about time we got clear on this one.
There is no such thing as a “niche marketing business.”
When you say “I have a niche marketing business” what you really are saying is “I have a business.”
Using “niche marketing” as a way to describe a type of business just doesn’t make sense. In fact, it’s redundant because *every* business is a niche marketing business.
If you are confused, it’s not your fault.
The idea of a ‘niche market’ has been twisted, bastardized and generally misunderstood within the infopreneur world.
It comes from people who learn how to make money online by selling “how to make money online” products to other people who want to learn how to make money online.
It’s this crazy circle that starts to build a group of people who have never sold anything BUT how to make money online products.
And so begins the idea that there is something called “Internet Marketing” and something called “Niche Marketing, and that these are two distinct types of businesses.
As such, you can either have an “Internet Marketing” business (where you sell products that teach people how to make money online) or a “Niche Marketing” business (where you teach people how to say, groom poodles).
In this way of thinking, You might start in the “Internet Marketing” niche, and if you are successful, you might then decide to venture out into the world of “Niche Marketing.”
Like I said, this thinking is twisted and not at all correct.
There is no niche called “Internet Marketing” and there is no business called “Niche Marketing.”
Here’s how niches really work…
Every business is, in a sense, a niche marketing business because every business uses marketing to reach their niche.
For example, there’s one BIG market called “People.”
Henry Ford targeted a niche of that market called ‘People who Want to buy a Car.’ This is not a very tightly-defined niche, but a niche all the same.
‘People who want to buy a car’ is a niche within the overall market called ‘people.’
The Ford Model T was sold during the years of 1909 to 1927, and during that time, if you wanted a car, chances are you were going to buy a Ford Model T. So in that world of very little competition, targeting such a broad niche was successful (for a time).
But you can slice the pie any way you want.
In fact you can you can define the pie any way you want as well.
And you can slice that pie any way you want.
Here’s something that will always be true for you no matter where you go in business.
The market is the pie and the niche is the slice.
Niches always exist within the larger definition of the market. Of course, you’d love to have the whole pie all to yourself, but you can’t eat it all at once, so you cut a slice that matches your appetite.
This is why it’s a bit hard to understand what a “market” is or what a “niche” is without some analogy to use like the pie and the slice.
There is no single “market” — your market is defined however you choose to define it. You get to select the pie, but it’s not going to be the same pie that someone else selects.
Sadly, I think that a lot of people who say they are in the Niche Marketing business, define things that way because they are in multiple niches in multiple markets.
This is a very difficult way to make build a sustainable and growing business. It splits your focus and resources among not only different niches within the same market, but also among entirely different markets.
Don’t make your business about ‘Niche Marketing.’ Instead, focus on one niche and develop your business in that niche as far as you can go, then, if you must expand, cut another slice of the same market — life will be a lot easier and a lot more profitable for you.
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