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In Practice: Juliet's Marketing Wisdom:
Developing a Niche Market
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by Juliet Austin |
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Often when I suggest to healing professionals that they might want to market to a specific niche audience, they are resistant. The most common reason for this is fear. They are afraid that they will never get enough clients if they narrow in and focus on marketing to one group of people. While this is a natural reaction if you don’t understand the benefits of niche marketing, rather than limiting the number of clients that will be drawn to you, marketing to a specific niche can actually bring you more clients. This article discusses the logic behind developing a niche and how to go about selecting one.
What is a Niche Market?
A niche market is a group of people with something in common. It could be similar interests, hobbies, age group, gender, social background, ethnicity, religion, lifestyle, educational background, values, etc. Those within a niche market have similar desires and needs and therefore a product or service is marketed specifically to serve them.
Why is a Niche Market Important for Healing Professionals?
Large businesses usually do blanket marketing where they market to everyone. They have big budgets that allow them to do this, and are often already known to the mass population so achieve success with this method. However, for healing professionals and others in smaller business who can’t possibly market to or meet the needs of the masses, niche marketing is much more effective as it provides a manageable sized market to focus upon.
Niche marketing allows you to market to your ideal clients. You will also know more easily where to find these ideal clients. For example, if you were a homeopathic doctor targeting young children, you would market your services in places where parents are likely to find out about you. You might advertise or write articles in parent magazines, or join organizations geared towards parents.
In addition, when you have a niche market potential clients will more easily be able to decide whether your services will meet their needs and desires or not. If you are coach who targets women in mid-life who are seeking a career change, any woman who fits these criteria will easily be able to determine if she is likely a suitable client.
Furthermore, people prefer specialists as opposed to generalists when seeking a service professional. If you were looking for a counselor for help with problems you were having with your intimate partner, wouldn’t you rather see a counselor who specializes in couples counseling as opposed one who seems to serve everyone? You would likely believe that a counselor who specializes in work with couples is going to be able to provide you with a better service than a generalist would.
Another benefit of having a focused niche market is that it is much easier to get known in your field when you are seen as an expert. Because you are well known for your expertise, when someone needs that expertise, they think of you.
In today’s crowded marketplace, it increasingly is becoming essential to have a niche market if you want to be successful in your helping or healing practice. You must find a way to make yourself stand out from the crowd.
How To Choose A Niche Market
1. Brainstorm. Think about what people are looking for as you talk with them. Read and watch the news to see what is current on people’s minds. Pay attention to what is going on around you and to current trends in society. You never know when a niche opportunity is going to present itself.
2. Choose a niche that you're passionate about. It’s a lot easier to motivate yourself to market to a population of people that you enjoy working with. Passion and enthusiasm are also contagious. If you are excited about your work within your niche, potential clients will sense this and be more interested in working with you.
3. You should obviously have knowledge and experience about the niche or at least be learning about the topic and be planning to become an expert in it.
4. You want your niche market to be large enough so you have enough people to market to-- but not so large that it includes too many people and ends up lacking focus.
5. Research the viability of your niche. You need to know if people are actually interested in, and want or need services in your niche area. There is no use offering a service that interests you, but that others don’t want to buy. Another part of establishing the viability of your niche is researching the competition you will have. If you choose a niche market that has high competition it will be more challenging to be successful at marketing it.
6. You must be able to identify and know where to reach your niche population so that you can market to the people within it. As a healing professional, it’s very important that you can reach your market easily and cost-effectively as your resources as a solo professional will always be limited.
Many wonder if it is possible to market to more than one niche population. The answer is yes, but you will have to be clear in making the distinctions between your target areas, as you don’t want them to become blurred together so that your niche becomes unfocused. In addition, it often takes more time and effort to market to more than one niche area. However, there are healing professionals who are successful with more than one niche market just like there are those who are successful marketing themselves as generalists.
Selecting a niche can be a challenging aspect of starting and marketing a practice because you have to overcome your fears about focusing on a particular market and then make a commitment to serve that particular population. There is also much to learn about marketing within any niche area. As with everything in marketing a practice, knowledge, persistence and patience do pay off for those who make the commitment to succeed.
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Juliet Austin, MA
Marketing Coach, Consultant & Copywriter
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Juliet Austin has a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology and worked as an educator, researcher and counselor for over 20 years.
In the late 90's Juliet completed a career change into the field of marketing when she Graduated from CoachU, The Institute of Life Coach Training and became a member of the School of Coaching at Coachville. Juliet also completed numerous courses and classes on marketing, Internet marketing and website copywriting and promotion.
She is a member of several professional organizations including The International Association of Coaches, The Canadian Counselling Association, Healers in Business and The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies.
As a Marketing Coach, Consultant and Copywriter, Juliet assists healing professionals and socially responsible business owners who are struggling to attract clients or sell their products. She helps her clients in overcoming resistances to marketing, develop and implement no or low-cost marketing strategies for both on and off the Internet, write compelling website copy and promote their websites.
Juliet writes for several publications both on and off the Internet. Her articles have appeared in publications in Canada, the US and in Australia. In addition, she is also co-author with Sue Bond of the ebook: How To Become A Coach: A Guide for Therapists and Counselors.
Juliet also leads workshops and teleclasses on various marketing topics for those involved in the spiritual, metaphysical and healing arts.
Assisting healing professionals in marketing a practice has become a creative and intellectual form of self-expression for Juliet. Being an ideas person who thrives on change and variety, she is constantly developing new projects. Her ongoing quest for knowledge as well as the passion she has for marketing and her work with her clients ensures that she stays current with cutting-edge on and off-line marketing methods.
Juliet is the author of the Free Report, " 67 Surefire Ways To Attract Clients" which you can get at:
www.julietaustin.com
For more information about Juliet's services, visit her website at:
www.julietaustin.com
or one of her blogs at:
www.marketingaprivate
practice.com
and:
www.websitedesignand
promotion.com
Juliet can also be reached at:
604.730.1838
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