The term “niche” is used quite often in online business, especially in the Internet Marketing circle. On a basic level, a niche is simply a targeted group of people that share a common interest. For instance, you may be a guitar player who has been playing for years and would love to turn that into money online. Playing guitar in general is a pretty broad niche, and it’s often better to narrow it down a little when it comes to niche marketing online.

In this case, you might want to find a more specific type of guitar player. As an example, you might focus on promoting products or services to rock guitar players, or blues guitar players. You could promote specific guitar lessons that focus on their type of music, or actual guitars that are better for playing their type of music.

To take it even further you might even focus on a smaller, more targeted group such as acoustic folk guitar lessons for new guitar players.

Now, if you’re new to niche marketing, you might be wondering why you’d want to focus on such a  small group of people if you are trying to make the most money possible.

While it may seem like you are focusing on a “small” group, you’re actually not on the big scheme of things. What you’re doing is catering to a specific need and giving them what they can’t get from the bigger business that manufacture the products and/or services, and that’s detailed, focused information, specific to them.

So, in essence, you become an expert and the expert to come to for information in a specific niche without actually competing with the company that you’re promoting.

So, think about something that you are already knowledgeable in. Or, even if you’re interested in learning about something, that’s good enough to. But it’s beneficial to choose niches that will hold your interest enough to be somewhat passionate about yourself if you’re promoting it to others.

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Niche marketing seems to go against everything you instinctively want to do in order to make money and produce the most sales possible. It’s a common mistake for people to automatically assume that the best approach is to  get your product or service out to the masses regardless of who they are. Unfortunately, what this actually does is waste a lot of time and energy and rarely generates the return you’re hoping to achieve.

You want to narrow your market down as specifically as possible to a small niche of potential customers. Then, focus your efforts on getting them to buy. Why waste your time selling to those who have no interest in what you have to offer and therefore, have no intention of every purchasing from you?

To help you understand niche marketing further and how it can benefit you and lead to bigger success, here are some examples:

Virtual Assistants

A great example of niche marketing is virtual assistant businesses. A virtual assistant service is a niche because they market to a specified group of people wanting and needing their administrative and technical services without the need to hire an in-house employee.

While virtual assistance is a niche market in its own right, in order to be more successful VAs should consider narrowing their niche down even further. Tapering down the services offered to an even smaller list is extremely beneficial to service providers such as VAs. Most virtual assistants find the most success when a niche is clearly defined and only a few services, as opposed to a wide array of them, are performed.

For instance, a virtual assistant may offer specialized services to real estate agents, coaches, Internet marketers, etc. If the VA really wants to see results she could go even further with her niche and offer ghostwriting services, content management services, proofreading and editing, or something else. The key is to specialize in one or two things your target customer is in need of and become the expert in that area.

Internet Marketers

There are literally millions of potential customers an Internet marketer can cater to. However, just like the virtual assistant, the biggest success will come when an Internet marketer narrows down his or her target market. Here are some common niches these marketers provide information to.

Newbie Internet Marketers
Moms
Moms in Online Business
Bloggers
Info Product Creators
Article Marketers
Content Site Owners

Keep in mind even these groups can be broken down further to create a tighter, more defined niche market.

Another way to help further define niche is to contrast it to the masses. Mass marketing is just that, marketing to the masses…millions of people. A niche, on the other hand, is a small, defined group of people.

One example is pets. While they are a niche, they are a very large niche. However, you can narrow the large niche into a smaller, more defined niche by specifying cats, dogs, birds and so on. You can take it a step even further and narrow each of these niches down to a specific breed of dogs, cats or birds.

As you can see in the examples above, by narrowing your market you’re able to focus on the type of work you want to do and enjoy. Zoning in on a niche makes it easier to maintain a concentrated marketing focus instead of trying to service everyone in every area of business.

Remember the old saying, “You can’t please all of the people all of the time“. This is true no more than in niche marketing.

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