Do you have a clearly defined Niche Market in mind for your e-commerce business? If you don’t, then you may be missing out on a real opportunity to increase your conversion rate.
Niche marketing targets a smaller, more focused group of potential clients than the broader spectrum of everyone who might want or need a product or service. It is a technique used to speak directly to people based on who they are, what they want, how you can help them, and how you can do so with added value over your competitor’s offerings.
Chances are that if you sell books, for instance, there is a lot of competition trying to reach the broad range of people who want to buy books. When you develop a Niche Market based on your bestsellers, such as cookbooks, then you can more effectively target readers who also like to cook, narrowing down the possibilities and clearly focusing your efforts.
How do you identify the best niche for your company? Here are a few tips to help your research efforts.
Identify Your Customers Needs
Your customers are more than a big fat cheque book just waiting to buy your products or service. They are people. They have needs. They want to solve problems or add something positive to their lives. Your job is to figure out who they are and why they need your company’s offerings.
Using our example of a cookbook vendor, think about the person behind the customer who is interested in that particular product. Is it the female head of household who works all day and needs to find fast, easy, and nutritious recipes to make for her family’s dinner? Is she middle income, pressed for time, stressed out? All of these things present a problem in her life. When you market directly to her and present solutions, you are well on your way to making a sale.
What Does Your Target Market Read?
It is unlikely that your target market buys only the products you offer. In the case of potential buyers for a cookbook, chances are they read other publications devoted to food and cooking. Take a lot at the magazines on the rack in your local retail store. Browse through the articles to get a better concept of what your target market is looking for. It may be that you further narrow down your niche to cookbooks with healthy, low-calorie recipes or those that suggest wine pairings.
Keyword Research
So now if we imagine in our scenario that the niche for our business is going to be healthy cookbooks, we can go even further and do some keyword research related to this niche. The free Google keyword tool is a great one to use for this purpose. Plug in your keywords of “healthy cookbook” and you can retrieve a list that tells you instantly whether people are searching for recipes for family dinners, cooking for two, diabetic recipes, or any other subtle variations.
Now that you have identified your Niche Market, it is time to get to work marketing to your potential clients. But at least you have a better idea of exactly what you need to focus on and what potential solutions you can provide to solve the most common problems associated with it. This is the best way to offer value and increase your conversion rates.
See you at the top of Google!
Sean Rasmussen
SEO Australia Pacific
AussieSEO.com © 2007 - 2010
I understand the need to do keyword research and think I am getting pretty good at it now. I need to concentrate on the other aspects.
.-= Gee´s last blog ..Choosing Keywords and Understanding Their Importance =-.
Hi Sean,
I have trouble narrowing down broad markets to find the niche market that will make me money. I think my main problem is that I’m not reducing the size of the market far enough.
The niche is still too big, if that makes sense. And, once I’ve chosen a product, I’ve just been registering a domain and starting to write my blog. I definitely haven’t spent enough time considering exactly who I’m trying to get to buy my products.
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Learn and Earn Competition – This is It =-.
Hi Sean
Targeting in on a niche market is a real skill and one that I believe you can learn with lots of helpful advice, education and tweaking.
I can see that you have to use good detective tactics to target the right market for your product and identifying the needs of your customers. Once you have done that then using the right keywords will enhance SEO.
You say that Niche marketing targets a smaller amount of traffic and I would think that a good thing as the customers looking for you will have a specific product in mind rather than just general browsing. Thankyou for this great information.
.-= Elly Wilson´s last blog .. =-.
I think this is a core attitude to have when setting up an online buiness and email marketing etc.
“Your customers are more than a big fat cheque book just waiting to buy your products or service. They are people. They have needs. They want to solve problems or add something positive to their lives. Your job is to figure out who they are and why they need your company’s offerings.” (quote from above)
Thanks Sean<
I too have trouble identifying a great niche market but I guess it will get easier over time and with more experience.
I am learning through these blog post's that research plays a big part in finding a great niche market & figuring out exactly what the market wants so you can better service you customers & potential prospects.
My biggest problem has been identifying a great niche market. I take an idea, do the research, identify keywords, run the estimated traffic numbers, etc. and it always appears as if no one else is interested in what interests me and they don’t seem to search for things the way I do.
Now that may be a bit of an exaggeration but it appears I have some shortcomings when it comes to identifying potential customers’ needs, reading my target market, and doing keyword research. That’s why I decided Sean’s Learn and Earn competition was a good place to spend 7 weeks.
.-= Don White´s last blog ..Psycho- =-.
I share your frustration Don. Getting that niche right is what I find difficult – sounds great on paper – but to do it – is another thing.
Keyword research is part of the task – finding high denand and low supply – isn’t that hard with tools such as Googles KW tool – but then translating that into a niche is where I get stuck.
One thing I do is then Google the KW to see what the competition is – then narrow it done by using variations of the long tail phrase (KW) to see what happens then.
Hi Sean,
I must admit I haven’t done much research in this area yet. I think I may have a niche market and I have a blog related to it but I haven’t done proper keyword research to see if it’s viable.
I realise now I haven’t done proper searches to see how much competition is out there. I don’t think there’s any but that’s not good enough to make any decisions on. I’m learning slowly though. I’m pretty happy with my progress.
.-= Jill Brown´s last blog ..Couples Marry at Common Law =-.
I hope it proves to be a good niche for you.
Don’t forget to use Googles other tools when you find your keywords etc
Trends
Traffic Estimator
Foxy SEO (density estimates) use on a competitors pages to see their KWs
I have developed a niche market with my ebay store which I stumbled across. I feel my market on my website is definately too broad though and I need to find a smaller niche. I will keep looking.
.-= Jackie Stenhouse´s last blog ..Anxiety Separation in Children =-.
That’s great that you are using eBay – something I fear to go into. I hope it goes from strength to strength
Good advise here Sean. These days there doesn’t seem to be a point getting online unless you focus on a particular niche. I have also heard the term ‘micro niche’ being used more and more as a better way to rank. Have not yet looked into whether this is true, but could yield interesting results.
.-= Cemil´s last blog ..Scribe SEO Plugin – Making SEO Easy =-.