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.
Have a most outstanding day.
Sean RasmussenAussie Internet Marketing
www.AussieSEO.com 2010
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