How do I find my niche?
You’ve probably heard the term ‘niche’ but maybe unsure what it means and whether you need one, if so, read on and we’ll break it down. So, what is a niche?
Your niche is a specific area of expertise or focus in which your business operates. It refers to the industry, sector, product category, or service offering that you specialise in.
Understanding your niche can you help differentiate yourself from the competition when you build your product, advertise your services, and build your processes. Tailoring the way you work and what you do to meet the needs of your specific target market with lead to attracting better customers, retaining customers and building customer loyalty.
Serving your niche allows you to build a product tailored for your customers, and helping you create a unique value proposition that really sets you apart from the competition.
What if I don’t have a niche?
Not all businesses have a niche. They may serve a wide range of markets with a generalised product or service. The range and size of their markets might mean by appealing to all there’s plenty of business to go round, and therefore they don’t need to stand out.
You might not want to take over and specialise one or two specific markets, that’s fine and there’s no right or wrong way to do business, it’s all about ensuring your business is meeting your individual goals.
However, if you want to develop a business with significant value and brand, it’s likely you will have to find a niche and then focus on serving that market to really differentiate yourself.
How do I assess my niche?
You will need to consider a number of factors to help you understand your market and your specific niche:
Define your niche: Write down what makes your niche unique, what are it’s key components:specific industry, product category, or service offering.
Do your research: Conduct market research to better understand the needs and preferences of your target audience. This can include surveys, focus groups, or social media monitoring.
Assess the competition: Look at the competition in your niche and identify their strengths and weaknesses. This can help you identify areas where you can differentiate yourself and offer a unique value proposition.
Look for market gaps: Find the gaps in the market that your niche can fill. This could be an customer need that isn’t being fulfilled or just an area where the competition is limited or weak.
Assess the demand: Is there demand for your niche? There’s no point developing a niche for something no one wants or needs. Look at the size of the market, is it growing
Understand customer behaviour: Understand how customers in your niche behave, including their buying behaviour, decision-making process, and preferences. This can help you tailor your marketing efforts to better target and engage them.
I need some help!
Working out your niche isn’t easy, so don’t worry if it doesn’t come straight away. Your business will change over time, and so might your niche.
At Scotch Accounting we intentionally started by being very broad, offering our services to start-up, small and medium sized businesses.
In our first year we found that our business planning, performance and forecasting services were the things that really set us apart.
We also learnt that we attracted a number of businesses in the creative and healthcare sectors that were looking to grow, both service-based businesses and ecommerce product-based businesses.
Our approach and services really helped these businesses set a strategy for growth and helped to ensure they stayed on track.
We supported our findings with market research and found that what clients wanted from their accountant was changing, from dealing with compliance only to now providing proactive strategic business advice – and this again played to our strengths. Our niche was born.
Let Scotch Accounting help you find your niche
If your business needs help planning for the future, including identifying your niche, contact us and we’d be happy to share how we’ve helped many businesses like yours.
