How to Niche Down, and Why you Should

Early on in your business, or heck at any point, it can be really challenging to actively decide to eliminate potential clients by choosing to niche down. You may be thinking ‘but everyone can use my product/service’ or ‘I don’t want to alienate people who could be potential clients.’ All of that is well and good, but here’s the thing… You will be more productive and profitable if you niche down.

Let me say that again - you will be more productive and profitable if you niche down. 

What does it mean to niche down? To me, it’s just the current way of saying - get super, uber, crystal clear on who your audience is. Some people call it finding your customer avatar. Others call it defining your niche. 

Why should I niche down? You niche down in order to really serve your ideal client, in order to really reach them. In order to know who you are talking to and who you aren’t conversing with. Knowing this makes it easier to write content. It makes it easier to plan for future products and offerings. It makes it easier to navigate your social media presence. 

But doesn’t that mean I am eliminating some people in the process? 

Yes. Of course. But it also means you are going to be better able to serve your ideal customer, and better able to find more of them! I’ll give you a personal example. As I began to pull Rosebud Social together, I knew I wanted to start a boutique marketing company that would help businesses navigate and utilize their social media presence. But the more I thought about it the more I realized… I’m passionate about social media and what it can do. But I’m passionate about what it can do for the small businesses, the soloprenuers, the side-hustlers. I want to help those people. Big businesses, even mid-sized businesses can hire a marketing company or a team of virtual assistants to run their social media. But it is the people working hard and hustling every day that need my help. Those are the people I want to serve. 

Once I got clear on that it opened a whole new set of horizons. I was able to say - no I don’t want to target, speak to or reach out to large businesses or corporations. Also, no, I don’t want to work with people who are getting on social media for the first time. I want to work with the people, like me, who are trying to make this work with a small team and need some help navigating the process.  

So, go ahead. Niche down. Get specific about who you serve. Write out your ideal customer avatar. Know everything about him/her. And then once you have that clear, you can go out and start engaging with those people.