7 tips for effectively marketing your niche
27th, Jan 2017
Developing a niche is a great way to attract clients and build a distinctive brand for your firm. It differentiates you and your marketing will be more successful and effective because you are focused on your unique expertise and who you want to attract.
When firms try to define themselves too broadly – too many specialties or no specialties – they spend a lot of money and lose their ability to stand out from the competition. If you’ve got a niche, flaunt it with these tips:
1. Tell everyone what you do. It sounds silly, but too many professionals worry about promoting their niche because they think they may lose other types of business they could have gotten. So even though they may be doing some niche marketing, they aren’t promoting themselves that way to everyone. Basically they are hedging their bets. Unfortunately they lose out on the benefits they would have gotten from being explicit about their niche.
2. Write. That means everything from blogs to articles to white papers. Writing is the one of the best ways to showcase your expertise. I want to particularly emphasize long-form content. Short-form content like blogging is very useful for a lot of reasons including building your credibility and digital presence. The more you write, the more likely you are to show up in search results. However, for professional service firms, it’s great to use the blog post (and other content) as a way to lead people to more in-depth information like white papers and eBooks. Offering long-form content can be helpful in getting people to sign up for more information so you now have leads to nurture. – It also really sets you apart because people recognize that it’s hard to write something long even if they don’t read it all. With that in mind, also don’t forget about publishing actual books. It’s a lot of work, but books still impress people and have tremendous marketing value.
3. Speak. You should look for opportunities with third party organizations, but also consider doing your own event or partnering with someone on an event. It can be a live event or webinar. Also take advantage of radio and video to provide your audience with helpful information in a verbal format. Video in particular is very helpful in getting attention and beneficial for search engine optimization.
4. Develop a specialized microsite. A microsite is an individual web page or group of pages that act as a separate entity for a brand. It can have its own domain or be a subdomain. The point is that it’s a distinct area where you can provide lots of information about your niche. You should include not just information about your background and services, but more importantly provide useful content and resources. There are big branding benefits as well as search engine advantages to creating such as website.
5. Prepare a research report. Conducting a survey or culling and analyzing information from multiple sources into a report can be an excellent marketing tool. You are providing original and useful information for your audience. In addition, it is something you can promote to the press to get additional exposure. If possible, look for opportunities to partner with industry groups or other experts to give you extra credibility.
6. Maximize social media. Use social media to promote your own niche content, but also seek out opportunities to share information from other relevant resources and influencers. Be very targeted in what you share and who you share it with. Make sure to comment on other people’s posts and ask questions to start discussions. It will give you more visibility and authority on a subject.
7. Find influencers and partners. Reach out to individuals and groups with established reputations related to your niche and help them spread their message. As you build credibility with them, opportunities may arise to work with them, or get them to share your work with their audience. With organizations, get involved in committees and look to take on a leadership position. It is a great way to stay informed on the issues and make key connections that you can leverage to build your reputation.
Use these tips to make your niche marketing more successful.
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