A niche marketing strategy means targeting your specific audience with your specific professional niche.
After undergoing extensive training, obtaining the proper licenses and qualifications, and laying down the foundation for your business, it’s time to look ahead. Whether you’re an accountant, lawyer, doctor, or something more niche, there will always be a customer base in need of your services.
Many professionals become disheartened when they realize the market is often flooded with fierce competition. It’s essential you find ways to stand out from the crowd and hone in on your target market.
That’s exactly why we advocate niche marketing for professional services. But what exactly do we mean by that?
WHAT IS A NICHE MARKETING STRATEGY?
Niche marketing is when a business focuses all marketing efforts towards a well-defined target demographic.
Whatever this niche market may be, they have their own unique set of needs outside of the average market. For example, everyone needs at least one pair of shoes, but not everyone is in the market for designer-brand pumps or vegan leather sandals.
Let’s explore some examples of niche marketing focuses that require your attention. We’ll cover some of the most common examples here, but this is by no means an extensive list.
GEOGRAPHIC AREA
Marketing your services toward customers in a specific geographic area allows you to narrow in on your target customer base. When you market your services to a specific geographic area, your goal is to reach residents of a particular city, country, or neighborhood.
For example, a professional interior designer may use niche marketing to attract residents of a certain area that align with this designer’s style, cost, and methods.
To further this example, an interior designer who focuses on minimalism and eco-friendly materials will have better luck targeting cities with similar values through their marketing strategies rather than less progressive areas.
COST
Is your professional service status-focused or geared towards wealthy elites? Or do you take pride in offering your service at a discount?
This type of niche marketing is popular for professional services with frequently hefty price tags—doctors and lawyers, we’re looking at you. Keeping the income level of your potential customers in mind while developing a niche marketing strategy will help you understand the type of advertisements your potential clients want to see and are more likely to engage with.
VALUE
In today’s competitive world, you must always focus on presenting a unique value proposition to your potential customers. This means advertising the ways in which your service is beneficial to your customers. Focus on the way your services will solve customers’ problems better, faster, or easier than any of your competitors.
This is your opportunity to make yourself stand out and make your services look more attractive to potential customers. For example, an architect with an incredibly astute eye for detail may want to emphasize their value to hesitant, first-time home builders.
AGE, GENDER, AND LEVEL OF EDUCATION
Does your IT service want to reach an older demographic that’s feeling a little computer-shy? Or does your team of engineers want to recruit more women in a field that’s 87% male?
Whatever the reason, demographics like age group, gender, and education level are essential factors in niche marketing for professional services.
NICHE MARKETING STRATEGY EXAMPLES
Ready to make your professional service stand out? Take a peek at some of our tips and tricks below. Each tip has a case study to match, so feel free to check those out for more info!
KNOW YOUR CLIENTS
We all think we know what our clients want, but it pays to be sure with quantitative research. Case in point: Family Psychiatry of North Jersey, a professional service we helped with SEO strategy.
Knowing precisely what clients searched for allowed us to identify content gaps and capitalize on those digitally. Knowing your clients also helps to create keyword-rich blogs and boosts your search ranking even more.
It will also help you identify the type of advertisements your clients want to see and the ways in which they’re most likely to engage with new professional services. Older clients may prefer to speak over the phone, while younger people might prefer to use a chat feature on your website.
KNOW YOUR COMPETITION
Niche professional services need niche marketing strategies to match. This was evident when we collaborated with the DC Group, an electrical engineering service here in Minneapolis.
By researching DC’s competition, we created PPC campaigns that stood apart from the rest. It’s no wonder that the DC Group is still ahead of the curve today!
When researching your competition, you’ll see what they’ve done to generate a significant positive response. Use their evidence of success as inspiration to continue pushing your marketing strategy forward with new techniques and ideas!
REMEMBER B2B MARKETING
Sometimes we get so client-focused that we forget we need to market to other businesses, too—especially when it comes to professional services! That’s why the retail and technology consultant, Logic Information Systems, turned to us for advice in niche B2B marketing.
As a multinational business, it was essential to boost UX for a diverse range of retail partners. We also developed a consistent brand tone and seamless site navigation to ensure a high UX for Logic’s partners worldwide.
MAKE ADJUSTMENTS AS NEEDED
Look, we know it’s frustrating to craft a niche marketing approach that doesn’t work out the first time. Trust us; we’ve been there. But more often than not, a tweak or two will get you on the right track.
This happened for us with the DC Group, whom we talked about earlier.
We tested Bing Ads for their business, and despite promising PPC analytics, we didn’t see the results we’d hoped for. We learned that focusing instead on AdWords and display brought more ROI to this client. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?
ADVANTAGES OF NICHE MARKETING
Now that we’ve discussed different ways you can implement some niche marketing strategies, let’s discuss the benefits of niche marketing. Remember earlier when we spoke about the ever-increasing level of competition when marketing professional services?
With niche marketing, you’re eliminating a large percentage of the competition. When you break your marketing down to a super specific group that factors in geographic area, cost, value, and various demographics, you’re left with your ideal target customer base.
Naturally, this leads to a smaller audience, but this actually brings us to the second advantage of niche marketing. That smaller audience means you have a significantly higher chance of developing strong brand loyalty right from the start.
Using niche marketing also allows you to showcase your specific expertise and spend less on marketing than when taking a mass marketing approach, which will lead to a higher ROI.
Simply put, niche marketing allows you to place your services directly in front of those who will actually take advantage of and benefit from them, which allows you to spend less and make more!