As a professional service provider, you’ve trained extensively at what you do, and have the license and qualifications to prove it. Whether you’re an accountant, lawyer, doctor, or something more niche, there will always be a need for you.
What’s disheartening for many professional service providers is that the market is often flooded with like professionals. In other words, you have a lot of talented competition, and it’s crucial to stand out from the crowd to stay afloat. That’s exactly why we advocate a niche marketing approach for professional services. But what exactly do we mean by that?
What Is Niche Marketing?
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 for professional services. We’ll cover some of the most common examples here, but this is by no means an extensive list.
Geographic Area
Professional services that market to specific geographic areas want to appeal to residents of a particular city, country, or neighborhood. For example, an urban planner might use niche marketing to sway residents of a town regarding a new transit system that’s in the works.
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.
Value
In other words, does your professional service offer a unique level of quality that sets you apart from the rest? 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.
What Are the Best Niche Marketing Strategies for Professional Services?
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 boost your search ranking even more.
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!
Don’t Forget About 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?
What Are You Waiting For? It’s Time to Take That Niche Approach
Researching your audience and refining your niche digital strategy takes time and effort. We know you’re busy doing great things in the professional service sector, so why not leave marketing your business to us? Our strategies are just as unique as your target market—come and discover that for yourself!