You've Selected Your Niche, Now It's Time for Some Marketing

As marketers, we typically favor common brands or businesses whenever we take on advertising campaigns for new clients. However, endorsing niche businesses can be more fun and satisfying than familiar endeavors.

Marketing for a specialty niche requires more thought and effort on your part to be successful. For many marketers, it is simply easier to stick with well-known tactics and industries. Unfortunately, a cookie-cutter marketing strategy may not have the desired outcomes, so it is important for the brave souls who venture into the unknown of niche marketing to understand how to customize their tactics to fit the brand.

1. Take Advantage of User-Generated Content

Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most coveted forms of promotion available because it serves two purposes: it’s free advertising that endorses your product and it is a chance to interact with customers who already love your product or services. People are more likely to trust a friend or a celebrity endorsement of your product than any other form of advertising you could do, so leverage the voices of your fans through social media and video sharing platforms.

2. Remember, Not All Advertising Platforms are Created Equal

Promoting your business on social media such as Facebook and Twitter seem like a no-brainer. You want to get in front of your audience and what better way to do that than to advertise where they spend most of their time? However, just because a platform has many users, it may not be the best place to market your business.

Consider LinkedIn, for example. LinkedIn is a fantastic place to make business connections. However, if your product is not meant to be used by businesses, you are likely wasting your time, effort, and money trying to gain business from an uninterested crowd.

Instead, review each platform independently. Consider the demographics, preferences, and even the stylistic differences to identify the best platform for you. Not every social media platform is the best place for your product or service. Instead, you can reach a more relevant, targeted audience by limiting yourself to a few carefully selected platforms where you know your target audience is likely to interact with your advertising.

3. Form Industry Relevant Partnerships

You create loyal customers when you simplify the customer experience to make it easier for them to order and receive your product. However, running a small niche business is considerably demanding by itself. Most small business owners do not consider marketing a priority, especially when budgets are thin and more important expenses exist.

Fortunately, there are cost-effective ways to get your product in front of your intended audience. In some cases, you can form relevant relationships with bloggers in your industry who can mention your product on their blog, or better still, allow you to post guest articles on their established blog. Small businesses can also take advantage of social media by seeking out the influencers within their market to partner with. Additionally, as a small business owner, you can seek out marketing experts within the industry who can provide helpful tips on how to bring their product to market or even do their digital marketing for them at a reasonable rate.

4. Don’t Forget Offline Marketing

As a digital marketer, it may sound a bit outlandish for me to say that not every audience can be reached through mobile apps and online advertising. However, even in our highly digital world, offline marketing is especially useful for certain niche businesses because it gives customers the chance to hold, sample, and touch your products. Additionally, non-digital marketing tactics including flyers, mailers, pamphlets, business cards, even billboards, and radio mentions can help a niche business gain the recognition they need to grow.

Offline marketing tactics do not need to be expensive to be successful. You can start small by attending local events, acting as a guest speaker, offering discount cards to your preferred charities. Although the results of offline marketing are harder to measure, the more ways you can get the word out about your product to the masses, the better chances you will have in establishing yourself within your niche.

5. Leverage Sustainable Mediums

If you are in it for the long haul, finding a maintainable medium for endorsing your business is important irrespective of size or niche. Video is an excellent example of a sustainable medium and with the rise of YouTube and other social sharing platforms, it is extraordinarily easy to start up a simple video marketing campaign. Depending on your product, creating how-to guides, videos of people using the product, and consumer testimonials can be an extremely effective way to become well-known in your niche.

Just because your product is a bit odd or a different, that doesn’t mean it will fail. Effective marketing doesn’t rely on following rules and best practices. You can be as creative as you want, testing new tactics and experimenting with different platforms until you find the most effective methods for your product. It may be tempting to follow ‘tried and true’ marketing techniques for every business type, but the truth is ‘best practices’ exist because someone found a solution to a very specific problem that you may not have. Instead, make your marketing plan as unique as your product, try new things, bend the rules or even break them to find your perfect mix.