“Giving them what they want” is about “filling a niche.” Rather than creating a product and hoping someone wants to buy it, to achieve sure success, you must find out what people want, then give it to them. This is the main difference between niche marketing and mass marketing. Mass marketing creates the need: niche marketing fills the need.
Wal-Mart is mass marketing. Mass marketing creates demand. A business specializing in “Just White Shoes” is a niche business. A niche business caters to existing demand. Niche businesses typically need a specific type of clientele - determined buyers who know what their problem is, but don't know the solution. However, in a bricks and mortar business, filling a tight niche may be a struggle. “Just White Shoes” may not be a feasible niche for a bricks and mortar business in a small town because there will likely not be enough customers to make it profitable, but “Just White Shoes” MAY be a goldmine on the Internet because there is a world of people out there looking for shoes for weddings and special occasions and you win when you solve their problem and give them what they want.
By providing solutions to existing problems that people are already seeking answers for, you will be able to carve out a very profitable niche online. But you MUST be clear on what it is that people want and then be very clear in letting them know that will deliver.
So before you invest your life savings launching your online business selling your hand made lace doilies, you must make sure that people want them. It’s far easier to fill an existing demand then create to create one. But what if they DON'T want them? Is your Interned dream destroyed? Not at all! You can “spin” your product to fill an existing need. The solution may be lace dooilies, but the problem may be interior decorating related, Victorian antiques related or any other possible problem. Your mission is to find the problem lace doilies solves.
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We’ve found through years of online research that if you can identify a problem that people have, and if through your research you uncover that there are enough people with the same problem, you can position your product or service as the solution and carve out a very sweet online marketing niche, that customers will flock to!
Most consultants are familiar with this mode of marketing and selling – conveniently known as solution selling, but when it comes to promoting your website on the Internet it is crucial that you address the visitors’ problem. With 60 million or more sites on the Net, you’re not likely to be found if someone is not searching for what you are offering.
And they won’t be searching if they have no desire for information; if they do not have a problem or a situation (it’s not always a bad thing that sends people to the Internet to seek out information); and they certainly won’t be searching for your product or service if it’s innovative, new and cutting edge. Because if it is, it probably offers a novel way to solve something and if it’s that unique how will the potential customer know to search for it?
There are some very reliable ways to solve the problem and give them what they want. Online research for specific KEYWORDS that people use to search online will uncover what it is exactly that people search for. This is another one of the fabulous characteristics of the Internet – search engines collect search keywords – the words and phrases people type into search engines. You can then recall them and analyse them to find out the overlap between your product or service AND the demand for a solution.
Using this “built-in” marketing data, you can very reasonably discover what people want – then give it to them; serve it up exactly the way they want so you can be the solution to their desires!
To add an infinitely persuasive "icing on the cake" method for securing the customers' business, visit our page on Becoming the Expert. Once you start to be knows as the expert, you have you niche solidfied.
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