Meaning of Niche-Specific
Being niche-specific means focusing the entire efforts of your organisation on meeting the requirements of a specific customer segment of your industry. In other words instead of catering for the entire customer base of your industry, identify a subset of this base and then tailor all your products or services to meet the requirements of this subset.
You must be thinking that being niche specific will definitely not work for you as there are way too many concerns, the major among which would be losing out on a lot of clientele. Well, it does not have to be like that, let us show you the reason why you should start being niche-specific and how you can go about making it work for you.
Why go Niche-Specific?
We will start by showing you the reason why you should go the niche-specific way via the following example.
You have been experiencing knee pain for a while and ask your friend to recommend a good doctor. Your friend gives you two referrals:
- An MBBS doctor
- An Orthopaedic Doctor who has done an M.S.(Orthopaedics)
Both doctors have the same number of years of experience and both are considered very good, you have also never consulted either of them. So now all things being equal who would you naturally gravitate towards? True, you would choose the Orthopaedic Doctor!
Your reasoning will be – considering both have the same years of experience, the Orthopaedic would have dealt with many more patients with similar symptoms like yours and so would be able to quickly diagnose and appropriately treat you. This reasoning is absolutely natural and right for as humans we tend to gravitate towards the doctor we feel will have more experience to understand our medical problem better.
The same theory applies in every field, so now let us now take a look at how you can start being niche-specific in your particular industry and make it work to your advantage.
How Being Niche-Specific Will Work for You
Most industries are highly competitive with innumerable organisations fighting for a share of the same customer base. As an entrepreneur looking to make your mark in your industry, you must have tried to be many things to many people, basically a Jack of all trades. While you may feel that this will enable you to get a good share of the customer base with prospect for growth, the fact remains that you are just one of many in an oversaturated industry.
Instead use your years of experience in your industry to identify a more specialised segment. Think about which customer segment you have most enjoyed designing your product or service for and make that your niche market. Start specialising in your chosen niche market by slowly tailoring your product/service to exclusively suit their preference. Keep learning more about your niche customers as you go and accordingly keep modifying your product/service. It may take a while and you may not get as many customers during this transition period but hang in there. For once you have truly mastered the art of catering to your niche market you will become a true leader, in other words the go to person considered an expert in all aspects of this market. It will be your product or service customers in your niche market will choose to buy (over a generalised product), for they will know that it will meet their personal requirements and preferences.
So take the first step towards becoming niche-specific, and see how your organisation benefits from it. What you may lose in the way of general clientele you will gain multi fold by an exponential increase in specialised and loyal clientele.
