The more specific the better. When you have a handful of ideal potential clients and a solution that is customized and perfect for them, it’s far easier to get started than when you offer everything to everyone. – Seth Godin From General to Specific (visa-versa)
This is a quote from Seth Godin’s blog and if you are a niche marketer, you would find this be absolutely true. It is much easier to become the go to source for paleo diets than it is to be the go to source for dieting in general.
But here’s the kicker….
If you plan it right, it’s much easier to pivot to something broader in your market once you are the go to source. And, depending on the market size, it generally becomes necessary after a while.
It may even come accidentally…
The reason why I mention this is because, in a sense, this is what I did by accident -
- I started building a small business helping musicians and artists with internet things (Marketing and web design)
- The more people I helped, the more musicians came to me off of referrals.
- And then one day, I get a call from a small music label to redo their website and marketing.
- And then I got a referral from someone’s friend who had nothing to do with music who wanted me to help them.
- And so on.
Strangely, my clients now are a rich mix of musicians, artists, and small businesses.
But here’s something stranger…
I started off simply building websites even though, technically, I didn’t consider myself a web designer. In fact, when I first started off helping people, I explicitly told them I wasn’t a web designer but could give them a nice looking website. Over time, these same people have come to me looking for help with marketing themselves online. So, not only did I (accidentally) pivot from being a web design company that helped artists, I started doing what I was an expert in- actual marketing.
This thing is, I most likely wouldn’t have been able to compete even locally without a fair amount of advertising and a website (something that, to this day, I don’t have). And when I started this, I wasn’t even thinking “business” as in pay the bills. I was living under the shadow of spammer’s regret and simply wanted to do something good for the local music community.
Now this has been from my experience and I know that everyone is different. But the point I am making here is that sometimes if you are in a very small market, it isn’t about how tiny it is as much as it is about how broadly you can eventually expand through building relationships with those you work with or for.
Image attribution-http://www.flickr.com/photos/davemorris/3834941/
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