Finding your Ecommerce Niche
One of the most common misconceptions about starting an online business is that once you’ve set up your site, customers will eventually find you. Of course, people may eventually find you, but the question is: how long before they do, and at what cost, after spending thousands of dollars marketing to just about anyone who might be interested? Marketing blindly can cause a business to die a slow and painful death. On the other hand, knowing who your market is gives you greater chance of success. Before opening your eCommerce store, one of the first things you should do is find your niche.
What is a Niche Market?
A niche market is a segment of the mainstream market that is highly defined in its tastes and preferences. Unlike mainstream, niche markets can yield more lucrative results because you’re making specific products available to an audience that’s already positioned to want them.
What’s wrong with marketing to the mainstream? In eCommerce, marketing a product to an undefined audience is like throwing a message in a bottle into the sea and hoping someone from the other side of the world will find it. You are just putting your product out there, counting on anyone to chance upon it and, hopefully, buy it. Aside from being under the mercy of the public’s taste and preferences, you are facing stiff competition from established businesses. For example, if you are a bookseller, you have to contend with the likes of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
How does targeting a niche market work? Once you’ve identified your niche market, you’re not just throwing your message into the open sea, you are communicating to your customers directly.
How to Find Your Niche
What are your hobbies and interests? The first step you can take is to identify the things you are most passionate about. For example, if you love dogs, then you might enjoy running a business that has something to do with pets. There’s a market for that, definitely. However, there are pet stores and animal lovers who are already doing business online. So, try narrowing your choice, such as by breed. If you love to cook treats for your pets and concoct all natural shampoos for them using herbs, how about organic products for dogs?
To find out if there’s a demand for your product, do some research on what people are looking for online. Try using keyword tools such as Google Adwords Keyword Tool or Wordtracker to determine what people are searching for. Try typing a word or two into Google Search and it will automatically suggest commonly searched longer phrases.
Start your keyword research by making a long list of keywords that are relevant to your business and the website you are planning to build. In your search, focus on long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are used to find less competitive markets (your niche). A long tail keyword would be something like “herbal dog care shampoo” as opposed to “dog shampoo”, which is a highly-competitive broad keyword. “Dog shampoo” may return more search results, but they are of less value to you. The idea is to look for sets of keywords (and their variations) that people search most often, to help you assess market size and analyze the level of competition. Your main goal is to find and exploit keywords with little or no competition, and use them to your advantage.
Less Competitive Keywords Can Help You Dominate Your Niche
Why would you target hundreds or thousands of keywords that bring relatively little traffic? Simple. Less competition means you can get your business ranked on the first page of Google (where most people look). Long tail keywords weed out the competition, making it easier to rank and attract customers. Moreover, these less competitive keywords can convert sales surprisingly well. Visitors who are using long tail keywords are more precise about what they want. They know exactly what they need and you can provide it.
Be sure to look for potential suppliers for your niche market as part of your due diligent research, vetting out suppliers can help you find out if the product category you’re getting into is profitable or not.
Marketing to a niche segment delivers results and it’s also cost-effective. Since you are offering goods that satisfy the needs of a predefined audience, your marketing budget is going to get you better results. Knowing where your efforts and dollars are getting the biggest bang allows you to create a more aggressive and effective strategy.
Download the Niche Market Checklist.
By: Shirley Tan
