laneimageconsulting
What’s a niche anyway?
A niche is a specific area of the image consulting and personal styling market that you choose to focus on.
You will also hear the term ‘ideal client’, which is used interchangeably with niche.
Your ideal client is the type of person you help in your chosen niche.
Your niche could be something specific that you do, like helping women who’ve just been through divorce.
Or you could niche around a specific age group, like new Mums or retired women/60+ etc.
| Example Of A Niche As an example I’m going to use a lady I came across a while ago, called Trisha, who is a fashion designer/ personal stylist based in Paris.She has a very narrow niche and only creates dresses for women. She designs dresses to suit their exact colouring and style personality. She speaks of nothing other than this. If you knew about this lady and you would love a custom made dress, she would be your go-to person. The tagline on her profile is…Making the world a more beautiful place one dress at a time Now that’s an amazingly clear and clever niche if you as me. |
So why should you niche?
There are loads of reasons and I could go on for days, but here are five for starters:
1) When you niche, you can get really specific.
It will save you time when it comes to creating marketing and other materials. When I was first in business and hadn’t learned about the concept of niching an ideal client, I was trying to sell to everyone: women, men, corporate organisations. I spent days creating different materials to try to educate them all on my various services and why they needed my help. It was exhausting! The financial return from winning occasional clients never outweighed the time and energy I put into trying to win them in the first place and that was heartbreaking.
2) When you niche, you become the go-to expert in your chosen area.
If you focus on helping one type of client over and over again, you get to know them inside out and upside down. You know what their worries and problems are and you know exactly how to address them quickly. You’re left with very happy customers who talk to their friends about how wonderful you are and your confidence soars!
3) When you niche you have NO competition!
If you’re providing the exact same services as every other stylist out there, you’re in competition with them all. Niching makes you stand out from the crowd. It’s your point of differentiation. Think about Trisha, who I mentioned earlier. If she marketed herself simply as a personal stylist or fashion designer, you’re thinking ‘so what’? There are SO many others. Once you see that she does only dresses AND dresses to suit her clients’ individual style and colouring, you take notice. She’s suddenly different from all the other fashion designers and personal stylists out there.
4) When you niche your marketing becomes effortless.
When you niche and then define your ideal client, you can create all your social media posts, blogs and videos with one person in mind. You can imagine they’re sat in the room like a friend and you’re talking directly to them. It’s so much easier to come up with topics that you can talk about.Still not convinced?Imagine being asked to go live on video when you help men, women and corporations. What on Earth do you talk about when you’re trying to speak to all of them?
5) Niching stops your clients from getting confused.
If you’re always having to change your messages to appeal to different people, you’re going to confuse everyone. Confused people do nothing. They certainly don’t buy. When you niche, your messages become focused and consistent. Consistency makes people pay attention. Once they start paying attention, they get to know you. Once they get to know you, like you, and trust you, they buy.
What are your thoughts on niching?
Have you found yours?
If you are still struggling to find your niche, then check out my Ideal Client Challenge which will help you find your niche.