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Unlike the larger markets, a niche market allows you to place a greater focus on your customer base because you have a smaller customer base to work with. Think about a classroom and the number of students in it.
As the number of students goes up, the pressure put on the teacher to get the best education to all of them goes up as well. The teacher's time has to be split among a lot more people, which means the attention given to each will naturally go down. On the other side, when the numbers are low, each person is able to get that much more attention, and so will learn a lot more from the classroom.
This applies specifically to the business world, and is a good showcase of what makes a niche so effective. All of your marketing is honed in on that smaller market, so you'll be able to create ads much better suited to your market than you would normally be able to.
But there are problems to consider, and the main purpose of this article.
See, what often happens is the company focusing on the smaller market starts putting less attention into their marketing because they have a smaller audience to appeal to. Let's use postcard printing as a more specific example.
Now, if you have a large audience you're naturally going to need to spend more money on your postcard printing, and be forced to try to make a single postcard that appeals to a wide variety of people, or go to the added cost of designing multiple postcards for each part of the population.
If you instead focus on a niche you're now able to send more postcards to this small group, and all of your postcards can be specific to them. But many companies choose to spend less money and time on their marketing because they have fewer people to focus on.
Instead you need to keep your effort the same. That way you have a better chance of securing sales because that much more attention is being given to a smaller pool of people. You'll have a much higher success rate in the end.
Send out more postcards over a shorter period of time, or stretch your marketing into multiple forms of marketing at the same time, while still focusing on the same niche market. Through these methods you aren't giving the niche less of your attention than you would the large market, and by doing so you're going to have more sales to show for it.
A niche means a more focused message, but it doesn't mean you should give your marketing less attention. If you do that than you're wasting the true potential of a niche market.
Mention the “b” word, as in BUDGET, to a friend and they’ll look at you like you have a third eye growing from the middle of your forehead. For most people the word budget too often carries negative meanings such as limits, restrictions, living on an allowance, giving things up, no shopping, no fun.
Unfortunately, the point they’re missing is that a budget doesn’t limit you but instead gives you freedom. That’s right - FREEDOM. The words “budget” and “freedom” are not mutually exclusive, once you understand what a budget can do for you.
Having and using a budget will give you direction. Your budget is your personal map of how you’re going to move financially from “point A” to “point B” and so on. Would you like to pay off your credit card debt? Buy a new house or car? Save for retirement? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then let me ask you one more - how are you going to do it? What’s your plan?
Let’s take a look at paying off your credit card debt. You’ve decided to lower your debt by adding an extra $20 to your monthly payments. Great idea - as long as you can afford it and you stop using your credit cards. However, you won’t know if you have the extra $20 if you don’t know what your monthly expenses are from the start. With a budget you may find that you can actually afford more and pay off your debts faster. You’ll have the freedom to use your money more wisely and achieve your goal.
What about buying a new house or car? If you don’t have a budget, you won’t know how much you can pay for a house or a car payment. Make that mistake and you’ll get a visit from the repo man or you’ll find yourself in foreclosure. Your budget gives you the freedom to make an informed decision.
How about saving for retirement? Unfortunately most of us don’t consider retirement savings until we’re into our forties or even fifties. Imagine if only we’d been smarter, had a budget, and started contributing toward our retirement when we were 10, 20, or 30 years younger?
Having a budget doesn’t limit you. It gives you the freedom to make informed financial decisions, allows you to use your money more wisely, and achieve your financial goals more quickly and easily.
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