Recently, I was asking a home-based entrepreneur what was her niche -- who was she selling to? Her answer to me was "everybody". She has great products and services, and spends a lot of money and time marketing her products and services, but she rarely makes sales.
Why is that? Hmmm....
Well, her customers don't know who they are. That is to say that she has not clearly identified who her customer is. If you don't clearly identify your target market, no one will step forward to buy, nor will anyone be able to refer prospects to you.
As my business associate, David Frey, who is the author of the best-selling,
The Marketing Bible, teaches that you can "get rich in the niche".
For instance, the niche that I tend to focus on at the typing of this blog post is network marketers. I have clearly identified challenges facing this particular group of people (and have a unique understanding because I am one of them), and my angle is to offer various relationship-building tool and a contact management solution to help them grow their business.
"Getting rich in the niche" was best explained in Chris Anderson's book
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of
Wired wrote an article published in that magazine in October 2004. It made a huge impression immediately and Mr Anderson subsequently expanded his theory into a book.
The theory refutes the long-held wisdom of the 80/20 rule whose premise is that 80% of sales would be made on the 20% of the inventory. The arrival of the Internet as a mass medium has proven this wrong. Amazon says 50% of its total sales come from a wide range of items that only sell once a month, while eBay’s staggering success came from auctioning obscure items.
The classic graph pictured above illustrates the Long Tail. The Long Tail theory is that the Long Tail equals the Head in size; that collectively many products account for as many sales as the few bestsellers.
In short, my understanding and application of the Long Tail approach as it pertains to my niche is to contiually reach out to them to add value by sharing information that will help them grow their business. I also keep my options open to offer them additonal products and service to help them meet their objectives. That way, I can 'recycle' the customer and each customer is worth more because she buys more - of less.
Don't try to sell everything though. Joining too many affiliate programs or become resellers of too many products or services will cause you to lose focus.
Well that's my two cents.
All the best,
Notes:
"Long Tail, Short Head: unprecedented cross-selling", by Annie Turner - BKI Media. Article can be viewed by
CLICKING HERE.
