Offline Business Builder Series: "How to avoid wasting time on a dead offline niche..."
Hey Offliners,
Most veteran offliners will tell you to pick a niche or vertical and then focus 100% of your time and energy on serving that niche.
That's great advice.
Unless you pick a dead niche that is filled with the skeletons of long dead businesses.
That's the exact same mistake I made when I first started. I remember it like it was yesterday.
My first niche was furniture store owners. I have years of experience in the furniture industry and did freelance work for some friends of mine, so I felt good about it.
I was dead wrong.
(I'm sharing my personal experience based on my 10 years of being in the furniture industry...yes, there are exceptions, but I wouldn't bet my business on them.)
For starters, the owners of furniture stores tend to be guys who don't believe in U.S.P based marketing.
They tend to love incest marketing, meaning their ads looks so identical to their competitors, that you could just switch out the names on the ads and no one would know the difference.
They actually want their ads to look like their competitors. Now, I have a massive swipe file myself, so I'm all for modeling success.
So, it's perfectly ok to model succes if the ads are pulling like a mule, but it's insanity when that ad hasn't worked since 1983!
Next, furniture store owners tend to put marketing fairly low on the totem pole. The average furniture store owner would rather buy new product for the showroom instead of creating a marketing campaign to sell their existing product.
It's completely counter-productive.
Just to show you the contrast...the furniture store retailers who embrace/implement/test new marketing strategies thrive.
A few examples would be Ashley's, Raymour & Flanigan, Rooms To Go...and that's just to name a few. They have marketing campaigns and customer feedback campaigns, that would put most internet marketers to shame.
So, the question is..."How do YOU avoid a dead niche and pick a good niche to target?"
First, I want to be clear and tell you that there's no 100% guaranteed way to avoid hitting a dead niche every now and then.
However, there are ways to give yourself a much better chance of finding a good niche to target.
Here's how you determine if a niche is worth investing:
1. Scan all the major print newspaper's, local magazines, their websites and the local news channel websites in your target market.
If you have on-demand on your cable provider, you can even scan through local company commercials to see who is investing in television ads too.
Make a list of the companies and industries that you're seeing advertising in those publications and websites.
That's a good sign because it means those business owners are still competing for customers.
2. Get as many businesses/industries as you can and begin to make a second list of the industries that you know for a fact that you can get results for.
3. Next, start with the major niches you feel confident that you can offer your "one thing" to and then drill down deep to uncover any related subniches. I use google's keyword tool AND state or national associations to find related subniches for a industry.
For example, you may see a ton of home repair companies advertising while doing your research.
Then, once you use google's keyword tool and scan industry association websites, you may find subniches of the home repair niche like roofing, additions, siding etc.
If you do these simple 3 steps, you will be well on your way to picking a niche that is serious about investing in improving your business.
All you have to do is get your lead gen campaign setup to let these businesses know how your "one thing" can help them get more customers and make more money.
Hope this helps,
Chris
Most veteran offliners will tell you to pick a niche or vertical and then focus 100% of your time and energy on serving that niche.
That's great advice.
Unless you pick a dead niche that is filled with the skeletons of long dead businesses.
That's the exact same mistake I made when I first started. I remember it like it was yesterday.
My first niche was furniture store owners. I have years of experience in the furniture industry and did freelance work for some friends of mine, so I felt good about it.
I was dead wrong.
(I'm sharing my personal experience based on my 10 years of being in the furniture industry...yes, there are exceptions, but I wouldn't bet my business on them.)
For starters, the owners of furniture stores tend to be guys who don't believe in U.S.P based marketing.
They tend to love incest marketing, meaning their ads looks so identical to their competitors, that you could just switch out the names on the ads and no one would know the difference.
They actually want their ads to look like their competitors. Now, I have a massive swipe file myself, so I'm all for modeling success.
So, it's perfectly ok to model succes if the ads are pulling like a mule, but it's insanity when that ad hasn't worked since 1983!
Next, furniture store owners tend to put marketing fairly low on the totem pole. The average furniture store owner would rather buy new product for the showroom instead of creating a marketing campaign to sell their existing product.
It's completely counter-productive.
Just to show you the contrast...the furniture store retailers who embrace/implement/test new marketing strategies thrive.
A few examples would be Ashley's, Raymour & Flanigan, Rooms To Go...and that's just to name a few. They have marketing campaigns and customer feedback campaigns, that would put most internet marketers to shame.
So, the question is..."How do YOU avoid a dead niche and pick a good niche to target?"
First, I want to be clear and tell you that there's no 100% guaranteed way to avoid hitting a dead niche every now and then.
However, there are ways to give yourself a much better chance of finding a good niche to target.
Here's how you determine if a niche is worth investing:
1. Scan all the major print newspaper's, local magazines, their websites and the local news channel websites in your target market.
If you have on-demand on your cable provider, you can even scan through local company commercials to see who is investing in television ads too.
Make a list of the companies and industries that you're seeing advertising in those publications and websites.
That's a good sign because it means those business owners are still competing for customers.
2. Get as many businesses/industries as you can and begin to make a second list of the industries that you know for a fact that you can get results for.
3. Next, start with the major niches you feel confident that you can offer your "one thing" to and then drill down deep to uncover any related subniches. I use google's keyword tool AND state or national associations to find related subniches for a industry.
For example, you may see a ton of home repair companies advertising while doing your research.
Then, once you use google's keyword tool and scan industry association websites, you may find subniches of the home repair niche like roofing, additions, siding etc.
If you do these simple 3 steps, you will be well on your way to picking a niche that is serious about investing in improving your business.
All you have to do is get your lead gen campaign setup to let these businesses know how your "one thing" can help them get more customers and make more money.
Hope this helps,
Chris