Why I am focusing on a niche

Hello All,

I thought I would share this with you in the hopes that it helps you focus on your offline business.

I have been doing offline for a couple of years now. I love it. My clients love me. And I have only lost one client in that time due to him not seeing the ROI he was expecting. He was a chiropractor. Which quite frankly I think he was but he hit some tough financial times and we all know the first thing to go is marketing.

One of the things that is really difficult with offline is learning and understanding what a client does, what makes them different and then writing copy/content that sells them. It just takes a lot of time to do this and every client I have is different.

Anyway, I have decided to focus in on one niche. A niche within the residential contractor world.

Recently I took one of my clients out for a beer. I asked him how much what I was doing for him was worth. He said $1500. I said I am bringing you in an extra $1500 a month. He said no, that is what I should be paying you. WHAT!!!!!

Right then and there I decided I was going to focus on this one little sub niche on the residential contractor field.

Why?

Simple.

Everything I will be doing for these contractors will be almost complete cookie cutter. Same theme, same content, same directories, same adwords, same keywords, same web 2.0 networks and blog networks that will all be highly themed because it is all within the same niche, private niche directories etc.

In other words I will cut down the amount of time significantly that I have to spend on each client. This will be an almost set it and forget situation because the back end is already set up.

After the initial set up I will more than likely only need to monitor SERP's and adwords and adding new sites to my networks.

Posting content and links to these networks can be completely outsourced. As well as the directory submissions, video submissions, press releases etc. I will probably outsource 80% to 90% of it.

Adwords will be plug and play because they have already been tested and are getting on average an 8% click through.

Secondly from a marketing stand point it makes sense as well. I have already done the research and have found mailing lists as well as other opportunities to advertise in industry magazines.

All of my marketing will be geared to this one niche. I can test a variety of things to see what is working. Build lead gen site. Build authority sites about marketing for this niche. In other words build myself up as the guru in this niche as there isn't one.

All of my testimonials will be from one niche. I can see this snowballing as I add more and more clients and get more and more testimonials from this niche.

I plan on sending out lead gen post cards. Having them call an 800 number. And then putting them in to my marketing funnel.

My client has already agreed to be my spokesman.

Steps:

1. Lead gen post card
2. Send out report, along with CD of phone interview of spokesman.
3. Send out letter from my spokesman on his letter head.
4. Phone call follow up.
5. Send out report marked up, highlighted scribbled on etc.
6. Send out CD with sales letter being read by me along with a cover letter.
7. Send out letter with a bag of peanuts from R. Squirrel.
8. Send out letter "Should We Send Out The Search Party"
9. Send out letter "Final Offer"
10. Send out letter "Okay, Really Final Offer"

My goal is to get 2-3 new clients in this niche a month. And based on the size of the companies I would be targeting there are over 10,000 businesses on that list.

Initially I am planning on charging $550 a month with no upfront. I will control everything. The domain, hosting, content, etc. If they stop paying everything will go away. Or I just plug in a different contractor.
As I gain more insight into the value of what I am offering and gain more testimonials I will more than likely raise the price.

I am also offering a 100 day money back guarantee. I am doing this for several reasons.

1.It gives me some breathing room of getting their sites set up, and the initial seo, sem to kick in.

2. One average job from this during the first 90 days will net them a very nice ROI.

3. Besides my time I will have about $200 invested. So if they do ask for a refund I am not out much and have system in place that I could immediately plug in another contractor and offer them a smoking deal because the work has already been done.

4. There is no doubt that my conversions will be significantly higher than not offering it.

5. I know their phones will be blowing up with calls so I highly doubt that they would ever cancel. They would be losing to much.

6. Most people will probably just ask to cancel our arrangement vs. money back. They understand that I will have done a great deal of work for them.

7. If I am not making them money I really want them to ask for their money back. I have always prided myself on never being an expense but an asset that provides nice ROI to my clients.

I can't tell you how much of a relief coming to this decision has been for me. It has give me clarity and direction.

I highly recommend finding your niche. I picked a niche. Contractors. But drilling down even further has helped me tremendously.

If it is dentists - drill down (no pun intended)
What I mean by that is look at all of the niches within that niche.
Orthodontists
Oral Surgeons
Dental Implants
General Practice
Reconstructive
Kids
Seniors
etc.

Hope this is helpful to everyone. Take you clients out for a beer. You never know what you will find.