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Are you someone struggling in finding a niche that can help you to create a profitable business?
In this article, I will talk about finding your niche and how you can use market research to create a great product using your niche. These simple steps have helped many to discover their niche and build a business.
If you wish to start your own business, this article is for you. It will help you to understand how companies take advantage of the market research to specify their market and create products with their niche to fulfill their unmet needs.
Let’s begin with understanding what is a Niche and how it helps businesses to create great products just for their target market.
What is a Niche?
A niche is a specialized area that will make you different from your competitors. Likewise, It is a specific subset of products/services that focuses on a narrow segment of a large market.
For instance, If you are into business, this is a large market. So, You need to specify your industry or niche like the manufacturing sector. Further, you can pick a smaller niche like smartphone accessory manufacturing and narrow it down and get your micro niche. Because, The more smaller it gets, the better. Additionally, Specify the target market in this particular niche.
In fact, you cannot cater to all and thus have to define your specific market and ensure that you fulfill the needs of that particular segment. If you are able to find your niche and it has a market, You will be able to create a great product that will sell itself.
For example, You will Choose a macro niche from the 4 major niches like business, health, relationships, and arts. Now let’s say you have some expertise in the health sector. Now based on that you will select a niche in the health market like weight loss. Furthermore, You can go narrow and choose a micro-niche like weight loss supplements and pills. Additionally, You can also define your target audiences like weight loss supplements and pills for mothers.
When finding a niche always remember that the essence of marketing is in narrowing you focus.
Here you would have already defined your micro-niche and the targeted market. You can also do further market segmentation.
Generally, there are 3 criteria’s to identify these segments
First, What are the common needs within a segment – Homogeneity
Second, How are they unique from the other groups – Distinction
Third, How do they show a similar response to the market – Reaction
Moreover, the main objective here is to determine what products have the best chance for gaining a share of a target market.
In addition to that, You will segment the market geographically, behaviorally and demographically.
The approach that you are going to use to define and develop a new product should be market-oriented. It will help you to identify the needs and desires of the consumer and thus help you to develop a great product that will fulfill their unmet needs.
If you are still reading this, Remember When choosing a niche, You always have to connect with your inner calling. I am sure you have heard those voices coming from within you telling you to do something. Its that inner force you need to listen to and follow.
It guides us towards subjects and activities that we always wanted to do as a child. In addition to that, it will connect you to your childhood and make you do things that you are naturally inclined towards.
This can be a life-long process and it is not easy to find this inner calling. But while you are in the process, Don’t be afraid of disappointing the people. Be who you really are.
Here are the 5 simple steps to finding a niche.
I have also spoken about this in my article basics of digital marketing guide. You can check it here.
- PASSION
- TALENT
- MARKET
- MARKET RESEARCH
- KEYWORD RESEARCH
If you are still with me until this point, It’s time that you understand the market, the needs and wants of the people in your niche. Your product/service should be able to help them to go from where they are to where they want to be.
Because, If you are able to help people to get what they want, they will help you to get what you want.
Step 1 : Discovering Your Passion
We are all passionate about something or other and you need to find that passion. Let’s get to it and talk about how you can discover your passion.
Reflect on your childhood memories. Look at what were those subjects or activities that you were naturally inclined towards. It could be any activity or a subject that you always liked.
Now make a list of top 3 topics that you were really interested about. These topics could be anything that you usually would read about when you are alone. It could also be the top 3 things that you used to do like singing, dancing, reading particular subjects or topics, sports etc.
Reflect on your current and past memories: Now you will look at all the things that you have been interested in past 3-5 years. These could be the subjects or activities that you have been reading about.
Now make a list of the top 3 topics that you have been reading in these past few years. They can be anything like politics, business, productivity, sales, commerce etc.
This task will help you to get connected with your childhood and you will be able to understand your personality better. The more you are able to understand yourself, the better you are going to connect!
Step 2 : Discovering Your Talent
Talent is something that we develop over years of practice and learning. In some cases, it can also come to us naturally. This is something that has the ability to pay you for the rest of your life. It can also be a habit that your have developed.
Find those skills that you are good at. If you are not sure, You can ask your family and friends. They know you better and can tell you what are you really good at. It can be any skills like communication, fitness, public speaking, teaching, singing etc.
Once you ask your family, friends and colleagues about the things that they think you excel at. Now, You make a list of all those things and it will help in finding a niche that your are passionate about.
Step 3: Finding A Niche Market
This is the most important step in deciding if you should follow step 1 and step 2. If your passion and talent does not have a market, it wont pay you. You need to look around based on your niche to find the market opportunity.
There are 4 major Niches: Health, Wealth, Relationships and Arts. Based on these you can choose any macro niche like Wealth.
And within Wealth, You can choose any particular niche like Career, Business, or Investing. As I have said earlier in this article, you can narrow your focus on the selected niche and choose a really micro-niche.
Now make a list of Top 5 niches that you are interested in based on the skills that you have gained over years and the natural abilities that you possess. This list of niches should also have a need in the marketplace. Use step 1 and step 2 to make this list.
In all the 3 steps, We are only assuming and trying to figure out what is your inner calling. Understanding who people are and what they really want will be the biggest challenge in finalizing your niche. You cannot think about it. Being that, let’s move on from assumptions to the Market research process.
Step 4: Market Research Process For Finding A Niche
Whenever companies create a new product/service, it undergoes Research and development (R&D) before the creation of that product/service. They create a minumum viable product (MVP) and test it out in the market to know the needs of the customer.
It helps them to understand the customer needs, discover the target market and get feedback from consumers on that product/service. Market research plays a vital role in the research and development (R&D). There are many ways to do the execution of market research like product testing, focus groups or through surveys.
So there is only 1 way to figure out if something will work or not and that is to test it out in the market. You need to go out and ask people what they are looking for and what they want.
You will also create a minimum viable product to test it out in the market. Once you do that, You will be able to understand your customer needs and build a great product.
So pick 1 niche from the above list of top 5 niches that you created in step 3 and do a lot of research on it. Check the top influencers, top books, and blogs in that particular niche. Now make a list of those so that you can follow those influencers and read about them. Read those top books and blogs to get insights and understand the working of that niche. It will help you in finding a niche for yourself.
Create your customer persona
It can be a fictional character or a real person. It’s your ideal customer who you are going to cater to. It will be based on your understanding of your niche and customers. It will represent your customer.
You can create a survey and send it to people to understand your customer persona. Also understand their fears, challenges, goals, etc, and get to know them better. Create these surveys using google forms, type forms, etc. You can also click here to see an example of a survey that I have created. You can also fill it out.
Step 5: Keyword Research
After you have understood the customer persona using the survey, You will move on to keyword research and find all the keywords that your prospect is searching for on the search engines.
There are many free and paid tools that you can use to do the keyword research. Some of them are KeywordTool.io, Google Auto Suggest, SEMrush, Ahrefs, Google Keyword Planner, UberSuggest and answerThePublic.
If you are with me until this point and followed each step, You will have discovered your ultimate niche based on your passion and talent. Equally, You would have done the research to know if it has a place in the market.
Therefore, You need to have a clear mission statement for your niche and create an elevator pitch for your niche.
Now based on all these steps, Now you will move on to personal branding and start making your minimum viable product and take the first step in creating your personal brand.
You will now create a personal blog/website, based on your understanding of your customer and your niche and create an online presence. In addition, make use of social media to grow your personal brand and write ebooks to gain authority in your niche. Similarly, You also can associate and collaborate with other people in your niche.
However, the focus should always be on creating and promoting a great product in your niche rather than creating and promoting a bad product.
Personal branding and a great product together will make you reach your goal.
Final Thoughts
Above all, When finding a niche and creating any product, It’s imperative that you have a passion and talent for that niche. Moreover, It should also have a need in the marketplace.
If you follow this article and implement all the strategies that we have discussed I can assure you that you will find your niche. So you have to focus on mastering your niche and then get out there and take the market. Keeping, the focus on the customers and not the competitors.
Stay tuned for my next article, I will be helping you to create your personal brand using a website/blog.
Thank you for reading, please feel free to drop your valuable thoughts in the comment box.
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