Choosing a niche – .com

Today we talk about market niches and differentiation. Why should we take that path, and why don’t many?

Market niche

Let’s start by talking about a niche market. What is? In an easy way, we could say that it is a segment, a market subsetin which we found a group of potential clients with a similar profile and needs.

Let’s use a very easy example: web pages. The market for web pages is very broad, since clients can be very different from each other: Companies, individuals, freelancers, professionals, amateurs, etc. Even the use that is given to them can be professional or purely as a hobby.

In addition, it is a highly competitive market, in which there is a lot of supply and of all kinds. If you try to ask, you will realize that it can go from a few hundred euros to several thousand.

In these cases, the best strategy to enter a market like this is to do it through a niche. Instead of “making websites” in general, choose one of those segments, choose a niche, such as “websites for dentists” or “websites for opticians”.

Why choose a niche?

The first thing we can ask ourselves when we are evaluating whether to choose a niche is “Why”. Why should we choose a niche? Can’t we just take it all in? This way we will have more opportunities to attract customers!

Yes but no.

Competitors

On the one hand, the more “generic” your services are, the more competitors you will have, and the more difficult it will be for you to stand out among them. It is not the same to be a “web developer”, than a “developer”, than a “developer”.

While the first one will have many searches on Google, it will also have thousands of competitors, and it will be much more difficult for you to make yourself known, stand out, position for that term, offer a differentiated service, and convince the client that you are better than the others. hundreds or thousands of other web developers.

But if you are a WordPress developer, you are going to eliminate 90% of the competition. Yes, true: You are also going to eliminate a large part of the searches. But proportionally you will have many more chances of capturing the customer. And even more so if you opt for “Genesis developer”, because there are very few of them, and when someone is looking for you with those keywords in Google, it is very likely that they will hire you if you offer such a specific service.

Why? Simply because the consumer sees it much better to hire a specialist to solve the need for him. If we have a skin problem, we will go to a dermatologist, not a general medicine doctor. If we have a tax question, consult a specialized tax lawyer, because he will be aware of what we want specifically. That’s how we perceive it.

Prices

On the other hand, there are the laws of supply and demand. You know that the more offer (or less demand), prices drop, because there is more to choose from, or fewer people who want it. And vice versa, unless there is an offer (or more demand)prices rise, because there are few people to buy from, or many people interested in doing so.

This is so whether we like it or not, and the maximum exponent would be a monopoly, in which a single vendor can set the prices that he wants, as happened here with Telefónica when it was the only operator available.

The moment you choose a niche and specialize in it, you will see how price wars, haggling, and pressure to obtain discounts from customers end. Why? Because that will be the specialized market price.

But also, and regardless of the market, a specialist usually charges more, because he is faster, he is more good, and he is better. (In his field) than a generalist. Why? Why is it more efficient? Let’s talk about it.

Efficiency

And finally we can talk about efficiency. Let’s imagine a doctor who for a year touches all the specialties: he is a dentist, an otolaryngologist, an endocrinologist, a gastroenterologist… Everything! And he has 10 patients every day. At the end of the year, he will have cared for 3,650 patients, with all kinds of problems.

Now imagine a gastroenterologist, who only deals with issues of the digestive system, who also cares for the same number of patients. 3,650. And all about the digestive system.

Which of the two do you think has more experience in the digestive system? Which of them do you think will know how to find a good diagnosis? Which of them will be able to better detect the problem and find the appropriate treatment? Indeed, the specialist. Why? Simply because he has more experience, he has seen more cases, he has solved more cases, and that makes him… More efficient!

If you specialize in a niche, over time you will be better and more efficienteven if it’s unintentional.

If you make websites with Joomla, WordPress and Drupal, it will be a hundred times more difficult for you to improve processes than if you only do it with Genesis, which is a WordPress framework. Imagine the niche, how concrete it can be! But the level that you can achieve in the same time as being a “generalist”. One more time, whoever takes a lot of space, the less he tightens up.

choose the niche

Suppose, then, that you decide to specialize and choose a niche. You have already decided, and now the million dollar question is what niche do I choose? Or rather, what niche do I NOT choose?

niche size

What we must do before choosing a niche, and this is what can make us do it or not, is to see if it has a sufficient market size like to live on it. We can do this with a , that tells us how many thousands of people make it up, or at least an insurable minimum.

And with these approximations we must calculate our potential. To make a simple and pessimistic calculation, let’s calculate that we are capable of capturing 1% of that market. If the size were 100,000 people, that would be 1,000 customers. Can we live with those 1,000 customers? It will depend on the product and the service, if we are a company or a freelancer, if we are a team or if we are alone, on our prices, on our margins, and above all on our breakeventhat is, the number of units that we must sell of our product or service to cover costs.

Strengths

Once we are clear about the possible market niches that we can address, now yes, it is time to choose ours. Obviously the criteria that we must use are common sense: What niche do I prefer? In which niche do I have more competitive advantages? In which niche do I feel more comfortable and like it more? This is all common sense, and we must apply it. We are not going to specialize in a niche that we hate, because that would make us unhappy, and it is not our goal to make our lives miserable.

So, let’s think about our strengths that can give us a jump start. If, for example, we have specialized in development software for several years, and instead of announcing ourselves as specialists in it, we do so with a generic, we are wasting that opportunity. Or if we have connections with influential or key people in a sector, it can also be a competitive advantage to set up a business in a niche of that sector, and not in another. That will help us decide.

not risk

For the more conservative, who do not dare to take this step, there is a middle path that works for some people. Although I’m not that much of a fan, because it involves a lot more work and it doesn’t always work out.

The option is simply to mount a specialized brand. In other words, instead of having a website, a brand, and betting on specialization, create a new one for the occasion. So, in the case of the “web developer”, you can create a second “WordPress developer” website where you advertise and position yourself as such.

But this option is not at all simple. Doing this implies one of two things: Either you are subtracting time and resources from your “other brand,” or you must double time and resources to serve both. Once again, who covers a lot, squeezes little.

For example, if you make one to make yourself known, you must double the daily budget, or take it away from the other brand. If you write posts daily, you should stop writing on one website to write on the other, or double the time you dedicate to each post, to write for both.

In short, it is doubling time and effort, or undressing a saint to dress another. Imagine all that effort concentrated in a single site, business, or project. At the end of the day, you will have one very good brand or two not so good ones. Less risky? Maybe. But not an easy path.

Summary and conclusion

Niches and specialization are a highly recommended business strategy, widely studied and with proven solvency.

Specializing reduces your competition, increases your margin, and makes you much more efficient at work. But choosing the right niche is not easy, since we must make sure that we are good at it, and that it has a sufficient minimum market size. But with the previous corresponding analysis, we can avoid disappointment and find our ideal niche.

So I encourage you to at least value this option, and think about whether you might be interested in directing yourself and positioning yourself as specialists in your niche. Maybe you can do much better than you may think 🙂

And as always, you already know. If you want to know more about marketing, business building, pricing, and business analytics, check out the . More than 6047 at your disposal 😉