Defining Your Niche.

With a New Year comes new career hopes. Along this line, one of my closest friends is considering launching a sideline meal prep business; she loves to cook, raves about the value of meal prepping, and would like to earn some extra income.

Often, as people like her toy with the idea of starting an entity, their thoughts first turn to what to call it, and how to promote it. Yet northern Colorado business coach Teena Barnett with Team Building Dynamics recommends clearly defining your niche before making any major marketing decisions. She then described her work with a client who’d created a skin care line. When Teena asked her to define her target market, the client responded, “Anyone with skin!”

As you can imagine, the challenge involved for a fledgling business to market on that scale would be daunting, and likely fail. So instead, Barnett encouraged the new business owner to focus her niche before paying out large sums in advertising. These questions narrowed down her market:

• What passion drives this venture for you? Originally, Barnett’s client created the product to help those suffering from rosacea, a condition that causes redness of the skin. She’d suffered from it herself, and through trial and error, developed a product that helped.
• How can you connect with them to learn their needs and motivators? Turns out there are groups where individuals with rosacea gather to exchange information and support each other. Barnett’s client attended, and learned the priorities of this market in-depth, including how to best promote and price her product.
• How can you use your experience to create a strong hook: Barnett’s client’s own struggles had fueled her fire to bring these products to others suffering in the same way.  This created an authentic, successful connection, and allowed her to grow her business steadily, rather than wasting sums targeting a market that was unfocused and too broad.

So if my friend who is considering launching a meal prep business wants to define her market more tightly beyond, “Anyone who eats”, I’ll gladly volunteer to sample some of her yummy concepts.

Photo Credit:  © Dmitry Sunagatov | Dreamstime Stock Photos