When running a niche business, reaching the right audience is key. Unlike clothing or homeware brands, your business may not be applicable to the majority of consumers. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put the same amount of effort into your marketing campaigns. In fact, it probably means the opposite.
But what exactly can you do to boost your niche business?
Prioritise SEO
The first thing people do now when they want to find anything is Google it. And if you run a niche business, chances are people will need to Google your services to find a provider. You can’t rely on your reputation alone or assume customers will have heard of you. Making sure you are highly visible on search engines by prioritising your Search Engine Optimisation should therefore be a key part of your marketing strategy.
Hedging
When it comes to your SEO, make sure you spread your efforts across a number of channels. With the every-changing trends of digital marketing, your best bet is to hedge your SEO strategy to protect yourself from sudden changes in Google’s algorithms.
Keywords
Keyword research is also essential to your SEO strategy. This research will give you a better understanding of what people type in to a search engine when they are looking for services similar to what you provide. Including those keywords in your copy on your website and across all your marketing output will make you more visible to customers and increase your leads.
Insightful Content
But SEO in recent years has become a lot more sophisticated. Including the right keywords in your copy is still essential but you need to do more than just pepper your content with certain keywords to rank highly on Google these days.
Businesses who regularly publish quality content now rank higher on search engines than those who don’t. Most companies have blogs as a part of their website and regularly publish articles in order to meet this requirement.
Publishing useful, interesting and insightful content is not only good for increasing your visibility on search engines. It’s also a great way to add value to your business. By providing your customers with information they actually want, you are cementing your brand in their minds as a source of knowledge and assistance. This builds trust and loyalty which encourages new customers to utilise your services and recommend them to friends.
PPC Advertising
Pay Per Click Advertising is a great way of getting in front of people who are actively searching for your products or services. PPC ads are therefore particularly useful for niche businesses.
When implementing your PPC ads, make sure you optimise for mobile users and research your keywords carefully. A problem you may have as a niche business is the low search volume on your relevant keywords but don’t let this deter you. Be sure to include long-tail queries as well as high commercial intent keywords.
The upside to being a niche business marketing via PPC ads is that an extremely high percentage (if not all) of the people who search for your services will be a viable customer. Spending time getting your PPC ads just right is therefore key to your success.
Social Media Marketing
In today’s digital climate, every business should be using social media marketing. With 3 billion social media users worldwide, marketing on this platform gives your business access to an audience too huge to ignore. And best of all, setting up a business profile is completely free on most social media channels.
Social media marketing can be particularly useful for niche businesses thanks to its fantastic targeting capabilities. When creating a Facebook Ad, you can target a particular audience based on a number of factors like gender, relationship status, age, education, interests, job titles, location and their purchase and browsing behaviours. A Sydney wedding band for example could advertise their new repertoire of wedding reception music to a highly specific audience by targeting Facebook users based on their location (Sydney) and relationship status (engaged). This would then ensure that they reach a relevant audience which would increase their leads and conversions as well as their return on investment.
Social media marketing is therefore more useful and cost-effective for niche businesses than traditional TV, radio, billboard and print advertising.
Conclusion
Digital marketing offers a huge audience which all companies are now targeting. Of course, a niche business will not apply to everyone in this audience so the key to marketing for niche businesses is to focus on reaching the audience most relevant to them.
Customers looking for niche products or services won’t have previously used suppliers or prior knowledge of service providers so they are most likely going to perform a Google search to find someone. Being ready for this by prioritising your SEO and investing in PPC ads is therefore key to capitalising on this.
When it comes to proactive marketing, social media advertising is key. Using Facebook’s in-build targeting capabilities is a fantastic way to ensure that your marketing budget goes towards reaching a relevant audience to ensure that you gather leads and get a good return on investment.
