Niche and Target Market – what’s the difference?

So first of all, let me address why you would even need to know the difference.
Basically, it makes life a lot simpler when it comes to marketing your business.
And simplicity is an excellent benefit in and of itself. The simpler you can keep your life and business, the better.

In fact, I am going to keep this article very simple with the aim of my message being very clear.

When you know who your target market is, and your own niche, you will be on the road to getting more clients, I’ll tell you how that works a little later on.

So unless you know what a target market or a niche is, it’s going to be difficult to determine whether you already have one or not! And whether you even want one!

So, very simply, a TARGET MARKET is the WHO you are talking to in your marketing materials.

And NICHE is the WHO plus the WHAT.

The WHAT is the SOLUTION or desire you can help them fulfil.

That’s the trick when it comes to marketing, we must talk in terms of benefits and results we can offer our clients. It’s no good droning on about how fantastic our service is, the clients really don’t care that much on how they get the results.
All they know is that they are in pain or in need of some desire being fulfilled, and they want to know that you can help them with it.

That’s what your niche is, the who plus the solution.

So let’s take a life coach as an example. Say the life coach has decided they want to work with divorced women, that’s her target market. There are going to be lots of service providers that can serve that market, so what can our life coach do that provides a solution for the divorced woman?

Well, it’s more than likely because she has chosen divorced women as her target market that she has experienced divorce herself, and she totally relates to them. So she knows that one of their struggles can be around weight and she knows just how to help them with that. So she could niche herself into being the go to person for divorced women who are struggling with their weight.

You see how now she has gone from being a general life coach speaking to who knows who and doing who knows what? To a specialist or an expert, and someone who is much easier to refer to because she is specific about who she helps and what she does.

Now the coach knows just what to write on her website, her blog, in her e-zine, what to say at networking meetings, and how to answer the “what do you do?” question. She knows who she is speaking to and what she is selling.

Now she knows who she is talking to, she can look for them on line and off line.
She will know where to advertise, which groups to talk to, and what to say.

You see the clarity and the ease in knowing her target market and just how she can help them, her niche?

And this why knowing your target market and your niche brings in more clients. Because once you know who they are how you can help them, and you start speaking about it in those terms, then your potential clients are going to be able to recognize themselves in your marketing. They will be able to put their hand up and say, you are talking to me.

Plus others are going to hear your clear message and be able to refer clients to you now they know the who and the what.

The most important thing to remember about niche and target market is that they are just marketing terms. They are who you are talking to and how you can help. It does not mean you only work with these people and no one else. You can work with whoever you choose.

But what it does mean is that you now have clarity in what to say and who you are talking to, you now know where to find them, and because you have more clarity, so will your potential clients.

More potential clients = more clients.

If you know it is time for you to nail your niche, and you would love to do that in a day with me, please check out my Nail Your Niche in a Day.