What Is Niche Marketing?

Niche marketing is a term used first in general business practices but expanded to include the Internet as the newest marketing frontier. Niche marketing comes from the idea of a person or company finding its own little corner in an otherwise crowded market. For an individual, “finding a niche” means determining what the person does best.

For a company, “finding a niche” means finding out how the company can best reach a small segment of a larger demographic group. Niche marketing in traditional marketing may be finding a way to reach readers of espionage thrillers among the thousands of books on the market. One book marketing company may become adept at getting this specific type of book into readers’ hands, and then the focus of this company becomes niche marketing espionage thrillers only.

When it comes to the Internet, the use of the term refers to the way in which affiliate marketers find their target audience. Affiliate marketers make money by signing on with companies selling products. Those companies then offer a small percentage of the sale price to the affiliate marketers who bring in the customer. Affiliate marketers practice the essence of niche marketing online. Rather than focusing on a larger group, these marketers are trying to find customers who will be interested in the very specific products they have available.

Niche marketing online means finding ways to connect with potential buyers interested in the products being offered. An affiliate marketer for a hardware website may decide to focus only on people purchasing power tools, for instance. The marketer then goes about finding places where people who purchase power tools go. The answer may be a blog about how to use various power tools or a site offering frank reviews of various kinds of tools. By using niche marketing, the Internet marketer is learning to respond to the needs of a specific group of consumers and tailoring articles and websites to that group.

The primary benefit of niche marketing, especially online, is that it levels the playing field for small-budget marketers. Rather than creating diluted messages, a niche marketing campaign can include a very specific message intended to appeal only to a small group of people. These messages can be tailored more specifically than general marketing messages, which means they will reach the target audience with a laser point. Doing that means the smaller marketer can spend limited marketing dollars in a smart way.

Another benefit to marketing to a small group is that when doing so, one can be candid in a way that isn’t possible with larger marketing. When it comes to non-mainstream environmentalists, for example, one can make fun of bamboo t-shirts and fancy recycling bins as wastes and in the process appeal to this very small group to purchase a book or other product that speaks to their specific interest. While the ad would not be appealing, and may even be off-putting to larger groups of environmentalists, it will work very well with this small slice of the environmental movement. That identification and connection is the key to successful niche marketing.