How to be an expert niche market finder
I love the advice referred to in the classic KISS acronym – Keep it Simple, Stupid! Simplicity is one of the most appealing attributes of designing a business that provides a product or service to a niche market. The “niche” does a lot of the “defining” for you. If you’ll allow me a quick analogy, selling to a niche market is like you are trying to hit a bull’s eye with a bow and arrow but the target has been moved in really close. But, you need to be a good niche market finder to discover these little gems. So let’s look at some strategies you can use. Some of these can be seen as training methods to get your mind into a place where it will begin to recognize niche market opportunities. Long-tail keywords. If you’re focusing on a business that will be primarily online, then it’s often the case that a long-tail keyword equals a niche market. There are some good free long-tail keyword generating resources on the Internet. You’ll need to scroll through a lot of irrelevant keywords to find the few hidden gems. After you identify some long-tail keywords that you believe could be turned into a viable niche market enterprise, you need to gauge the online competition for the keyword(s). Since this is probably the most popular way to find a niche market idea, the competition can be fierce. Products that are adapted. Do you know any product that gets specially adapted before it is used in a specific industry? This is an off-the-wall example, but it illustrates the point: Baseball and softball players spend a lot of time “breaking in” new mitts. If someone sold “pre-aged” mitts, they might be able to make a small fortune. (They sell pre-aged jeans for big money today, so this idea isn’t completely crazy!) Talk to other people in business and see if they buy any products that they have to “tweak” to make them ideal for their use; that will put you on the road to becoming an expert niche market finder. Adapt products, services, or marketing to appeal to a specific market. This is a way to “reverse engineer” the previous tip. Study the smaller groups that buy a general product or service and find a way to change it so it targets one or more of these smaller groups. For example, a girl I know who is having her first baby in a month or so canvassed her Facebook friends for a cleaning service recommendation. She wanted a professional “deep clean” before they bring the baby home. Maybe a special Baby-Prep Cleaning service with add-ons such as making the house baby safe would be a good business idea. Start by studying different industries to get a feel for their customers. Here’s the cleaning services page on SBDCnet. It says a lot about the kinds of services and the demographics of cleaning service clients. A creative look at this, or any other industry, can give you ideas about niche market opportunities within bigger markets. Holiday or seasonal niches. Carvel’s Fudgie the Whale ice cream cake and their Santa Claus cake – in case you haven’t noticed – are exactly the same shape. Adapting an existing product or service to better fit a special occasion can...
read moreWanted: Women with great business ideas
The Small Business Administration’s 2017 InnovateHER competition is underway with entries being accepted through May 12, 2017. There’s $70,000 in prize money on the line along with other awards and the competition culminates with national winners being named on July 27, 2017. The hard work starts earlier, however. Winners from regional InnovateHER events can go on to the national-level competition, so if you’ve been pondering that winning idea here are the fundamentals. Find a local event. Here’s a map of all the local institutions that hosted an InnovateHER even in 2016. Win your local event. Submit your winning plan to the national competition. You need a cover letter that includes a specific list of details; your business plan (20-page maximum length); and a signed statement of support from your host organization. The competition was conceived to increase the role of women in the venture capital market and it focuses on “innovative products and services that help impact and empower the lives of women and families.” The judging criteria are: Potential for commercialization, Impact on the lives of women and families, and Fills a need in the marketplace. Announcing this year’s event, outgoing SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet said, “Women represent half of the U.S. workforce and control 80 percent of the nation’s purchasing power, but still make up less than five percent of venture capitalists. I decided to launch this annual competition two years ago so that we could begin to address that opportunity gap, because when women have an equal role in the marketplace and are able to chart their own paths, our nation as a whole is stronger and more globally competitive.” The 2016 InnovateHER national winners were: 1st Place ($40,000 award winner): Elizabeth Caven from UpCraft Club, Des Moines, Iowa 2nd Place ($20,000 award winner): Dawn Dickson from Flat Out of Heels, Miami Beach, Fla. 3rd Place ($10,000 award winner): Agnes Scoville from Scoville & Company (Pacidose), St. Louis, Mo. There are a few pages on the SBA website where you can get additional details (and perhaps some insights on what it takes to win). The Office of Women’s Business Ownership | Resources page gives an overview and details about some previous winners. You’ll find more specific details about this year’s competition on the 2017 InnovateHER: Innovating for Women Business Challenge page. For the SBA’s press release, go here. And if this has made your competitive juices flow, check out this long list of startup competitions....
read moreThis week in small business: Is it video, video, video for content marketing today?
Do I need to start publishing a video version of this compilation? With all the attention this week’s articles give to video marketing, it seems I might need to go that route. Leadership, management, and productivity This is just cool: RUKI’s product planner. Enter details about what you want to manufacture and it gives you an MSRP. If you need a dose of leadership inspiration today, see how these nine women of color are shaping the food industry. Cosette Jarrett gives us six scientifically proven ways to increase our productivity in 2017. And if you want to explore more than six, here are Laurie Wang’s top three productivity hacks. Marco De Novellis takes us on Shivani Vaghela’s journey from Aston MBA to a top job at Deloitte. Marketing and sales Amy Copperman does a great job detailing seven videos you need to be using in your social media marketing. And for a more “big picture” look at video marketing, check out Toby Dean’s piece on the Nimble blog. If sales are your lifeblood and you need to improve your close rate, ask yourself these two questions posed by Lisa Wicklman. Want more inbound marketing success? Who doesn’t, right? Check out the content marketing breakthrough outlined by Jean Tang. Writing for the Content Marketing Institute, Dan Steiner gives us six steps to get your whole company involved in content marketing. “If you have everything under control, you’re not moving fast enough.” – Mario Andretti Entrepreneurship, startups, and innovation Mindfulness is big today and in this Entrepreneur article, Mellie Akalp delivers five keys to being a mindful entrepreneur. Only a quarter of women-owned businesses get financing compared to 37 percent of all small companies. That’s one of the roadblocks outlined in this AP article. Hunting for an “I want to be an entrepreneur…NOT!” article? Daniel Dipiazza gives us reasons to stay in our comfort zone. Bridesmaid for hire. Yes, it’s a real business and Denise Restauri relays professional bridesmaid Jen Glantz’s success tips. In her profile of Chander Baljee, Sneha Banerjee tells us that entrepreneurs should have a devil’s advocate who shoots holes in their ideas. Politics, government, and the economy Do migrants depress or boost the economy? It’s a question often debated. This article by Omar Al Ubaydli says that the overall the impact is positive. However, while immigrants may create jobs, in this Forbes article, Erik Sherman warns that automation won’t create jobs in the same way that technology has in the...
read moreDo my small business owner self-examination so you can get well soon!
The cost of an office visit to a doctor is high enough, but here’s something that can be even more expensive: Living with a digitally unhealthy small business and not realizing it. That’s why I’ve taken information from a recent Web.com report on small business digital trends and turned it into a self-examination quiz. Take a moment to gauge your health: Are you part of the: 17 percent of small business owners who will be investing in search engine optimization (SEO) in 2017? (yes/no) 42 percent of small business owners who admit they don’t use both a robust website and social media channels for marketing? (yes/no) 19 percent of retailers who admit that their websites are not primarily for e-commerce? (yes/no) 26 percent of small business owner who just have a one-page website? (yes/no) 43 percent of small business owners with no plans to change or improve their online presence in 2017? (yes/no) 85 percent of small business owners who are hitting some kind of roadblock when attempting to use social media to promote their business? (yes/no) “Yes” answers to any of those questions – except the first – tells you that there’s some serious work you need to be doing on your overall online presence and specifically your online marketing. Now that you have the results of your self-examination, let’s prescribe some treatments. Failing to invest in SEO. Find an SEO specialist through one of the freelance sites and have an audit performed. At least go out and get some bids and check credentials! Take the first step. Your website doesn’t do you very much good if prospects can’t find it easily. Get your keywords identified and put together an on-site and off-site SEO strategy. No robust website and social media marketing. Note that the word “and” connects these two important online strategies. By “robust” we mean that you have an engaging, modern website – not something cobbled together four years ago. It needs to be mobile friendly. Further, you need to orchestrate a marketing strategy between your website and your social media presence. Are you using social media to drive traffic to your site and are you collecting email addresses when visitors arrive? You’re a retailer but you don’t sell via the Internet. If I had a Magic Eight Ball and asked it about e-commerce it would say, “All signs point to e-commerce becoming the dominant shopping system.” While it’s true that the addition of shopping makes website design and management a little more complicated, with today’s DIY website building services, the process is much more simple than it was a couple of years ago. You have a one-page website. Frankly, for some businesses a one-page site can be adequate for communicating what’s important. However, I don’t think a one-page site gives you a chance at good SEO. Survey businesses similar to yours. Find out which ones place highly in search results and start to build something similar to those successful sites. You have no online improvements planned. I’m shocked that nearly half of those surveyed said they had no plans to improve their online marketing or presence in 2017. You simply cannot stand still with either your website or your social media marketing. The Internet evolves too fast to allow for that. Also, your competitors will...
read more3 social media marketing goals for your small business
Two guys are out hiking through the Badlands in South Dakota. One grabs a stone from the trail, turns quickly, randomly hurls the stone as far as he can into the distance, and proudly pronounces, “Got it!” The pair share a little laugh and move on. Here’s the lesson: If you’re aiming at nothing, you’re certain to hit it! When I was writing about a Web.com report on small business and social media marketing recently, I noted that there is a lot of frustration among owners because 85 percent said they had hit some kind of “roadblock” in their social media marketing efforts. I believe that is due, in part, to a lack of clearly defined and measured goals. In broad terms, there are three goals you can pursue with your social media marketing: Branding, Increasing website traffic, and/or Performing an action. Social media marketing goal #1: Branding In one way, this is the easiest goal to measure because it relates to the number of followers you have. If you’re experiencing a steady increase in fans or followers, you might assume that you’re doing a good job branding. However, if your followers are not the kind of prospects who will ultimately benefit your small business, the numbers alone don’t mean very much. You need to dig a little more deeply into the demographics of your followers to see if they are desirable. Instagram and Twitter offer nicely detailed profiles of your followers within their analytics suites. Social media marketing goal #2: Increasing website traffic If you are using WordPress to power your website, the Jetpack suite of add-ons includes statistics for “referrers,” so you can easily see which social media platform is sending you the most traffic and see if your referrals are increasing. (You may have to select “view old statistics” to get this information.) If you don’t have WordPress (and even if you have WordPress but want a more detailed analysis), Google Analytics will break out referrers to your website (Acquisition>Social>Network Referrals). With Google Analytics, you can see which of your posts delivered the most visits to your website; Jetpack doesn’t give that breakdown. Keep a spreadsheet of successful posts and devise some way to categorize them so you can better focus future posts. (By the way, Google and Jetpack aren’t your only options for WordPress statistics. Ammar Ali outlines several other good choices in this piece he wrote on Allbloggingtips.) Social media marketing goal #3: Performing an action This goal is when you want someone to see your social media post, then click on a link to come to your website and do something, such as sign up for your newsletter, buy something, or download some content. This is also called conversion. To measure your conversion success, you have some setup work to do Google Analytics. Following Acquisition>Social>Conversions, click on “set up goals.” Your goal will capture the desired action you want your social media visitor to take. While the goal can be many things – such as spending a certain amount of time on your site – in small business, more often it involves visitors “clicking” on something or going to a specific a web page. You’ll need to identify a web page that is always associated with the completed action – such as a...
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