Council Post: When Is Niche Content Too Niche?

Aaron Agius is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of the award-winning global marketing agency Louder.Online. Many choose to go with a smaller market--a niche. And there are definitely advantages to being a big fish in a small pond, like less competition. However, if you're not careful, you could end up going too niche and losing out on potential customers. So how do you find that balance? In this post, I'll cover what a niche actually is, how to know if you're going 'too niche,' and how to create effective niche content without going too far. A niche is a smaller subgroup of people within a larger market. The people in a niche will typically share broader desires and problems with the overall market. However, the niche subgroup also has specific wants and needs that you can cater to in order to make your product or service more attractive.

For instance, imagine two bakeries. Bakery A has every single baked good you could think of--from muffins to sourdough bread to chocolate-covered bacon cupcakes. This bakery is likely to appeal to most people who want a quick treat. It has a wide audience. Bakery B, on other hand, only offers a very specific range of goods. It focuses on gluten-free vegan products. This bakery appeals to a much smaller audience, a niche. The above example applies to any industry. You can attempt to capture as much market share as possible for the broader market, or you can try to be the go-to place for a particular segment of that market. Identifying a niche and creating content specifically for them has a number of advantages: * Easier Competition: Going up against the giants in your industry can eat up a lot of margin and be more difficult, as you're competing with potentially millions or billions of dollars worth of resources. A niche can be easier to dominate. You can stand out more easily. If someone is a vegan for moral reasons, they may choose to do business with a company that aligns more strongly with their own core values. In other words, it's easier for your audience to make the logical conclusion that you're the expert. However, sometimes niche content can go too far. You can go so niche that the negatives of missing out on a big market outweigh the positives of exceeding in a small market. Well, every situation is different, but there are two great rules of thumb to keep in mind: Now, of course, the exact audience size that is appropriate for your niche will depend on your own KPIs. How many units do you need to sell? Is your offering a one-time or a repeat purchase? What is your customer lifetime value (CLV)? Does the audience size support your profit margins? The moral of the story is that if you're not careful, you could spend a lot of time and business capital creating content for a tiny market that can't possibly provide an acceptable return on investment. There are fewer search results to compete with when creating content to rank your website on Google, for instance. But having almost zero competition isn't necessarily preferable. The presence of competition means that other brands have found that niche to be a sustainable source of growth. If there are zero search results for 'vegan gluten-free faux chocolate Valentine's Day bars for golden retrievers named Sparky,' there might be a reason. Niching down doesn't mean creating content to generate demand if no demand exists in the first place. But how do you create niche content that your audience loves and that keeps the sales coming? Try to identify any emotional language around unresolved frustrations and also unmet desires that they have. You can cross reference a search term that's growing in popularity with the quality and quantity of search results addressing that interest. The ultimate way to identify if your niche content is just right or if you've gone too far is monetization. If not, the market is sending you a message to broaden your focus still. Just make sure to check out the competition and ensure the audience size can meet your revenue needs.