Attracting customers – Velocity Media

3 November 2015

To niche or not to niche?

It’s an age-old question that many business owners struggle to answer. But the truth is if you want your marketing to be as effective as possible you need your target market to be an inch wide and a mile deep.

When you try to be everything to everyone you risk appearing irrelevant to those customers who you want and need the most.

Still not sure? Here are four opportunities you open up when you pick a niche.

1. Become the go-to expert

When you zone in on a niche, you naturally become a go-to expert. You are assumed to have more knowledge on the industry, area or market than anyone else who is generalising.

As a result, people who start to target a niche can end up with more leads and a bigger following than when they worked more broadly. It becomes easier to find you, and you are perceived to be more relevant and valuable to your potential customers.

Let’s imagine for a moment you need a business coach. You search around and narrow it down to two coaches with the same qualifications and experience level, but one specialises purely in your industry. Who would you choose?

2. Generate more sales

Perhaps one of the biggest fears around choosing a niche is the chance it could reduce sales. But when done well it has the opposite effect.

When you target a broad audience, your message needs to be broad to appeal to as many people as possible. While this can still generate results, you will get far better results when your market is specific.

When you target fewer people with more in common, you can tell more relevant stories, address specific problems and appeal to the right emotions to make your customer feel as though you are talking directly to them.

This approach increases your chances of speaking the right words to the right people at the right time, creating more sales and more raving fans.

3. Get more bang for your marketing buck

There is no faster way to blow your marketing budget than to target anyone and everyone. The more specific your audience, the more strategic your campaign.

Opportunities, strategies, tactics and influencers can all be better qualified when you know who you need to reach.

4. Gain more loyal customers

When you serve a niche, your customer can believe working with you will be easier. There’s less groundwork and explaining to do because you already know their problems, issues, frustrations and needs, and have had experience solving them.

There is also a perception that you will look out for their best interests, and be able to give them ideas and guidance about best practices and produce more tailored products or services to get their desired results.

Because of this (and providing you do a great job) your customers are more likely to be more loyal to you in the long term.

Do you work within a niche or do you generalise?

Amanda

2 August 2014

How to give people a “good feeling” about you

Like it or loathe it intuition and having a “good feeling” about someone or something can greatly impact our business decisions and the purchase decisions of our customers and potential customers.

So how do you ensure you are giving out the right vibe when you are talking to people? Here are five tips to help you give people a “good feeling” about you.

1. Be confident, friendly and approachable

People are naturally drawn to warm people and are more likely to listen to confident people, that is why being confident, friendly and approachable is the rapport building trifecta.

Not only will you be more likeable, people will feel more relaxed around you, respect your opinions and be more inclined to follow you, leaving you smiling all the way to the bank.

2. Be an expert in your industry

When you are an expert in your field, and know your products and services intimately you give better explanations, presentations, infomercials and pitches and answer those tricky questions and objections quickly and powerfully.

Nothing gives a customer or potential customer more confidence than having all of their questions answered or hearing someone knowledgeable share insight that will help them in their life or business.

3. Add value

Instead of seeing what you can get out of each person you meet, focus on how you can add value. By adding value you prove your value and your potential customers guards naturally come down.

With this approach potential customers will not only be more receptive to what you have to say, they will open up to you, making it easier to convert sales and build profitable relationships.

4. Ask questions and listen carefully

Asking the right questions and listening closely to the answers can be incredibly powerful. You can establish rapport, showcase your knowledge, increase credibility, uncover needs, and build relationships.

The more targeted and intelligent your questions are, the better the answers you receive and the easier it is to find even more ways to add value.

5. Never underestimate the power of your body language

Often the “feeling” someone will have about you will come more from what you are not saying. While you may be a smooth talker, if your body language doesn’t support what you are saying, people will question your authenticity.

If a person can’t maintain eye contact with you, covers their mouth a lot when they speak, is fidgety or seems uncomfortable, leans back and crosses their arms, or frowns a lot, chances are you are going to walk away from the meeting and not have a great feeling about the person you were talking to or how the meeting went.

However, if you are meeting with someone who maintains eye contact, faces towards you and leans in, smiles, nods and is open and animated, you will naturally warm to them.

Next time you are talking to someone ask yourself “what is my body language saying about me and is it matching my message?”

Do you use your intuition in making business decisions? What gives you a “good feeling” about someone?