Why You Should Narrow Your Target Market to Grow Your Business

When we first started, we were a digital marketing and website creation agency that sold to everyone. The problem with that was that it made it near impossible for anyone to be able to identify that we were the solution for them.

This also meant spending a lot more time, energy, and resources marketing our business to convince prospects we were the right fit. But the truth is, we weren't always the right fit.

And we bet you aren't either. No offense.

We spent our first year working in industries that we had to research in great detail in order to properly service. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that isn’t the most profitable or efficient way to operate. So in our second year, we decided to focus just on brands targeting women (which made sense because our team is comprised mostly of women - do what you know, am I right!?) But that was still too broad.

So we decided to go even more narrow and focus on brands targeting millennial moms, because most of our team members are millennial women who are either moms or aspire to be moms someday, and we’ll always be millennials. This allowed us to approach our work from a truly authentic voice.

Then in our third year of business, we decided to expand our audience to include nonprofits that support women and children because our hearts are so aligned with that work. It really makes our souls sing. I know that sounds corny, but it’s true!

Ok, great, stop telling us about your journey and tell us why we should care.
Gotcha, that’s up next!

This is why you should care: it skyrocketed our business. And you can do it too.

Here’s what happened:
When we declared we work with brands that target millennial moms, it allowed any brand who had self-selected they target millennial moms to reach out to us and declare we were a fit for them. Let me say that again.

Our prospective clients came to us to solve their problems.

We didn’t have to spend as much energy on marketing ourselves because our ideal clients were able to determine on their own that we were who they were looking for. The year we declared we worked with branding targeting millennial moms, we grew revenue by 29% year over year.

BINGO!

The same thing happened when we declared we were working with nonprofits supporting women and children. We landed a global client because we updated the content on our website to reflect this language (and because we hauled ass, pitched a very compelling case with a super talented team, and we’re awesome, but I digress). But still, they reached out to us because they thought we were the solution to their problem. Amazing. Please sir, I want some more!

If you still don’t believe me, riddle me this:

• I have a friend who owns an agency that only works with franchise companies. If you’re a franchise looking for a marketing agency, would you go to a generalist or would you go to Curious Jane?
• I have another friend who owns an agency and only works with financial institutions. If you’re a financial institution (with tons of regulations you have to manage) are you going to work with a local agency or are you going to work with a specialized agency that already knows the ins and outs of your business, like SuperScript Marketing? That’s what I thought.
• I also know of another agency owner who has dedicated her entire business to servicing brands around knitting. That's right, her whole business supports the knitting industry and she is CRUSHING IT. If you worked for a yarn company, why would you go literally anywhere else other than StitchCraft Marketing? It'd just be silly.

Why does going niche work?

It works because, at the end of the day, we’re all people.

1. Psychologically, people want to be surrounded by others who understand them. Guess who runs businesses? People. Brands and businesses, like people, want to be understood. It makes for a much smoother working relationship when you’re already on the same page and know the same industry lingo than having to start from square one.
2. It increases your efficiency. When you only have to focus on knowing the ins and outs of a certain industry or certain types of audiences, you become the expert. When you’re the expert, you're sought after and you’re fast at what you do. When you’re an expert who is fast, you’re efficient. If you’re efficient and producing great work, you’re profitable and, likely, referable. Now you’ve not only increased the profitability of your business but potentially created an inadvertent referral network.
3. It opens more opportunities. Narrowing your target audience not only allows you to go deep, but it allows you to also go broad. If you're an expert in your industry, now you can not only offer your products/services but you can also expand them. Then you could launch a podcast, write a book, host workshops, become a national speaker, do all the things surrounding your topic because you're the best person to talk about and share information on that. And that, my friends, is first class, grade-A marketing. You're welcome.

So, while I know going niche and narrowing your target audience can be scary, trust me, it’s totally worth it. So figure out where you excel and what really gets you excited and then see if there’s a demand for that. The more specific you can be the better. Let me know what you decide to do and how it’s working for you!