Choosing a niche is a major step in launching a successful business. But it’s definitely not a step you want to rush through. It helps you attract customers who closely align with your offerings, which boosts conversions and customer loyalty. But here’s the million-dollar question—how do you find your business niche?
It doesn’t have to be complicated.
In fact, a brand like Nerd Fitness simply narrowed its business niche to a market segment that’s not easily associated with fitness—nerds. And it has helped them position their brand well in the $36.6 billion fitness industry.
Image via Statista
So, how can you achieve that for your business?
Let’s find out.
4 Tips on How to Find Your Niche in Business
Here are four actions you can take to find your business niche.
1. Consider Your Passions and Strengths
There are plenty of challenges that small businesses face, such as creating brand awareness, sales prospecting, poor access to funds, and competing with larger competitors.
These challenges and other factors cause 20% of small businesses to fail within the first year.
However, if you enjoy what you do, it’ll be easier to nurture and grow your business despite these challenges.
Passion for your business will drive you to devote your time and attention to providing your customers with the best experience. Passion for what you do will make you work harder to meet the demands of your growing customer base rather than cut corners.
But for all of that, it’s important to find your niche.
And how do you do that?
Start by noting down your interests.
Here is how to go about it. Ask yourself:
- What do I enjoy doing?
- Do my friends and family ask for my help with particular tasks or topics?
- What topics do I enjoy learning about?
Next, consider your strengths:
- What skills come naturally to me?
- Which areas am I most knowledgeable about?
- What is my training or education in?
The area where your interests and strengths overlap is the sweet spot—a great potential business niche.
2. Assess Your Competition
A major step you should take to find your niche in business is assessing the competition.
Research the companies that are offering similar solutions to those in your niches of interest.
You can do this by searching for keywords related to these niches using tools like Ahrefs or Semrush and by conducting market research.
Check if the websites ranking for these keywords offer products or services similar to what you intend to sell.
While at it, check if there’s sufficient demand compared to the level of competition. And use this information to analyze the viability of each option.
Ideally, you want to find a niche that has high demand and low competition.
Be sure to evaluate the solutions your competitors are offering. Evaluate things like:
- Prices. Can you set a more attractive price for your products without losing profitability?
- Quality of their content marketing. Does it provide value?
- Their customer service. Do they show that they care for their customers?
3. Approach it from Customers’ Perspective
Think of the specific customer your business will target. It’s one of the most effective ways to find a niche to focus your business on and stay on top of your competition.
Carry out a customer needs analysis to learn their pain points, expectations, and wants. And use this information to identify the unaddressed needs among your target market.
You can gather the information you need by carrying out market research. Here’s how to go about it:
- Conduct in-depth interviews, surveys, and focus groups drawn from potential customers
- Find forums related to your industry of interest and look for problems you can solve and gaps that you can fill
- Use a keyword research tool to find out the pain points people are searching for
- Find authentic customer reviews in your industry and assess areas where customers feel their needs are not being met sufficiently
Thinking about your potential customers when finding your niche in business helps you build a customer-centric business that fosters community growth. It also helps you figure out if the market size is big enough for your business.
You’ll also be in an informed position to provide value to your niche market. This will help create a loyal customer base that actively uses your products and provides referrals.
The insights you get will also help you figure out who you exactly need to target. It’s important to find a customer segment that’s accessible and in an affordable way.
The size of this customer segment should be large enough to warrant the investment you’re about to make a good financial plan for your small business to keep your profitable.
4. Test the Product or Service
Once you find your niche in business, test if it has the capacity to hold a solid place in the market. In real-time.
Here’s how you can do it.
Create a minimum viable product (MVP).
A MVP is a product that has enough features for early customers to use and provide feedback you can use to develop the product or service further.
It also allows you to collect the maximum amount of data about your customers’ interest in your offering without making the full investment.
Set up a simple website or landing page for your product or service. Use it to offer a trial period or free samples, or build the first module of your online course with a platform like Thinkific and share it with your target customer segment.
Paid ads can help you drive traffic to this website or landing page.
This trial phase shouldn’t cost you much. Plus, you can use your email list management software to begin building your subscriber list, which can come in handy when you start your business fully.
You can assess the response to your product or service during this phase and use the feedback you get to find areas of improvement.
Final Thoughts: Choose Your Business Niche
Choosing the right business niche will ensure your business stands out from its competitors. It also builds a loyal customer base and helps boost your growth.
And when the business niche you choose is in an area you’re passionate about and skilled in, you’ll be motivated to nurture it despite any challenges.
But do ensure that you carry out adequate market research before getting started.
Once you identify a niche and test it out, launch. Start your website, scale your business with social media, and apply effective marketing strategies to keep growing.
