Everything You Need to Know About Niching in Business

(Want to listen to this blog post instead? Check out Episode 2 of The Social Brain podcast.)

Niching is such a buzzword across the social media space, but what does ‘niche’ actually mean in business?

Why is having a niche important?

Do you have to have a niche in business?

And what are the pros and cons of changing your niche within your marketing strategy? 

I recently spoke with my friend Jade Foster-Jerrett on The Social Brain Podcast to discuss all things niching. We talked about the pros and cons of changing your niche and how having a specific niche has impacted Jade’s business. 

Prefer to listen to the audio version of our conversation? Go here. 

What is a niche?

A niche (in the professional sense) is basically a focus on what you are or what you are talking about in your business. In social media marketing, we talk about niche in terms of our audience, our ideal buyers, and our followers. We can also apply having a niche to the topics we talk about and the goods or services we sell. 

During our chat, Jade described how she’d niched down in two different areas of her business: The offers she’s selling to people and the people she’s selling those services to.

When Jade first started out as a Children’s Entertainer, she marketed her business to everyone. She offered parties to children of any age, but over time, she realised that trying to serve everyone wasn’t benefiting her or her customers. 

Initially, Jade focused on redefining her niche audience. She chose to move away from toddler parties where the children had small attention spans and focus on hosting parties for kids between the ages of 4-7.

Another example of how Jade has niched in her business is the type of content she’s creating. Whereas other party businesses stick to static posts or carousels on Instagram, Jade is standing out from the crowd by focusing primarily on creating Instagram reels. 

Why is having a niche market so important?

Once Jade had changed her niche, she soon found it much easier to market her services. She had a clear image in mind of who she was trying to target, which made it easier to create content for her social media profiles. 

Jade was also able to market her parties to the parents in the playground of her son's school. Through simply chatting with other mums and talking about the parties she did, she soon noticed her services being booked more often. 

In Jade’s words: “Everything actually fell into place. It was like a light bulb went off and I was like, oh, why was I not doing this in the first place? I was having some of the best parties. I was really engaging with the kids and the kids were engaging back, and it took off from there!”

By simply focusing on a specific niche, Jade was able to market her business more easily and increase her party bookings. 

Do you have to have a niche in business?

Having a niche in business is a good idea but you don’t need one when you first start out. When you launch your business, you’re still getting to learn what you enjoy, the types of people you enjoy working with, and the kinds of offers you want to put out in the world. 

When Jade launched a second business as a Social Media Manager, she initially started helping other business owners. Two or three years into being a Social Media Marketer, Jade decided to niche down further to support businesses in the party industry. 

The Party Marketeers was born, and once again, Jade noticed how much easier it was to create content. She also created services and products to specifically support businesses in the party industry and saw an increase in followers, sales, and downloads of her podcast The Party Pod as a result. 

What are the pros and cons of changing your niche in business?

In both of her businesses, Jade has changed her niche on more than one occasion, so who better to share the pros and cons of changing niche than her!

Pro: Knowing your target audience

Once you know your target audience, everything after comes naturally. It makes it easier to speak to the right people in the right way, and it also makes it easier to come up with content ideas. 

Pro: Selling more products and services

It all connects. If you've got your target audience and your content is relatable and speaks to them, then you're naturally going to sell more of what you’re offering.

Pro: Less complaints 

We’re all human and there’s always going to be a time in business where you receive a complaint or a refund request. Since Jade niched down in her party business, she hasn’t received a complaint. This comes down to being specific on the type of customer she can best serve and the details of the service she commits to offering. 

Pro: Standing out from the crowd

Changing her niche also saw Jade switching up her content strategy. Instead of talking about herself and her shows like all the other entertainers, she began to produce valuable, relatable content to support the parents she wanted to turn into customers.

Instead of getting lost in a sea of entertainers talking about the same thing, Jade became one of the only entertainers to be actively trying to help her community without expecting anything in return.

Pro: Being known for one thing

Jade’s decision to focus on a specific target audience as a Social Media Marketer has meant that she’s now known worldwide as the go to social media expert for the party industry in the UK. 

Whilst there are many different experts that could help the party industry with their social media marketing, Jade has become the go to person through the content she creates and the stories she tells that are so relatable in her specific niche. 

Con: It takes time to see results from all your efforts

Jade had spent time building her brand as a Social Media Manager for businesses in general and when she decided to change her niche to focus on the party industry, it felt like she was building something up from scratch again.

It can also feel like a lot of effort when you’ve put so much into the brand you’ve already built. 

When you change your niche, it can take time and consistency to start to see results, but Jade’s now grown a new following of people in her new target market. 

Con: Worrying it’ll be a waste of time

One of the reasons Jade was reluctant to niche in her business at first was the fear that it was all going to be a waste of time. What happens if you put in all that effort, and you don’t get to where you want to be?

The mind monkeys definitely get involved and it can feel like a huge effort to rebuild your audience. But with patience and consistency comes results.

As you can see, niching can be really beneficial in business. The pros definitely outweigh the cons! Most people get put off and are scared to niche - whether it be the services they offer, the people they target or the types of content they create. But be brave, find your niche and have patience.

Jade is a children’s entertainer and Founder of The Party Marketeers where she helps people in the party industry go from party pooper to party pro on social media so they can attract more bookings for their services. 

You can follow Jade on Instagram, listen to her podcast The Party Pod and visit her website here.