Niche Definition Criteria: What's Yours?
Today I read a comment from a WA user who visited my website, and it made me think a lot about how we define a niche. I am really interested in what criteria you guys use to define this concept.
I see many people on WA using the word "niche" as a synonym for "topic" or "product/service". So they define "holidays" as a niche or "sports shoes" as a niche. Therefore, if they create a website about "Christmas holidays" or about "basketball shoes", that's their niche.
I am probably influenced by my current academic studies in Marketing, but I tend to define "Christmas holidays" and "basketball" as niches not because they focus on a certain topic or product but because they target very specific consumer needs. So yes, I see them as "niches" but not for the same reason they do :D
In (general) marketing, a niche is usually defined as a very specific market segment, which in turn is defined as a group of businesses that compete to satisfy a specific group of customers with certain characteristics and needs. This also allows you to define your ACTUAL competitors.
For example, they say that many VHS producers went bankrupt years ago because they failed to see electronic disk producers are their potential competitors. Disk producers were making a very different product, but that product could target the same need as VHS cassettes (people's need to watch home movies).
Needless to say, finding a customer whose need is currently targeted by very few competitors is one of the key elements to achieve market success.
The comment I was referring to at the beginning of my post made me think a lot because this visitor assumed that my website was a "multi-niche" website because I am reviewing online courses in different fields. Yet my intention was never to create a website about those fields but rather to create a website about online education advice and online course reviews. That's how I defined my niche and that's why I don't see my website as a "multi-niche" one.
I am basically focusing on a learner's need to compare various courses so that he can choose the right one for him/her. Kinda like what a university magazine does. Such a magazine may review mathematics degrees or philosophy degrees but its niche is not mathematics or philosophy (topics). Its niche is educational advice.
Of course that's just my market "bet" and only time will tell whether I segmented the market effectively, whether I picked the right niche and how good I am at satisfying that need.
I am really curious: what's your niche-definition process? Do you target a TOPIC? Do you target a PRODUCT? Do you target a NEED?
I'd really love to hear opinions from both beginners and advanced affiliate marketers.
Thanks for reading!
Recent Comments
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A niche is to me a segment of people (audience) you help with their needs/problems (you solve them by writing valuable content that addresses that and offer them a solution (aka affiliate product)
To take your example of the shoes, a target audience could be " women who want to wear shoes without high heels " so yes a consumer need as you say :-)
That's the same approach I take. I think it's the most effective one :)
Yep, we are on the same level here :-)
Thank you, Horatio, for clarifying the term 'niche''. I'm just a few days into this adventure and was quite confused. I first thought it was a target audience, but then as I'm working on finding my own niche and reading the questions and comments here I was beginning to think it was more a topic. Your explanation is very helpful.