A lot of people are scared to go all-in on a single, sub-specific niche.
That used to be me. And if that’s you, keep reading because I have a solution to consider.
I’ve talked before about how you can be a specialist and a generalist at the same time to help mitigate the risks while you build your niche practice.
And while that works, there is another way.
The other approach you could take is to overtly specialize.
Let’s say you work with $1 billion+ companies. A broad yet specific target market based on a company size (firmographic).
Now let’s say you have lots of experience with manufacturing, logistics, and energy companies. Those are sub-segments of the larger target market.
It would be strange to make your niche around helping all three of these disparate verticals. They don’t really hang together except for the fact that they’re large in scale.
And you don’t necessarily need to focus on just one of them (though your life would be a lot easier if you did).
Instead, you could say you work with billion-dollar enterprises and specialize in manufacturing, logistics, and energy companies.
How would that look?
Your case studies could show the wide breadth of the industries you’ve worked with—yet there might be specific pages (audience pages) for each of the three specializations above. These would allow you to showcase industry-specific case studies and examples of your thinking.
You could also attend the conferences for each of those three industries and build relationships, establish authority, and become a speaker—whatever you could muster. This is hard mode but it would work to some extent.
You could even create content that uses examples from these industries but extracts the lessons to a wider audience.
Most importantly, you could still work with anyone who fits the firmographic (size) of your target market while building some level of credibility in your areas of specialization.
To be sure, this is harder than simply picking one sub-specific target market.
But by using the idea of specialty and demonstrating credibility using audience pages, you can at least demonstrate how you’re better than the sea of more general alternatives.
And it means you don’t have to limit yourself to a single niche.
Big legal and consulting firms do it all the time. They have various practice areas and industry experience.
But remember—you’re not a big firm. You’re an individual.
So while this approach may work, your results can be even stronger if you simply pick one and become entrenched in the industry.
The target is not the market, after all.
Food for thought.
—kevin