Niche Marketing aims to target a specific audience with a certain marketing and positioning strategy, rather than multiple audiences at once. This allows the author to potentially make more income – with less advertising cost. I advise all my authors to use this principle to better define a target reader audience.
Using a niche marketing approach, a self-help author who talks about overcoming grief would be better to focus on attracting those who have directly been affected by grief and loss, than to advertise 99c special ebooks to a mass audience with different tastes and interests.
The General Principles of Micro-Niching
A micro-niche expert takes a market and carves that up, effectively providing a unique twist. They promote a set of benefits and value that is best served by them, the new leader, as the mainstream providers fight it out to serve broader markets.
Scott Kubie writes books for designers that helps them understand web writing. Rather than coming from his perspective, in Writing for Designers, Scott meets the designer’s needs with the visual aspect first. He also makes ‘the product’ (his book) appear simple and doable, not dense and wordy.
In many markets, we want the best provider who meets our needs exactly, not just the lowest price. So, even as thousands of creative writers sell their books via BookBub for $1.99 or so, paying handsomely for the privilege, there are experts who attract hundreds or thousands of people hungry for their exact ‘recipe’ or answer to their problem. These authors sell ebooks from $4.99 on up to $20.00 or so.
Not only is it more cost effective to practice niche marketing for authors, but it takes a lot less time as well. With this type of marketing strategy, it is far easier to reach an audience that is likely to be interested in your particular book and course. You know where to look and what words to use that will resonate with them. So, you are able to reach an audience that is more inclined to buy than the general population, thus getting better results for less money.
When you think of it, Google Search is a definer of niche and micro-niche market leaders. The bots search the index for the most reputable, prolific websites whose words best represent that search phrase. The more specific the phrase, the tighter the micro-niche, and (for the soloist), the easier it is to be found. Search engine bots also use social media traffic and blog contributions as an indicator that a business or person is popular and relevant.
When targeting better on our book sales page and blog posts, we need to know how to find keywords around our topic. Let’s take some research for my book, Creative Ways with Money. I believe the topic searched for most is: ‘creative money ideas’. I let Ubersuggest (a free tool) do the rest. I also have other research tools, listed in the Mega Book and Course Planning workbook.
Then I look up at the competition for the keyword. We want to see an easy, or at most, a medium level of difficulty. Great, this ticks that box.
Now I know ‘creative money ideas’ is one of the phrases I want to use in a new blog post and potentially in my Amazon keywords or book description. Even though it’s not a ‘money ideas’ book per se, it contains creative ideas for money-making, and that is the main thing. We are not attracting the wrong people nor advertising one thing and delivering another.
How to Define a Niche
Defining a niche for yourself or your publishing imprint is not super-easy. First, you must know something of the defined market (have you talked to these people over the years and asked their problems?) Second, you must determine that your book or course can deliver on its promises, i.e. you have strong experience in it or you can collate specialist information in a logical manner.
Growing your Niche for Authors
Growing the niche takes a further two steps. First, you must ensure the basic message is coming across. You need everyone you meet online or offline to understand what’s unique about your content, about you. Get this right and the right customer or reader will soon put up their hands to find out more. Try making a Connection Statement, which is explained on this podcast.
On a larger scale, your niche marketing collateral has to be crystal clear, consistent, and targeted to the reader. That means any free lead magnets (chapters or cheat sheets) you offer on your website should reflect this approach.
The second part is growing and enhancing your expert leader status. As a leader you need to have a solid reputation and credibility. This is built up through being a voice in the industry, such as:
- writing in trade magazines and leading blogs,
- developing website content that gives massive value,
- building alliances with other complementary organisations,
- belonging to the industry association,
- gathering an online social media following (with book highlighted), and
- adding to your book with an online course or branded merchandise.
A final word on niching…
“The ideal position is to craft your own niche where no one else makes their living in the same way, in the same place, at the same time. There are no competitors. You are unique. You have a place in the economy of nature.”
— Richard Koch, author ‘The Star Principle’ and ‘The 80/20 Principle’.
Category Finder/Research Tool
Kindle Rocket is a research tool and category finder for multiple-book authors who would like their books to rank better on Amazon. We are affiliates for Kindle Rocket.
Nothing replaces marketing and a good sales blurb, so remember there are other factors at play.
–> About Publisher Rocket (US$97 lifetime access – discount link). We get a commission if you click through and buy the program. Having followed Dave Chesson for 11 years, Jen believes this tool is legitimately a leader in the market.
Next Steps…
After nine years in editing books and authoring books, Jennifer Lancaster had heard from dozens of authors that they were dismayed by publishing services, sometimes rorted but mostly frustrated. Jen realised that authors lacked easy and specific training for all things self-publishing.
The Book Creation Self-Publish course evolved to relate to a beginner author’s needs. It helps with ways to outline a book and set up their author brand. It talks authors through Australian-accessible services, like IngramSpark print-on-demand, as well as Amazon publishing tutorials, and using printers.
After a solid Yes from users, iterating the course and keeping up with changes in the industry is important.