11/26/2007
Niche Your Business for Long Tail Results
For example, if you are in financial planning, you have products for every conceivable demographic. But a marketing message that says, “We have investment products and services for everybody” doesn’t appeal to anyone in particular. Consider defining some niche markets such as -
- Financial planning for recently divorced women.
- Supplementary retirement programs for non-union employees.
- Investment strategies for newlyweds.
A good niche for your business is one in which you have a passion for and a competitive edge. The difficult part of Long Tail marketing is defining your niche. But you once you do, finding the right combination of marketing tactics follows right along.
Identifying and testing keyword phrases for the niche is a good first step. For paid search engine marketing, niche keyword phrases may be more affordable, since fewer companies are marketing to the niche and bidding on the keywords.
For organic search engine marketing, niche keyword optimized Web pages have a better chance of rising to the top of search engine return pages (SERP’s), again because fewer companies are optimizing for your niche.
Here are a few examples of how niche focus narrows the field for niche markets. The numbers are the number of Web pages returned by Google for the following search phrases.
“financial planning” – 1,790,000
“financial planning women” – 19,200
“financial planning divorce” – 3,740
“financial services divorced women” – 0
(Hmm. That might be a pretty good niche…)
“guitars” – 34,200,000
“acoustic guitars” – 1,670,000
“left handed acoustic guitars” – 51,900
“packaging films” – 240,000
“stretch films” – 80,600
“opaque stretch films” – 8
Niche markets open up marketing opportunities well beyond traditional pay per click search engine marketing programs. For instance, blogs are quite effective for niche products and services. If your company is pursuing one or several niche markets, launch a blog for each. The blogs will draw traffic to your site and build a community of customers and evangelists around your product and company.
Niche markets also open up highly effective marketing opportunities for off line marketing programs. If you help recently divorced women with financial planning, you can seek speaking engagements at women’s groups, churches, community service groups, etc.
All these Long Tail marketing activities succeed because although niches are by definition small, their constituents tend to identify strongly with their interest, enjoy participating in a niche community, and feel under-served. So – concentrate on communicating strong interest, providing a community forum, and serving the under-served.
You will be rewarded.
