Niche marketing is the opposite of mass marketing. With a niche, you have a specific target segment to aim at; mass marketing is like a shotgun blast. Niche marketing takes advantage of the opportunity to really connect with your target market; mass marketing is the Super Bowl commercial that reaches millions of people, who may or may not be interested in your product or services.

To put it terms of technology: If mass marketing were a phone, it would be a Smartphone. It takes pictures, accesses the Internet, allows you to order pizza, and, yes, you could even make a phone call with it. However, it has so many features that you probably use fewer than half of them. All of those unused features are things that you paid for and don’t need. Mass marketing may reach thousands of people, but if only a couple of them are your target market, it’s a lot of wasted effort, time, and money.

Niche marketing, on the other hand, would be your old-fashioned, Ma Bell rent-a-phone. It did one thing: Allowed you to make calls. Those phones lasted forever!

For niche marketing to work, you need to become the expert in your field. A niche will help you know where to market and to whom, and it will give you an identity that your competitors don’t have.

Inspired by “Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days.”