Before you begin to market online, you need to pick a niche. Today we are going to look at how to become an expert in your niche.
You will obviously need a website when you start to build your niche, and here is a great place to start, because you can have your website set up for you in under 5 minutes and begin working on it, at no cost to yourself.
You don’t need to be an expert in your niche when you pick it, but you at least need to want to learn more about your topic and find it interesting, or you won’t enjoy building your website and will get bored very quickly. In fact the more passionate you are about your niche, the better it will be in the long run and the more you are going to love building out your new website.
Most marketing experts will tell you that if you want to know how to become an expert in your niche, you need select a niche or a target audience. That you can’t just market to “whoever is paying attention” and be successful.
Why is that? Think about it this way: if you are having a conversation with a total stranger, how do you know what to talk about? Unless you are able to find some common ground, the conversation will probably be short-lived.
Because neither of you has an understanding of the other, you must find a way to make a connection to involve each other in the conversation.
The same holds true for marketing. You must make a connection with your audience if you want them to pay attention and stay around to find out what your product or service is all about.
And, in order to make a connection, you have to know something about them. You have to know what problems they have that you can help to solve. You have to understand them.
That is why it is so important to select a niche or clearly defined target audience. Because once you’ve selected a distinct group of people you believe you can best help, you can research them so you can begin to understand them.
Then and only then can you really communicate effectively with them? And that’s what marketing is all about; communication.
But once you’ve identified your target or niche, you must also be able to find and market to them.
Now For How To Become An Expert In Your Niche
The first step in how to become an expert in your niche is to define them more specifically.
How?
My suggestion is to ask yourself the following 10 questions to help develop a very clear description of your target. Then it will become much clearer to you where you can find them. In other words, you will need to do some market research on the type of people that will visit your niche. This will get you one step closer on how to become an expert in your niche.
You may need to make some educated guesses when answering these questions and that’s okay. It’s a start and you can always refine your answers as your business grows and you begin to understand your target market more.
You can apply these same 10 questions to your business or niche, regardless of what they are. They are universal questions that apply to any type of business or target audience.
Click Here to see a webinar on market research.
1. What is their primary problem you can help solve?
You will need to clearly identify the current problem your potential clients are dealing with and work out ways to help them to find a solution. This could be in the form of advice or even recommendations that will help your clients solve their issues.
2. Are they primarily male or female?
Are you trying to target male or female clients?
3. How old are they?
Let’s say, 
for instance, you are looking for highly functioning professional women, then your target market should be mainly women between the ages of 25 and 45 years old.
4. Where do they live?
What type of community or neighborhood do your potential clients live in? Urban area; suburban area?
Also, do you have any geographic limitations (real or self-imposed) regarding where you can market or deliver your services or products?
If they are high functioning professional women, they likely live in a nicer suburban neighborhood or perhaps an urban area. You would need to identify where you believe the majority live, and whether you want to work with people only in your geographic area or in a specific country.
5. What type of work do they do?
And where do they likely work? Their type of business as well as geographic location.
Professional women could be corporate professionals, doctors, attorneys, entrepreneurs or solo-professionals.
6. What is their socio-economic status or annual household income?
High functioning professional women are probably enjoying financial success, making them of a higher socio-economic class. They probably earn a good income and enjoy the finer things in life. Money is probably not an issue.
7. How do they spend their leisure time?
Do they belong to a gym or health club? Do they go to the movies or out to dinner frequently? Or, do they have young children and spend their time at elementary school functions, family picnics, children’s birthday parties or weekend soccer tournaments?
You will need to make some assumptions here based on what she knows about her target audience. Again, that’s okay to start with and you can always fine tune this later when you know more about your audience.
8. What is their family structure or home environment?
This niche of professional women probably includes single women as well as those who are married and have children. Therefore their home environments may vary.
They may have no support or family network. They may have strong family support. Or, they may be having issues with their family based on their past.
You will need to keep this in mind when selecting marketing avenues and writiing you her marketing messages. She’ll want to focus on what you have in common and steer away from areas of ambiguity.
9. Do they belong to any associations or professional organizations?
Selects one or several industries to target, and identify associations or professional organizations these women belong to. Once identified, these are excellent venues for networking and speaking opportunities.
10. What are their media habits?
Do they read the newspaper or magazines? If so, which ones? Listen to the radio?
If so, which formats do they likely listen to? Do they watch TV? If so, which programs do they likely watch? Do they spend time on the Internet?
If so, what kinds of websites do you think they are visiting? Where do you think they are currently getting their information about health and wellness?
These are all potential places to reach your niche with your marketing message.
Yes, again you may need to make some assumptions. However, all of these media can provide you with detailed demographic profiles of their audience. So if we’re looking for professional women in a certain geographic area, we’ll be able to find out if they are among the audiences for these different mediums.
Answer each of these 10 questions to the best of your ability. Talk to current clients to get insights. Or, talk to friends or colleagues who fit your client profile to gain a better understanding of who and where they are.
Once you build this target client description, you’ll have a much better sense of where you can find them and how to market to them.
The next step is putting together a marketing message that speaks directly to them and what they are dealing with. The more you understand them, the more you’ll be able to craft a message that will hit home with them. That message will become your magnet, attracting the people who you can best help.
Once you get going, how to become an expert in your niche will be child’s play, as the more research you do and the more articles you write for your website, the more of an expert you will become.
So what are you waiting for get going right now and see just how easy it is how to become an expert in your niche.
