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So What is a Niche Market Anyway?
By Mike Mindel | August 2, 2007
(Updated: 4th August 2008)
In day 1 of the Thirty Day Challenge, Ed told us to go and brainstorm possible niche markets. Possible niche markets.
So what is this niche, market, niche market thing anyway?
The Difference Between a Niche and a Market
A niche is a general area of interest, a hobby, a passion, stuff people do. It can be a big niche like health, board games or rock climbing or tiny like orchid hunting and monkey spotting.
A market is a group of people who share similar traits and have common needs. E.g. people who drive, people who need to buy a house.
Now a lot of people get confused right at this point. A niche and a market are NOT the same thing.
Niche
People that do stuff.
Just because people do stuff doesn’t mean that people will pay for it. I purposefully chose monkey arranging as a niche so some of you would go huh?
Well. Exactly.
I’m sure there are people in the world who arrange monkeys (I don’t happen to be one of them). But are you in the market for monkey arranging? Do you have a pressing need to learn how to do it? Can you think of anyone else who might want to do it? Well. No. Neither can I. It’s like an activity without a purpose – it probably doesn’t have any market.
But I bet I can find some people who want to arrange flowers.
Market
People who need stuff, want stuff, want to do stuff or need stuff done.
Each market generally wants the same things. But when you segment the market (don’t confuse with niche) into first time property buyers or super high income property buyers – then each segment will want and need different things.
They’ve got different problems to solve.
A broad market might be property buyers.
But a low income family who are looking for a four bedroom house in London will have different needs from someone rich looking to buy a lighthouse by the sea in South Wales.
Niche Market
Wikipedia: a focused, targetable portion (subset) of a market sector.
A niche market simply means a smaller subset of a large market.
By combining a market with a niche we hope to find a market that is not being addressed by the big players. The ideal niche market is one where there is an interest from a small but sizable group of individuals (niche market) and no one is fulfilling their needs. So we can serve them!
Lets try and discover a niche market.
We’ll choose a market: ‘property buyers’ and then segment it to ‘property buyers in England’.
We’ll then choose a niche area of interest e.g. ‘unusual property hunting’.
Lets throw those two together at each other and a mental click should happen. We get ‘property hunters searching for unusual properties to buy in England e.g. lighthouses, houseboats’.
Do you see what happened there?
Do you see how the niche (unusual property hunting) & the market (property buyers in England) came together to form a niche market – unusual property buyers in England?
Do you see how there may be a small group of individuals who want to buy unusual properties and nobody is helping them?
This is the knack of finding niche markets.
At first it seems quite hard, quite confusing. And then one day, bam, you’re churning them out.
Work to develop this knack.
What a Niche Market Is Not
Any market you can paint with a broad brush:
- A large demographic group e.g. caucasian women
- A product
- A service
- A regional group (residents of Manchester)
- Dancers
- People on diets
- Australians
What a Niche Market is
- Golfers? No.
- Handicapped golfers? Getting there.
- Elderly, handicapped, one armed golfers? Maybe.
- One armed golfers? Now we’re getting somewhere.
Again. Look at what happened there. The niche or activity is ‘golfing’. The market is ‘handicapped people’. The niche market is ‘one armed golfers’.
If you’re still having trouble:
Think Problem Statements
Think about a market in terms of people who need problems solved. E.g.
- How can a golfer with one arm still play golf?
- What mentalism tricks can I show my friends in the pub?
- How can I find exotic properties to buy?
Most importantly think about unsolved problems.
Corey Rudl (Internet Marketing Centre) started selling Ferrari emblems since Ferrari owners kept having theirs stolen.
Ferrari owners needed a place to buy spare emblems. The niche is ‘car emblems’, the market is ‘luxury car owners’.
The niche market is ‘luxury car owners who need emblems’.
The Best Ideas
The best ideas will come from the real world. Just be open to fresh ideas, watch tv, look in bookstores. Get a feel for what people are interested in. Look for trends out in the world.
Start with your hobbies and passions – what you already know about. Ask yourself: what else would I like to learn more about?
Always be thinking to yourself: what’s the market, what unique problems can I solve for this market.
Brainstorm Time
It’s absolutely key that you generate as many ideas that you can and that you don’t judge yourself or them. Just don’t edit yourself. It doesn’t matter if the ideas are any good or not. This is brainstorming time. Open the floodgates and let it all come out. Good or bad.
Silence the inner critic and stop editing yourself!
Don’t think the ideas are stupid or that they won’t work. Who are you to know whether an idea will work or not? You’ll let the market decide that.
Now go build that list of niche market ideas.
- Mike
Technorati Tags: niche market, what a niche market is, what a niche market isn’t, brain storm time, mike mindel, thirty day challenge, problem statements, ferrari testarossa, ferrari emblems, one armed golfer, niche, target market, niche market
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Topics: Key Concepts | 25 Comments »
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:28 am
Caro made a good point on the forum.
Don’t think about a PRODUCT or MAKING MONEY from it yet.
That is putting the cart before the horse.
Just get the ideas down.
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:29 am
Why guess when the market will tell you if they buy! – Ed
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Great article. Thanks Mike.
August 4th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
[...] So What is a Niche Market Anyway? [...]
August 4th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
[...] So What is a Niche Market Anyway? [...]
August 4th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Hey Mike,
Excellent article. So it doesn’t matter if there is only a couple searches per day for the niche market? I noticed (via your Free Keyword Tool) that there are only 8 searches for this topic per day.
~Shannon
August 4th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Hi great stuff — old eyes want to know if there’s a way for the blog entries to be bigger font ?
Thanks!
Judy
August 4th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
[...] So What is a Niche Market Anyway? That Magic Feeling when you find a Niche Market [...]
August 5th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Peace Mike, This is a great post I have some friends and family who were asking me to explain to them what a niche market is and although I have a nack for coming up with ideas for them I wasn’t that great at explaining what it is….
You managed to break it down to the point a child can understand it…
Thanx!!! You’re a blessing!!!
Dreams Are Real and Inspirations Just A Breath Away!!!
Life Samadhi Avatari
August 5th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
The other day I was watching the reality show Run’s House, and in that episode something happened that clearly brings home the concepts of Market and Niche.
One of his daughters went shopping for sneakers. Well, the athelethic shoes industry has a big market with all kinds of shoes for all kinds of needs. Huge Market
Anyhow, after looking at, and trying on several pairs Run’s daughter was disappointed that she could not find a “girly” pair of sneakers. She and her sister started discussing the issue right there in the store. As young women, they saw a need for hip sneakers, made exclusively for young women, in styles and colors that were appealing to this particular population.
(Niche = a small area of need within a larger market)
The girls presented their idea to their uncle, the
Hip Hop mogul Russel Simmons, he saw the potential
for a profitable niche, and sent the “Girly Sneakers” idea for production.
In this case, the Niche is “Girly” Sneakers, and the Market is Sneakers or athletic shoes. Your niche is still part of the market, it’s just that’s it’s a small, specific little corner within the big market.
August 5th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
[...] So What is a Niche Market Anyway? [...]
August 5th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
Nice example.
But a niche market shouldn’t have any notion of a product or service. e.g. sneakers.
I would break it down like this:
MARKET: People who want to look hip
SEGMENT: Young girls who want to look hip
NICHE: Sports
NICHE MARKET: Young sporty girls who want to look hip.
SUB-NICHE: Girly sneakers
The ‘niche market’ is the small area of need (young girls who want to look hip whilst doing sports) within the larger market (people who want to be hip) and larger niche (sports).
By jumping to the product too quickly you don’t give the market a chance to tell you what it wants. They may want girly sneakers but they may want something else.
August 6th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Brilliant explanation. Many thanks.
August 6th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
[...] So What is a Niche Market Anyway? [...]
August 8th, 2007 at 3:20 am
Thanks, his actually helped a lot. I don’t think the Day 1 and Day 2 videos were that clear in explaining it.
August 9th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
[...] Reason being that the concept of a Niche Market was extremely helpful in clarifying the market I wanted to sell too. But the output you need are niches (or sub-niches) to plug into Wordtracker & test for market demand. [...]
August 11th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
[...] We’ve dealt with this at length in my two earlier articles, So What is a Niche Market Anyway and That Magic Feeling When You Find a Niche Market. [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 11:12 am
[...] Don’t you think it’s time to get to work and create some article content that will satisfy YOUR niche market? [...]
August 29th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Thanks for taking the time to give several examples of what a niche market is. Most of the info I see is focused on “how to make money on the internet” market, which is fine, but it’s good to see other variations.
August 30th, 2007 at 3:01 am
Hi Mike,
I got a question. You did give one armed drummers as a niche market. My question is HOW you checked the number of searches for that market. I realized that it is not reflected in WT or GT.
August 30th, 2007 at 3:25 am
I didn’t. I selected ‘one armed drummers’ because it made the example clear not because I ran it through GTrends.
-Mike
August 30th, 2007 at 7:09 am
In other words, is it true that we can only find our niches and NOT our niche market through Wordtracker?
If the number of searches for our niche market cannot be found, then how do we know if it is a good market?
August 30th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Can I point you at the following pages which will answer this question better than a comment.
The Niche Factory
Tip #2 – Dont Query Wordtracker the Your Niche Market
Thanks,
-Mike
August 30th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Well, I was asking for the SEARCH NUMBER for the niche MARKET and NOT the niche. Won’t it be too little? As in around 8 searches a day.
October 7th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Excellent post Mike, thanks again.
I started online in 2001 and spent my first year marketing, maybe longer, just spinning my wheels and shaking my head and trying to understand the difference in a market and a niche.
It’s great to have it explained so well and it will help many avoid the rutt not knowing creates.
I will definitely give your post a thumbs up when I Stumble it.