Loading...
Answers
MenuHow can I identify a unique niche in the personal style/fashion community?
I am a certified Style Coach, who currently works one-on-one with individuals in person and via Skype. My business is starting to fall off and I think my "niche" is too broad - e.g. women business professionals. Any tips on how to narrow a niche through research would be appreciated! Also any tips to expand online vs. in-person would be great as well.
Answers
I highly recommend reading the book "Blue Ocean Strategy" that is the best and simplest way to map out the landscape of the marketplace and identify opportunities or methods of differentiation.
If you don't have time to read the book I'm sure there videos out there summarizing and explaining the core principles.
We walk our clients through the Blue Ocean Strategy mapping and simply follow the process in the book, and it's quite powerful and valuable.
I don't know of any other process that VISUALLY REVEALS the opportunity in your market.
The other way is to look at your past clients:
Is there a majority of clients that you worked with that fall into a niche demographic?
Is there a subset of your clients that you enjoyed working with more so than others?
Is there an area of your expertise that you're more passionate about that would lead you to dive deeper into a niche? (IE: career transition, executives in healthcare, women in tech startups, Female executives for 7-figure startups, etc.)
Hope this info helps!
A niche market is a small subset of the market for a specific demographic, product type, a particular price point, and a certain quality. With less competition, you have higher chances to sell your product to the exact right people, that want and need your product. Since your target customer is right there, you will not have to spend as much money on marketing. For start-ups to enter the market and get off the ground properly, they need to place themselves in a relatively small niche. If there are a few competitors, it means that there is a market and a need for your type of product and concept. You can always tweak both your concept, values, business strategies and products to differentiate yourself from the others. If you want to get a reality check, you should visit a trade fair for your type of products. If you are making activewear you can for example visit ISPO Munich, which is the world’s largest trade fair for sports business.
To identify a unique niche in the personal style/fashion community try finding answers to the following questions:
Q.1. HOW do you find your niche market?
Amazons “best seller” page is updated every hour so you will have an exactly accurate list of products to compare with. If you are already in a niche market, you might answer these questions and find that you should remain in your niche or move away into a new niche where the opportunities are bigger for you. Make a long list with ideas, do not edit anything, at least not yet. The more ideas you have, the better it is.
Q.2. What are your passions and skills?
If this is your first business, you will soon realize that there are ups and downs, and you will realize how hard you have to work to succeed. You will work 24/7 on your business, and if your passion does not lie here, you should then NOT launch a clothing brand. Customers in niche markets tend to be deeply knowledgeable, and they will sniff your miles away if you are not authentic and if you do not know your stuff. Make a list of at least 5 things you are good at.
Q.3. What values do you want to run your business by?
The apparel market is extremely saturated. Today’s customers buy brands based on values and what they stand for. By making a list of values, you will narrow down even more on your target customer, demographic, and positioning. If you have a hard time coming up with ideas, start listing the values that you love about your favourite brands.
Q.4. Who is your customer?
For a brand to be successful, the brand absolutely needs to know who its target customer is. To know their preferences, where they shop, what they like, what they do not like, you must create a target customer profile before you start your brand. If you know people that fit your ideal customer profile, talk to them. They are most likely, not your ideal customer. We have written a post called How to define your customer. It is exactly about what the headline states, how to define your customer. Read the post to help you identify your target customer. And everything you do in your business, from the moment you have defined your ideal customer, everything you put out into the world should be for this person. It is vital to know the market you are entering. You should check as much what is not on the marketplace as what is. Talk to retailers and if possible, customers to get clarification on this. Figure out what makes them your competition, and then do it better or different. Make a SWOT analysis after you have done your market research. You will get some ideas about how to make your brand stand out.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
Related Questions
-
Lots of entrepreneurs work 60 to 80 hours a week. This isn't what I consider a good work/life balance. How would you improve it?
Say "NO." It's a complete sentence.ML
-
How can I become a digital influencer to serve my new startup?
Sarah is correct here. Becoming an influencer or authority in any area takes time and dedication, is not something you can typically leverage over night. My suggestions to you is stick to a hyper targeted niche, narrow down your vision and scale back all efforts to the most minimal most targeted effort possible that will yield you to the next effort all with one goal in mind. In growth hacking, we take this approach as having minimal goals but approaching them aggressively to reach highest results at each goal level. No matter how minimal the goal might be feel, if you're moving closer to the bottom line the goal is worth the effort. With that said once you have a niche and only focus on that the social platforms and users will begin to recognize this and turn to you. A quick hack for boost, although it typically doesn't list is writing a piece for publication to local journalists or online blogger. Write about something in your niche, look for relatable blogs or journalists and send it to them. Follow the bloggers, message them, ask for guest articles, or make suggestions on their posts vi their comments with links to your own blog. Dedicate a Facebook page with images (not info) and always include a link to that guest post, or your blog, or article. For example, the first time I came out on television, I managed to get more views of the back stage images than I did on the actual show. I leverage that into more appearances and visitors to my websites and businesses. The authority level can after a lot of work tho. Expertise came to me in my field due to experience and education all I had to do is expose my insight but even that took time and consistency in one area.HV
-
Should I absolutely use my real name for my personal brand or can I use an alias (my middle name)?
Hi Kristin! So, I take it you have your firstnamelastname.com AND firstnamemiddlename.com You can really go either way. However, whichever way you go, it needs to be on all of your branding. For legal stuff, contracts and etc - you will need to include your last name. So even if you use Kristina Blair everywhere, for legal stuff, you can add your last name so that it's Kristina Blair Colpitts. Hope that helps! Let me know, NicoleNK
-
Personal branding - using name as domain, especially when it's difficult to spell?
I face the same challenge! I came up with a separate name that still represents my brand but doesn't force users/partners/clients to try and remember my complicated name.JS
-
How do I define a client avatar for people or businesses requiring branding and design services?
What a great question! You are on the right track. First, lets define Avatar as "An icon or figure representing a particular person." In business application, an avatar is a representation of your ideal client/customer. A business may have multiple avatars representing several target demographics. Some prefer to distill this down to one person as an “avatar.” I recently interviewed super entreprenuer John Lee Dumas of EOfire.com and he has a very clear Avatar he calls "Jimmy" that he uses for business decisions you may want to check out. I hope that you have already gone through the exercise of your UVP, or Unique Value Proposition. If not, may I suggest the worksheet on this page, first: http://bit.ly/1kYTLbf Ok, so once you've clarified the why choose me, then start working on your Avatar, that's the who, or as we marketers like to call them: personas that represent segments from your target market. You have to start somewhere, right? So do. Are you going to first focus locally in your zip code and surrounding area? That can be one piece in helping you visualize your Avatar's lifestyle. Target marketing has to do with breaking your potential global audience into segments, specifically only the potential buyers of our product, service, or cause. As much as we might be tempted, we can’t be all things to all people. We have to commit and put some stakes in the ground. Are you ready to write your personal ad? Who are you looking for? Some of the most basic questions you should ask in forming an idea of Customer Segmentation has to do with what these people want, need, think, and feel. No time is wasted from this exercise because it will ultimately lead you to where and with who they hang out (their tribe.) Why is that our desired end point? Because that virtual or real (coffee shop, tradeshow, website, search engine, twitter feed, health fair, street location, podcast, meetup, traditional media) is where I should be hanging out with my product, service or cause and shouting my UVP from the rooftops as part of the conversation! Taking this thought experiment all the way through will also assist you in the critical understanding of whether the segment is large enough for you to be successful. I like using the Personas app (available on iPad) to put forth a visual representation of my potential target markets, but a white board works too! Literally put in a photo representation of your Avatar with a Name, and start brainstorming out: Think and Feel? See? Hear? Say and Do? Hangs out with/where? For you, offering your B2B services, maybe explore linked in to find where your peeps hang out and get a clearer idea of, let's call her, Samantha. Samantha is a small business owner of a growing service business whose revenues just got in the black. She has two employees and she's looking to hire another. She is struggling with getting her website up and mobile friendly and feels like she needs to be more effective in communicating what she does. She is overworked, in her mid 40s and recently divorced with 2 boys ages 10, 12. She has little time for fluff and needs guidance in creating a system that will help run her business. Can you help Samantha? :-) If you'd like to get more tips that sound like this, I'd be tickled if you let me know if Sell Local. Think Global. speaks to you. It's my first book and I'm feeling very vulnerable putting myself out there! eep! Available now on Amazon: http://bit.ly/olgasbookOM
the startups.com platform
Copyright © 2025 Startups.com. All rights reserved.