Broad Business Or Narrow Niche?

Listener Question

In this episode, Izabela and I discuss a very interesting listener question from Mark Dickson. To sum it up, Mark has two websites and one of which caters to his specialty freelance illustration, and the other is something he’s also interested in doing which is about creative freelance income. He’s asking for advice on whether or not he should broaden his reach and pursue the creative freelance income website or focus on a smaller niche catering to a subject which he is extensively knowledgeable and experienced with.

Izabela thinks that Mark really has an interest in creative freelancing from other sources, not just freelance illustration, because of the fact that he started the website which looks good and he is now currently developing further. Izabela advised for Mark to broaden the creative freelance website by creating other sources in addition to his illustration information and collaborate with others in different niches to cross promote each other. I added that he can also use his other website which is a landing page to lead into the other or vice versa.

Email Marketing

Since the subject of the question is related to internet marketing Izabela and I had a little discussion about our recommended email marketing supplier. We like features such as being able to get unlimited replies to a survey we can create and then implement audience segmentation to filter people into the niches we target at Music Radio Creative. So far the use of GetResponse has worked really well for us and we recommend that you try it.

Segmentation Of Customers Is Beneficial

When we were redeveloping our website, we decided that making clear distinctions of products and services is beneficial for us and our customers. Izabela compared our experience to Mark’s challenge. He could offer services for various different niches. She provided good advice of making a clear distinction of the products and services that he’s offering by defining those niches upfront so that customers will have a clear view of what they are going to get. In comparison to this, in our very own Music Radio Creative site we have a radio section which is completely different from our podcasting section because we understand the different needs of different customers.

Focus On What You Do Best

The potential problem however with going for a broader reach, in Mark’s case, is his self admitted lack of knowledge on the other subjects. Izabela answered that Mark should assess whether he would really just want to focus on his specialty and decide that he’s not going to do anything else. If he decides otherwise, he can expand his business by adding affiliates and broadening his knowledge on all the other subjects. However he must be wary that he may have to re-brand which can be a little harmful for businesses if not done right.

Different Success For Different Niches

I posed a hypothetical question, assuming that Mark goes through with broadening his website and the subjects receive varying success from his audience, should he drop the other subjects which are not doing as well as the others? Izabela tells us that what needs to be determined in such case is to identify if the failure is due to the general market conditions or can be attributed to his own lack of performance against other competition. Mark should analyse carefully and adjust his ultimate goal accordingly. Another question I asked is whether it is worth to have three different websites at first and test it before combining them. Izabela thinks it would make things more complicated for Mark but she also thought of a possible solution through split testing by setting up three landing pages and from there see which ones convert the best.

Social Media Branding

For people who are in the same dilemma as Mark on whether to expand and broaden their business or to focus on their expertise, Izabela advised us on how they can manage their social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook. Izabela asserted that Mark will not be the brand in this case but the website he will create will be the brand. So it what would be important is to work on describing the brand and writing a vision which addresses his long term goals.

Finally, Izabela advised that doing plenty of testing, market research and competitor research without losing track of a definite long term goal would be what is most important in approaching this dilemma.

Would You Go For A Broad Or Narrow Niche?

Leave a comment if you’ve enjoyed the episode and let us know what you’d prefer a broad business or a narrow niche and why? If you’d like to see how we send our newsletters go and sign up to get all our email newsletters.