How to target a niche market at a small business – Telegraph.co.uk

Identifying a small group of customers can prove as valuable as having a tiny share of a mass market. But it comes with challenges, as Sallee Poinsette-Nash found when she started an online magazine called Tall Guides, and a Facebook group, #TeamTall, to unite and celebrate taller women.

On attending the Tall People Convention in Germany in May 2016, the 6ft 2in Londoner realised that there was nowhere for tall women to regularly meet. That, combined with being fed-up with being teased for being tall, made her determined to tackle the gap in the market.

Her target audience might be easy to spot in a crowd, but finding them online was a challenge. A lot of women dont yet embrace being tall, so they dont put it on their online profiles, Ms Poinsette-Nash explains. We ran social media campaigns to find them and saw tall people tagging their tall friends and word spreading, which started our communitys growth.

People only join a community if they feel that they will get something out of itSallee Poinsette-Nash, Tall Guides

The unique selling point of Tall Guides is the encouragement, empathy and support for tall people a positive rather than a negative stance on the characteristic. With bloggers and writers on board to generate content, and strong engagement on social media, the magazine has tapped into the community and united them under one brand.

People only join a community if they feel that they will get something out of it, so delivering value must be your number one objective, otherwise they just won't stay with you, advises Ms Poinsette-Nash. You have to understand why and how they engage.

Her success to date has proved that targeting a niche can generate both income and optimism among minority sectors of society. Unless women start shrinking, the niche is here to stay.

The journey ofUtmost Me, a nootropics supplement brand, has been rockier. Nootropics better known as smart drugs are designed to improve brain health and cognitive function, particularly increased focus, memory and creativity. Theyre already huge in the US, but less common in the UK.

Its still widely unknown in Europe; its a real niche product, explains Richard Turnbull, the companys founder and chief executive. We are also in the super niche of natural nootropics, meaning that we only use natural ingredients such as turmeric and rhodiola in our supplements no medicines.

Originally, it was a challenge for Mr Turnbulls team to get traction. The Google search volume for people looking for nootropics is low, and most of that traffic is for biohackers (a growing community of individuals who use biotechnology to augment their physical health or abilities), who want to have short bursts of improved cognitive function. Add to that the negative connotations of drugs and youre looking at a hard product to sell, even if theres niche demand.

We had to go out and educate people about brain health, nootropics and the benefits of natural supplements, and be very clear that were an all-natural, caffeine-free product, Mr Turnbull recalls. Eventually, this education stage helped us secure funding from investors.

To find the best way of reaching potential customers, Utmost Me tested different digital advertising methods on various platforms. Advertising through Facebook worked best, despite being costly initially.

There must be people looking for what you have, or at least evidence of lots of people using it somewhere else in the worldRichard Turnbull, Utmost Me

We were losing money with our advertising at the beginning, says Mr Turnbull. But we then found that we were getting a high re-order rate among those we had reached via Facebook. This gave the company the model that it needed to scale the business up to the next level.

While the SME is now doing well, the obstacles faced along the way have taught Mr Turnbull a lot about setting up a small business with a niche audience. Don't try to create something for which no one is looking for.

There must be people looking for what you have, or at least evidence of lots of people using it somewhere else in the world, and a growing demand for it in the UK otherwise you will spend too much money trying to explain your business.

Markus Stripf, chief executive and co-founder ofSpoon Guru, is confident in the longevity of demand for his niche product. He developed the barcode-scanning app, which caters for those with specific dietary needs, after seeing family members with intolerances and allergies struggling to find things that were safe to eat.

The app has an inbuilt ingredient database and search engine, both developed by qualified health professionals, that can be used by anyone wanting to make dietary choices.

As many people across the UK choose, or have to have, some form of exclusion diet, we use targeted digital marketing channels to engage people, says Mr Stripf. We produce content for our blog and syndicate it across social channels, where it finds its intended audience. We also share updates in newsletters and on our website, and talk to users directly via the app itself.

To date, the lack of competition, and society-wide interest in wellbeing, have benefited the business. Because of this, Spoon Guru secured seed funding with relative ease, giving it the money to set up the business and scale operations.

The biggest challenge so far has been finding a solution to the crux of the problem: incomplete, unreliable and inaccurate product and recipe data. Now that weve overcome this, our service will be more attractive to more people, he says. By staying flexible and keeping on top of the latest food trends, the app should have a long future in catering for niche dietary needs.

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How to target a niche market at a small business - Telegraph.co.uk