Narrowing your target audience may sound an unwise strategy. Surely it makes more sense to spread your net as wide as possible and maximise your opportunities? Well, in this article we demonstrate why many advisers have discovered that doing the exact opposite and focusing on a niche in the market can be a very profitable direction to take.
What sort of niche should you select ?
This will depend on what your expertise is and what type of clients you tend to deal with. Geographical factors may also play a part. A niche can be broad or narrow. Age range could help you specify a broad niche, for example, clients within ten to fifteen years of retirement. To refine this to a narrow niche you may decide to focus on female clients who are age fifty or more and who have become recently single through the death of a spouse or divorce.
Or your broad niche may be business owners in the North West and your narrow niche, the owners of family owned engineering businesses with a turnover of £3-10 million. Or instead of targeting teachers in general, you could take a narrow niche of senior education professionals earning over 150k wanting to retire early. You get the picture…
What benefits can a niche deliver?
By defining your niche, you can become recognised as real experts in your field, the go-to people. It also gives you a distinct point of difference in a crowded marketplace. In addition, by being able to focus your efforts on your specific target audience, it enables you to tailor your offering more accurately and as a result meet your clients’ needs more effectively.
It also allows you to replicate your services, saving money as well as time and effort. This need not mean adopting a ‘cookie cutter approach’ but as you are addressing the same sort of issues, it means you can develop systems and processes to meet the requirements of a particular group.
Once you become known as having expertise in a certain sector, it also becomes easier to attract similar clients via word of mouth. Prospects will start to recognise themselves in some of your case studies and be reassured that you understand their needs.
How can technology help?
At CleverAdviser, we use technology to interpret big data so that advisers can more accurately meet their clients’ needs. By analysing millions of pieces of fund data each month, we select the most appropriate investments for a particular target audience, no matter how narrow that niche may be. We can also use objective evidence to pinpoint trends. Whatsmore, with all the systems in place, it frees up time to for you to focus on the client relationship more.
So if you’re thinking of ‘going niche’ and would like to know how CleverAdviser can help, get in touch.
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