Digital Marketing Strategy: Q&A on How to Get Started in a Niche
A few days ago, a new client wrote to me to ask for some advice about getting started in a niche that he was looking at going after. I thought his question was such a good one that I decided to publish it here, along with the answer that I gave him.
My Client’s Question
To protect the privacy of my client, I have omitted certain keywords from his question below.
As I am doing the strategy work we talked about and cruising the web for places that [type of people] “hang out” I am finding that there seems to be a major gap in the Podcast area within [industry name].
I am looking for a place where I can listen to interviews of top salespeople or new salespeople who have had success and frankly not seeing anything worth my time.
Most of what is out there seems to be the “talking head” or “talk at me” and “train me” type of content. I wonder if it might make sense to set up a “podcast” where I would interview top [type of person] and [other type of person] as will as newbies with a millennial type “start up” perspective coming into [industry name].
I am seeing some trends in the industry where people are beginning to think about [industry name] differently in more of a start up type of manner and also seeing it becoming more attractive to Millennials as a career.
Any quick thoughts on the best way to validate my hypothesis?
My Answer
The best way to test is to collect data. Here’s what to do.
1. Set up a landing page (use LeadPages.net) to describe the podcast (sales copy/headline must be tight) and see how many people opt in. To make this work, the sales copy must be all benefit, benefit, benefit. Treat the launch of the podcast like a launch of a movie or an apple product. Both make a big deal out of “coming soon!”
2. Use your list and/or Facebook or LinkedIn paid ads to drive traffic to the landing page.
If it converts, you are onto something. You may also want to run a split test while you are doing this. Optimizely is good for that.
The ‘manual’ way of doing this is to survey your list with survey monkey, or actual phone calls. You might want to start with 10 phone calls and if that goes well, then do 1 and 2 above. Your call.
If you really want to test demand, put a buy button on the page, that, when clicked, takes them to a “product not ready but launching soon, so get on the early bird list and you’ll get benefit, benefit, benefit” If people click the buy button, that means they want it bad enough to pay for it.
Make sense?
Additional Resources
- How to Test the Viability of a Niche Marketing Without Wasting Valuable Time and Resources
- 3 Ways to Capture More Leads
- The Digital Marketing Handbook
What Do You Think?
No one has a monopoly on good ideas, so half the reason that I published this post was to see if anyone else cared to share their thoughts or comments on my client’s question.
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