Embracing The Power Of Niche Markets: Why Everyone Can’t Be Your Customer

As a Nigerian who grew up in Nigeria, one of the earliest ways I learned about red flags in purchasing a product is from those men and women who always sell one drug or the other in a public bus.

There was hardly anything their drugs couldn’t cure. One drug would be advertised as the remedy for Cancer, Infertility, Menstrual cramps, Back pain, Arthritis, Diabetes, and every other medical condition they could think of.

One of the burning questions I used to ask then was, “What exactly is this drug made of that gave it the capability to cure every disease and ailment on the planet?”

So many business owners use the same template today without realizing it and then get frustrated that they aren’t making any sales or as many sales as they think they would. 

The problem behind this idea is that if this feature doesn’t sell, another one would. As people would say, “You cannot make everyone happy; you are not ice cream.” 

If you still need to figure out where I’m going with this, let’s do a quick survey; If you want to buy a drink, would you go to a shop where they only sell drinks or a chemist shop where they sell drugs and drinks? You would go to the shop where they sell only drinks because you are more likely to find more varieties and options than in the chemist shop. It’s the same psychology regardless of the platform; stop trying to sell everything or provide every available service for the sake of sales. It’s a strategy that is doomed to fail from the onset. 

Now, should every business sell one thing and one thing only? No, but you should start with one product or service and then evolve from that gradually. 

Piggyvest is Nigeria’s number one savings app and the first online savings and investment app in West Africa. However, it started as Piggy Bank because it started with one actual product, a digital savings platform. As the product grew, they added investment features, now a social marketing feature that continues to serve their users and attract new ones. 

WhatsApp is another great example; it started as an instant messaging platform and steadily grew to add features like statuses where users can share thoughts publicly and business features for users who want to promote their businesses to a broader reach. 

Offering everything you can think of in your product or service is a counter-productive strategy that will plummet your sales and make your brand forgettable because it needs to have an identity and a well-known purpose. 

Sometimes, the success of a business doesn’t lie in what is added to it but in what is subtracted from it. To avoid this, you must retrace your steps and strip. If you strip your product of all the exciting features and add-ons, what is the one thing you would be selling?

Some Advantages of Focusing On One Product At a Time Include the following:

Customer Knowledge: One of the things that focusing on one product at a time will do for you is help you gain a deep and comprehensive understanding of your customers. You have the time and the opportunity to get to know the market, your audience, and the best ways to reach them. 

By focusing on one product at a time, you also have time to refine your product until it’s the best one in the market. This customer knowledge also gives insights into what feature to add to your product and a large customer base to sell to. 

Brand Identity: Continuing with the example of the drink seller above, because she markets drinks, you are likely to go there first for any drink before thinking of other shops. 

You are also very likely to recommend her to anyone around you who wants to get a drink, despite having several shops selling drinks on your street, because you have come to trust her brand. 

Market Expertise: Your deep understanding of your customers and the market at large that comes from focusing on one product at a time gives you a significant edge over your competitors. 

It comes with a significant advantage when you add new features to your product. You already know your customer’s pain points and the best ways to reach them. This relationship helps you make the best decisions to satisfy them and keeps you ahead of the market. 

Mission Establishment: The global market is flooded with many products that people need to be using, and most of them are because these products were built because the owners wanted them, not because the customers asked for them.

Establishing and fulfilling your business mission with one product as a start helps you understand what to do next and avoid failing through trial and error. Doing this will save money and resources by working on precisely what your customers need with guaranteed success after launch. 

Customer Conversion: Another significant advantage of starting with a single product is that it helps you filter your customer base. Now, you know who to target and who not to target. 

You are not unnecessarily sending out ads and getting low conversion rates. You know who to reach, and your promotional materials are getting the kinds of responses they should get.

Focusing on one product at a time stops you from overwhelming your customer base with options. It would also help you build a community of loyal customers who become a part of your brand identity. A perfect example of this is iPhone Users. You would be solving their problems, one product at a time. 

Return to the drawing board and pick the product you want to sell. Focus on that, and you might be shocked at the results.