Why it’s your duty to champion your niche

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To grow your brand less ordinary you have a responsibility beyond just selling products.

When you understand that your market isn’t ‘everyone’ you grasp the importance of your role as an educator.

An educator speaking to a particular audience. Your audience. Your niche.

Know your niche. Champion your niche. Grow your niche.

Recognise that your customers are making buying decisions that go against the mainstream norm.

Whether that be for hobbyists, premium brands or market specialists, people are relying upon you to educate, inform and serve.

To say to people, ‘you know what, you’re making a wise decision here… you go for it, we’re with you.‘.

Because that’s what we do. Help people make decisions. Motivate people to do what’s right for them. To give people confidence in what they’re about to buy.

Grabbing stock images, writing generic product descriptions, spouting the same old, same old. It’s no way to grow and scale an ecommerce business. It’s no way to demonstrate your authority or take ownership of your chosen niche.

That responsibility to educate is the premise for your content and social media strategy. It’s the insight-filled articles you throw into the google mixer that drives people to your website and makes them pay attention to what you have to say.

Embracing your specialism

When you run a niche retail business it’s so so easy to be tempted by what’s happening in the mainstream. Don’t do it. Your responsibility is to grow your market place rather than add more lines to your inventory diluting your brand. Hone in on what you know best and don’t deviate (no matter how tempting it may be). Keep your head down and do what you do best.

This is why I strongly believe in the art of curation. Carefully aligning products for the customer you already know. Creating collections that enable your website visitor to appreciate the logic behind the recommendations that you make (that also help you drive your average order value upwards). The ‘if you like this, you’re going to LOVE this‘ conversation you wish you could have with the people on your website right now.

Your job as a value creator

This is where the magic happens for premium product makers. This is how you articulate why your product exists. You create value. Whilst your ideal customers aren’t in the market for ‘generic’ they still desire the motivation to choose premium. That justification we all need when we’re investing in something unique to us.

Ask yourself whether you’re creating value in the words you use to describe what you sell. There’s a brilliant project called Significant Objects that details the impact created by taking a unique slant to telling the story behind why products exist (I why people should want to own them).

These are the responsibilities you undertook when you made the decision to sell what you sell. You’re not in the business of cataloging products within an online store. Your job is to influence and inspire. To do this you demonstrate value from your position of authority. You champion your own niche.


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Ian Rhodes

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First employee of an ecommerce startup back in 1998. I've been using building and growing ecommerce brands ever since (including my own). Get weekly growth lessons from my own work delivered to your inbox below.

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