If you have so many business ideas but you don’t know what to focus on, feel like you have too many interests, don’t know who your audience is, or you think that you’re selling to everybody, then this post is for you!
I know niching down is at the forefront of many yoga teachers and wellness entrepreneurs’ minds when it comes to building their online businesses, and naturally, they have a lot of questions about this topic and whether it’s a necessity.
What is a Niche?
A niche is a segment of your potential customers. For example, instead of offering all kinds of yoga classes to everyone in your town, your niche could be prenatal yoga for women who are pregnant. In this example, the style of yoga is your niche, which is a common approach to niching down.
If you’re struggling with this because you want to do everything, you’re not alone. I know it‘s tough to pick one topic and it might feel like putting yourself in a box. A lot of people don’t want to pick a niche because of this.
But think of it like this: if you wanted to learn advanced arm balances, would you go to a yoga for beginners’ class in your local gym? No, you would look for a specialized class or workshop on arm balances.
The reality is that your potential clients have different levels of experience as well as different ages, genders, and backgrounds. Carving out a specific offering to meet the specific needs of a specific type of student can be highly beneficial for your business.
Why you should pick a niche:
It’s a fact: Choosing a niche will make your brand more profitable, faster.
You have to start with something specific and targeted. This is because you need to resonate with people emotionally to get them to invest in your offers. You need to capture their psychology or their needs. And it takes a lot of marketing to do that with all different types of people.
Yes, it’s possible to do everything under the sun and be successful, for example, teach all kinds of yoga styles, yoga for moms or seniors in the morning, vinyasa classes in the afternoon, yin yoga in the evening, pranayama workshops at the weekend, Zumba on Sunday. If that works for you, great, keep doing it!
As always, there’s never one way that’s right for everybody. Having said that, especially in the online world, you will get better results, faster, when you niche down.
Here are a few things that happen when you narrow your niche…
You make it easier for the RIGHT people to find you and to fall in love with your offerings.
Google will also become your new best friend! Niching down is especially important in the online world, and Google loves blogs or websites that are experts on a specific topic and will direct more traffic to it than to a website that covers all kinds of content because people will spend more time on it.
You begin to stand out as an expert or leader in your topic.
For example, instead of listing all the possible benefits of a yoga practice, narrow it down to the biggest problem your audience has.
It could be that you are teaching in a small town, mostly to middle-aged folks, who have a lot of back problems, so you focus on that. You could offer workshops and yoga for back problems. You could create blog posts about this. You maybe have a free video or a PDF with some tips that people can download.
You will still do other things, and teach other classes, but you become the expert in your community for yoga for back problems.
It’s easier to create quality content.
Having a clear niche can make it easier for you to create helpful, valuable offerings that people are wanting to buy. If you have a lot of topics you talk about it can lead to overwhelm, but when you have a specific niche it’s suddenly much easier to come up with ideas on what to write or talk about.
You can probably come up with 5-10 ideas to share with people with back problems right away. Having a niche helps you to focus.
How to find your niche.
When you hear of a niche for yoga teachers, you might think about “prenatal yoga” or “ashtanga yoga”. A specific teaching style that defines your niche. If that fits you, it’s perfect!
The problem for many is, that this can feel restricting, because most yoga teachers teach more than one style, especially at the beginning of their career. You might teach Vinyasa yoga, Yin Yoga, and Yoga for Beginner workshops, and now you have to pick one?
Impossible, right? The good news is, you don’t have to! A niche can be much more – it can be the way you teach, demographic, language, age group, or expertise.
Here’s an example:
Let’s say your niche is Yoga for Beginners. It’s a good niche, but still very broad. So you could become more specific: Yoga in Spanish for Beginners.
Now we’re getting more specific. Choosing a language can be a great niche, but it’s still broad. You could get even more specific, for example for an online course you plan to offer: Yoga in Spanish For Young Mums Who Want to Get Their Strength Back in Just 15 Minutes a Day
Now, this is quite specific. Do you think it would be too restricting?
Maybe, but guess what – when someone in that situation finds your offering, she’s going to be interested! She’s going to devour your content, sign up for your email list, become your biggest fan, AND buy your products!
A different approach could be to identify values or aspirations your ideal customer share.
For example your idea customer could be someone:
- Who seeks purpose and peace or happiness in their life
- Wants to prioritize making this in their reality right now, not waste any more time
- Needs your knowledge, expertise and support to break through limiting beliefs and lead them to the desired outcome
- Understands the value of the change and is ready to invest to make it happen.
This could be pretty much anyone, demographically, but it still speaks to a certain person.
It will make a huge difference in the way you communicate your offers, for example when you describe what you do on your website. Or even how your website should look.
If you are struggling with this, trust your intuition.
Think about, what do enjoy writing or talking about most?
What doesn’t feel like a chore or something you should be doing?
What’s important to remember is: Simplicity sells. If you can’t understand it or explain it, don’t do it.
A niche is comprised of three things: Your topic, your story; and your audience.
Those three things come together to create what your niche is actually going to be.
When I started my business it was all about marketing tips for yoga teachers. That was my topic but until I figured out what my story and audience were, I didn’t really have a niche, it was just a topic.
When I got into my story and why I was so passionate about yoga teachers building an online business, I was able to connect with people who could also connect with my story. But when I got even more clear on who my ideal audience was, it was easier for them to understand me and for me to explain things to them.
With those three things, you can define a niche and make it easier for yourself to communicate it clearly.
If you feel like you’re passionate and interested in so many things you couldn’t possibly niche down, the good news is that you don’t have to. You are allowed to adapt and change and nothing that you do is ever set in stone. As your business grows and develops, you can choose to expand, broaden your niche and serve a larger audience.
I hope that this post has helped you feel clearer about what a niche is, why you need one, and how to find yours.
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