How To Find Your Niche And Build An Agency Brand

today I want to talk about how to niche how to pick and niece how to do a niche the right way people think picking a niche is the thing that is going to separate them from all their competition but the problem is the competition is crazy intense in pretty much every niche in every industry and so we pick a big big ol big ol industry right a big one and we find something smaller and smaller and smaller and then we got this little tiny nation that's a little spot right there that's the spot that's the spot where we're gonna start well that was great ten years ago fifteen years ago you could step into a niche and no one no one would be focused on that small niche because it was really hard to make a significant amount of money in a very small spot of the market well the internet changed that before the internet came along it was at not profitable to go for a niche it was not something that you really wanted to focus on let's say the closest you could initiate before the Internet we're talking 25 years ago where the internet was just starting to develop its commercial viability and before that it was not that smart to go into a niche because it was very difficult to advertise so that you could aggregate enough people who had that particular interest for you to make a very profitable business off of but then as the internet exploded from like 1995 onwards after that point it became immensely viable to pick a niche so a common one that I hear in digital marketing agencies and I don't recommend this but its dentists so I hear this one a lot oh I'm gonna go a dentist because they need a lot of customers they have a high value per customer so and they do a lot of marketing so I'm gonna go into that and that's gonna be my niche well as a digital marketing agency or social media marketing agency going after dentists is not sufficient anymore you actually have to get down into a small part of that I only work on Invisalign you know the thing for braces right only a work on that that would be a niche within the industry of dentist because 2530 years ago just working with dentists was just sufficient enough to make a good living from it especially as a marketing agency with the with the competition that has arisen from the internet so yes you can work on just Invisalign and make a successful practice out of that the problem is there's a million of you there's a million of the digital marketing agencies that all say I can get you Invisalign I can get you cosmetic dentistry I can get you like you know crowns and all that other stuff right and whitening and everything I can get you all that stuff so now you have no point of differentiation you are not any different from all the other people who are in that niche and I'm not just making this up I get people all the time who are picking a niche just out of thin air or they have some they have some form of interests in that niche and they believe they believe that this is the only thing that they need to differentiate their digital marketing agency and then I look at their website and it looks exactly like every single one of the other competitors serving that market you could just change the logo of their take a competitor's logo pop it boom onto their website no one would know the difference no differentiation so a niche today is not sufficient so why are we picking a niche well the idea of picking a niche is so that you can differentiate yourself so that you can find your wedge so a wedge you drive a wedge into something and it splits it apart as you drive that wedge and it gets farther and farther apart you have to find your wedge into a market well 25 30 years ago just simply picking a niche was sufficient but with all the competition that's been made viable by the internet you can't rely solely on a niche as your point of differentiation so what is your wedge I always recommend domain knowledge being an expert at the industry that you're going into that really really helps as your initial wedge because you know what the problems are in that market and you have some insight due to your experience and the knowledge that you've gained you have some insight into how to solve those problems well then you also have digital marketing experience you take your digital marketing experience and knowledge and you attach it to your domain knowledge of that industry and now you have expertise expertise is with with all the competition out there expertise is damn near all the differentiation that you actually need because there's so many people coming into the market who have no expertise but expertise is not sufficient of a wedge so we've got niche expertise now what's the next step what's the next thing that's going to provide us a wedge the remaining piece that you have to have is your unique selling proposition so your wedge into a market is one picking your niche 2 having expertise your domain knowledge and three your unique selling proposition before I get to that unique selling proposition I need to address people who are brand spanking new because I know you're gonna message me I know you're gonna comment and I love them I love the messages I love the comments please comment below I will answer them but I want to address this if you don't have domain knowledge if you don't have expertise you're going to struggle yes there are a lot of gurus out there that will tell you you don't need to know anything about the market you don't need to know anything about digital marketing all you have to do is sell it and then you can go get a white labeled service and those people who are actually experts and all s of those people those people are the ones who are going to take care of everything for you that's they say that stuff only because they're taking your money sorry you have to know what the hell you're doing come on son you have to know what you're doing if you don't know what you're doing learn it it's not rocket science learning digital marketing is complex because there's a lot of moving parts but pick one area pick a thing Facebook Ads doing just focusing on Instagram focusing on Google AdWords focusing on search engine optimization focusing on just doing video video storytelling so that people can use that in a bunch of different areas pick one thing to become an expert on this skill that solves a problem then the other side of it is learn the market learn that industry so that you know what the problems are because if you go looking for a solution and then go looking for a problem to apply that solution to you're going to struggle best place domain knowledge right best place is go with the problem and then find the appropriate solution for it that will make your life easier trying to just go out and sell something that you don't understand that you are not an expert in is a recipe for disaster sure there are a handful a handful loose a small handful small Henley a little kid handful of people who have succeeded without having industry expertise without having digital marketing expertise those are the ones that the gurus will always put in front of you to tell you yes you can do it too I don't recommend it you're going to struggle I've been there I was that guy I started off with zero and had to build it all I know what struggle feels like and I am trying to tell you don't struggle don't go that direction learn the skills learn what you need to know to solve a problem that you've identified all right back at it your unique selling proposition this is old-school marketing I don't hear USP very often anymore unique selling proposition it's hard it was hard for me years ago 20 years ago when I was getting started I read about a unique selling proposition as I okay what's mine I don't know it was hard it was really hard to find out what was unique about the thing that I was offering into a market well when I was getting started I was just learning I was still just trying to figure it all out it's really hard to be unique in a place where you're still learning the building blocks still learning the basics but if you do have your domain knowledge and you do have expert skills in the thing that solves a problem for that market now you have to make sure that what you're bringing to the table is unique to you you have to offer something that someone's gonna buy from you that they can't get anywhere else but here's the here's the quick down and dirty of a USP a unique selling proposition is not easy to develop but I will give you a few hints as they get used in the right direction so let's go back to that whole dentists digital marketing agency for dentists as an example those guys you go to their websites you check out the competition and you'll see they all say the same thing they'll all say that we have a way to get you new lead so we have a way to get you more patients we have this thing that gets you patients that's the premise that's their unique selling proposition and then what is it that they do oh we do Facebook ads or we do SEO we do all of it you know we do the whole package SEO pay per click the whole works we do it all right that's it that's the proposition we'll do this for you with this particular service you just pay us money and that you can just change the logo from one to the next doesn't matter same same proposition so how do you stand out if that's your space well you could say we build a story around who you are and your customer like that the marriage of the what your pain points of your customers are and the thing that you do best we create the story we call it a brand we create this brand for you and that brand is the thing that attracts attracts more patients to you okay so that more unique that makes you more unique than everyone else you don't even have to tell them how you're gonna do it you don't have to talk know what we do oh and Facebook gasps right you don't have to do that blitzie you're going to build a brand by telling the story of the dentists we're going to reach out into the market by telling a story and we do this through video we do this through communicating we create essentially a documentary that really tugs at the heartstrings of your customer and they're gonna come flooding in when we do this that could be your unique selling proposition you can take a skill set like video and tell their story with it and that's the thing that's going to get them their new patients or we can go with we're gonna build a brand and that's gonna clarify your message and a clear message is going to attract the patients and we didn't even say how we're gonna do it or what were what skillset we're gonna use to do that all we did was go we're gonna go there or like me what I do with my clients is I talk strategy I talk mindset so I say I'm going to build a strategy and I'm going to alter your mindset and that is going to cause your business to completely change and that's going to add more revenue add more profit give you more free time that's gonna give you the things that you desire things that were important to me learning how to run a company is I wanted to control my time I want to control my income I wanted to have freedom a lot of my clients want many of the same things so that's what I do I focus on that side of it I don't even get down to the skill sets that I'm going to use to provide that solution to them so those are unique selling propositions that you can do I've got a unique skill set and that's gonna get you what you want or I have a unique perspective strategy a unique idea and that is the thing that will get you the solution to your problem now the next thing next thing you have to have in building a niche the right way is pole position okay pole position is a racing term it's the most favorable place at the start of a race it's the most favorable place that you could be that gives you an advantage over everyone else positioning and I can't go into depth this is going to be a video all on its own just on how to do positioning but your position is the place that you reside in your prospect or clients mind and if you have a pole position that gives you the most favorable place in your prospect and clients mind what does that even mean come on Tim tell me what it means we need to know so positioning is a combination of your messaging it's a combination of your unique selling proposition it's a combination of your wedge the thing that's getting you into the industry and your brand it's a building block of the bigger thing called your brand when you tie these elements together you are staking a claim and I boom this this this is where I stand in this market I have a unique perspective on this market on the problems that I solve I've got something that is different from everyone else I have picked a spot and I'm drawing a line in the sand and the people that desire to have my solution are gonna step over that line everyone else you just stay over on that other side of the line I don't want you here I am rejecting parts of the market I am attracting and just I'm gonna hug on bring them in bring it in bring it in tight right the people who are the best for what I can serve okay that's the idea behind the niche going back to the beginning that's the idea of the niche is to be able to draw a line in the sand and only get the people that you want to work with that you have the best solution for unfortunately that gets lost in just picking a niche it's not sufficient enough anymore so the final thing after drawing that line in the sand of where you stand is your brand the brand is what we're building towards you are doing your wedge you're doing your USP you're doing your pole position all to create a brand and this angel logo and your logo son the brand is your complete message the thing that you put out but the flipside is what your market believes about you which is not exactly in your control but you can put out a particular message you can portray yourself a certain way you can dress a certain way you can put on a button-down shirt or a t-shirt you see me in both in these videos you can have long hair I pull it back every once a while because mostly I like comb my hair but you have all this all these moving parts that when they start culminating and you you point all that in one direction that is going to give you a solid clear message that your market is going to respond to some of your market is going to reject you great that is what you want you want a certain segment of the market to reject you I don't want to work with you that's good the flip side of that is when there's a part of the market that's rejecting you there's another part of the market that is avid they are rabid they want you they see you they see your message and they say that that is what I need when you put these things together when you start putting together your wedge your unique selling proposition your pole position you will have a solid brand and you will stand out from all your competitors no one will be able to take their logo stick it on your site and be taken seriously you will be unique and different in the market and that's how you do a niche the right way hit me up in the comments I'm glad to answer any questions you have give you more clarity and you can start executing on what you just learned that is the key to success with your digital marketing agency I don't care who tells you anything you have to execute on the things that you learned like subscribe hit the bell notifications share do all the socials that will get this information out further and further into the market and help more and more people I'll see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: Tim Conley

Views: 5,898

Keywords: how to find your niche, build your brand, grow a digital marketing agency, smma, Tim Conley, iman gadzhi, billy willson, billy gene is marketing, jason swenk

Id: 50zNkzPfkZQ

Length: 20min 38sec (1238 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 16 2019