What is a business niche or niche market? In a nutshell: A niche market is a specific area of a broader market. Finding your brand niche is the key to a successful business. “Forty-two percent of startups fail, mostly because they ignore the opportunity to capitalize on a niche.” (Forbes)

In an oversaturated market, it is pivotal to firmly establish OUR place in the market. Success will be much greater in a concentrated sliver, than trying to appeal to the entire market as a whole. There are two analogies I have heard over the years that have always stuck with me: “It is better to be a big fish in a small pond, than a small fish in a big pond.” And: “If you try to be everything to everybody, you will be nothing to nobody.”

This is why a brand niche is crucial.

In the early days of my photography business I heard all of the time that I should "specialize" in something. For several years I was quite pleased with myself that I didn't do that like "everyone else", I felt that offering a little bit of everything made me a better photographer.

I am a variety girl, and I love doing different things. It makes me better at what I do. I actually told people that I didn't specialize on purpose, because I wanted to be more well rounded in order to better serve my clients. It was part of the way I marketed myself. I said something like: “Shooting lots of different things, help me think outside of the box.” This was true. But it wasn’t the BEST plan for my marketing. I did indeed shoot lots of random different things, but I didn’t enjoy them all, and it didn’t help grow or scale my business in a specific direction. I just kept scrambling for lots of random jobs.

Then one summer I heard this whole concept of finding your niche explained well, and I decided to market only to brides. My business literally exploded overnight after I choose a niche and started marketing to that ideal client. All the goals I had for my business that year I surpassed far beyond what I would’ve imagined. On a funny side note: In my case, I still got to shoot other different types of clients, they still kept coming to me. But being an expert in one specific field, established me as exactly that, an expert! It made me more attractive, most importantly in my own niche, but also to people outside by niche as well. And ultimately since I had plenty of my ideal clients streaming in, I got to pick and choose what other jobs I wanted to do, and referred the rest to other photographers (which also grew my business!)

Here are my top five reasons why you should have find your creative niche in the market today!

1. Identify Your Niche To Do What You Are Passionate About

Your niche should not just be what everyone else is doing or what seems like it will make the most money. You want your niche to be something that you love!

My sister who is now a published children's commercial and editorial photographer originally thought she should be a wedding photographer like I was at the time. But she actually hates photographing weddings--Children are her passion. When she embraced that, she has ROCKED her business. She is passionate about what she does, and is building a small empire out of it.

When you are passionate about what you do, you enjoy it SO much more. Running a small creative business isn't all fun and games, and it helps tremendously when you can stay inspired because you are doing what you truly love.

2. Hone in On Your Niche to Focus and Scale Your Creative Business

When you aren't trying to be everything to everybody, you can hone in and really focus on one thing in a different way. This will make you a lot better at what you specifically do, it will be less overwhelming (stretching yourself too thin is miserable). It will help challenge you to get creative and to come up with new and fun ideas within your niche. When you are focused, you can begin to fly.

3. Build Credibility Within Your Niche by Establishing Your Specific Expertise: I’m going to illustrate this one: If you were looking for let's say senior pictures, who you you want to go to? A) A photographer whose business image says, "I can do it all, here is my confusing portfolio with 30 different types of subjects, I'd be happy to throw you in there". Or B) a photographer whose image says, "Senior pictures are what I do. I devote the majority of my time and effort into crafting senior sessions and images, and getting better each time. Because I do this so often, I know how to get creative, I know how to make you feel comfortable and your best during the session, and because I am so comfortable and used to what I do, it won't be a new stressful thing for me, and so we'll have a relaxed laid back shoot and have a lot of fun." If you need a new roof on your house, would you hire a handy man to do the job (hopefully!) or a professional roofer?

People want experts in their field, not just someone who has done it before and could probably do it again.

4. Use Your Niche to Stand Out From Your Competition:

This is one of my favorites. When you are an expert in your field, are TRULY passionate about what you are doing, and have what you do down to a science, you’ll have more bandwidth to constantly stretch your creative bounds. This will enable you to stand out in your field--To be the one who thinks of the next big thing (within your specific market!) and stay on the cutting edge. If you combine a client connecting brand story, with being at the top of your market, you’ll set yourself up for long term success.

5. Identify Your Niche and You can Identify Your Ideal Client

Finding your niche helps you find your ideal client, which is huge to strategic success in your branding and marketing. We don’t need to attract everybody, we just need to attract who we really want to work with. This is so beneficial, because it not only sets our business up for success, it helps us to enjoy not only what we do, but who we work with! When I am working all the time with my dream clients, it keeps me fueled and passionate about my work. When I feel stretched thin serving lots of different types of clients that aren’t really what I want to be doing, it takes the joy out of my work and drains me.

Once we can define what our specific niche is, that helps us define what our ideal client is. Who is it that we really want to work with? We will discuss that in the following blog post.

The creative industry market is oversaturated, but there are also more customers that need creative services than ever before. This is great news! Essentially, there is a piece of the pie for everyone, we just have to define what that piece looks like that we are going after in order to attain it!

If you’re ready to find your brand niche, JOIN ME in my brand building facebook course and community!

I’m a mil spouse mama of three and brand photographer in Georgia; during naptime I love to strategically unpack branding to help other small businesses stand out and sell in a saturated market.

I’m diving more in depth about this blog post inside my group, as well as sharing other helpful resources, and how you can find your specific niche market for your business TODAY!

We’re using the social learning group mode, so you can jump in any time and catch up!