By Michel Fortin of SuccessDoctor.com
[April 10th, 2002]

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In today's increasingly competitive marketplace, the demand for specialized products or services will also increase. If your business sells everything or to everyone, chances are that your audience will not perceive any greater value in buying from you than from anyone else. If so, price becomes the only metric by which visitors will compare you to others.

Keep in mind that price is not important. It is an arbitrary figure that merely represents the value of an offering. When you compare apples to apples, the only point of comparison is price since it is the only real, visible distinction between the two. Thus, if your value is perceived as equal to that of others, naturally the cheapest alternative will win.

Price is only a metric -- a currency to which most people can relate. Take the weather, for example. When you meet someone on the street, it will likely be a topic of discussion because the weather is a common denominator. Temperature is the same for everyone. "Hot" and "cold," however, are different.

Similarly, price is only used when there's nothing to which one can compare your value. (Of course, price is not the only metric. But most people understand units of dollars more than they do value, which is more subjective.) Therefore, if you're too similar to competitors, price will always be an issue.

The more unique you are, the less competition you will have. And the less competition you will have, the less substitutable you are (or your product is). And the less substitutable you are, the less elastic the demand for your product will be (in other words, the less important price becomes, in this case).

So, if you are copying your competition, or trying to promote your offering as one that's better than your competition, like it or not you're only reminding people of that which you are better: your competition. So, don't duplicate, differentiate! Or as Earl Nightingale once said, "Don't copy, create!"

Being all things to all people will likely help you to stumble onto some people who will visit your site and respond to your offer. It's the law of averages. But the underlying problem is that, with such an approach, you must generate a substantial quantity of hits in order to produce an acceptable result.

Also, the more general or broad you are, the greater the need will be to paint your website, content and marketing messages with broad brushstrokes in order to appeal to everyone. In the end, the traffic generated will be just as general or broad.

Even if your product is a perfect fit for some, it will only be a fit for a small percentage. Also, the "generalness" you project will likely convey that your value is equal to that of others and that there's no added value in buying from you. If so, price is the metric others will use to measure your value.

Additionally, out of the small handful of qualified prospects that hopefully hit your site, a large number of them -- if not all of them -- will likely leave due to your apparent lack of understanding of their specific needs, goals and concerns.

However, the sales you generate will increase dramatically if your site is narrowly centered on a specific theme, product, audience or outcome. And niche marketing has an added benefit: the need to produce a sufficient quantity of website visitors to produce similar results will lessen significantly.

Offline, being everything to everyone is understandable to a certain degree since, geographically, a niche will likely be considerably small. But online, however, niche marketing can work since a market will expand, even if it is a small niche.

However, it's a double-edged sword: since the Internet expands your market, it also expands the competition. Niche marketing is therefore more important online: by narrowing your focus, you both increase your market and decrease your competition!

More: Examples of successful niche marketing...

Article by Michel Fortin of SuccessDoctor.com. Michel is a professor in marketing, a professional speaker and a highly sought-after consultant whose marketing advice has helped countless clients earn millions in record time. He is the author of four books. His latest, "Power Positioning Dot Com," reveals how to keep your business or product indelibly carved into your prospects' uppermost consciousness.