Niche-focused advisors tend to bring in more business than those who work as generalists. This is the prominent storyline from our 2018 research on 980 financial advisors. Not only do they bring in more assets, their capabilities improve as they master the needs of a targeted group of clients. The niche concept is well-proven, but we find that execution varies widely, so we thought we’d take some time to share two strategies we’ve found effective.
We often get asked whether it’s wise to have more than one niche market or if team members can have different niches. The answers depend on whether you want to go all-in on your niche market or keep your options open by targeting niches on a project basis. These are two very different, but very workable strategies.
Strategy 1: Going All-In
When you go all-in with one particular niche, you’re betting you’ll bring in more business from this niche than you’d have to turn away. This involves heavily self-branding as a specialist in one niche market. Let’s say you want to go all-in on dentists. Your website would have dentists in bold print on the homepage, your LinkedIn profile would have dentists in your Headline and Summary, you may even have dentist in your company name.
When you really want to take this up a notch, think content creation. There’s no better proof that you’re an expert than someone hearing your podcast, watching your video or reading your article, seeing first-hand that you know your stuff.
Strategy 2: Project-Based Niches
Developing project-based niches allows you to focus your marketing but doesn’t limit your opportunities outside your niche. For many of you, niche marketing represents an exciting opportunity, but you’re not quite ready to rename your business. In these cases, there’s no harm in targeting various niches as “projects.” For instance, you might naturally have a great base of clients at Microsoft and would like to expand it. You might also have a junior advisor and see opportunity in helping millennials. When you opt for the project-based approach, you can pursue these opportunities simultaneously.
Instead of rebranding your LinkedIn and Facebook to reflect these niches, you’d opt for outbound campaigns instead. On Facebook, you’d run one ad towards Microsoft employees and another towards millennials. On LinkedIn, you’d build connections with and message Microsoft employees, then start another series targeted at recent college grads.
The biggest question isn’t whether or not to target a niche. It’s which niche to target and how to go about it. What will you choose? If you’d like to get serious about developing a niche market, consider joining our coaching program. We’ll help you determine the right niche approach and marketing plan of attack.
@StephenBoswell is President of The Oechsli Institute and Co-author of Best Practices of Elite Advisors. @KevinANichols is the Chief Operating Officer for The Oechsli Institute and Co-author of The Indispensable LinkedIn Sales Guide for Financial Advisors.
