Brands need to adopt targeted strategy to dominate niche market – Femi-Fred
By Felicia Nwosu
To meet end users in their specific areas of interest, brands and business owners must adopt a targeted marketing strategy that will enable them to identify consumers’ needs in such a way that will enable them to dominate a niche market.
This assertion was made by Victor Femi-Fred, MD/CEO of Ventra Consult, while he explored the topic: Niche Marketing with Focus on B2C Marketing, on Brands & U with Benjamin Okoh on Classic 97.3FM.
He explained that the essence of niche marketing is to identify a target audience in order to identify an unmet or underserved need through a well-conducted research that will help it to uniquely differentiate itself from the competition.
The marketing professional argued that a niche market helps entrepreneurs to categorise customers into an identifiable segment with a well-defined product or service that will rightly meet the ideal customer’s need with consideration to the right pricing model and accessibility.
“It is the function of understanding consumer behaviour as the major driver for success when it comes to B2C. We live in a world where there is a constant change per minute and per second; and because of this change, the need also changes. The questions are: If you are a business that is targeting the consumer, are you proactive? Are you observant enough? Are you able to feel the pulse of these consumers? Are you able to determine where and how to meet these needs before they even make the request for it? What kind of mechanism or process will you deploy? What kinds of resources are required in terms of cost implications and many others? Niche marketing comprises a lot of processes,” he said.
Mr. Femi-Fred advised brands to be cautious as there exists a thin line between the unique selling point and the unique value proposition of a particular product, while reminding them that whatever they push out to the market has a direct link to the unique selling point of that product, or unique value proposition as the case maybe, especially with some of the products that deal directly with consumers.
“When you say the USP, it is specific; it is a call to action. Here, it is the consumer that has the power to determine the terms and conditions for the product because that is a call to action. When you are talking about the unique value proposition, it is a combination of the benefits of what that product can do, and that is when questions around budget, plans, expectations, the need, desires, longevity and many others come into play. It is a combination of a whole lot that goes into the unique value proposition while the unique selling point is the specific – just a call to action. The USP determines the niche because that speaks specifically to a need and who desires that need,” he said.
The business thought leader stated that to mitigate some of the challenges confronting niche marketing, people need to create a business plan at the onset that will help them to pivot successfully. He suggested that business owners should do something at the start of their businesses by performing regular maintenance checks to reassess their customer base and competition. While admitting that niche marketing is quite challenging, he urged marketing communication professionals to engage industry experts.
“You need to be able to also look at how you will engage with experts in your team; understanding the dictates of the business, regulations and compliance required in the chosen industry with the right ethics to support the required core values. And then begin to narrow down to selling and communication skills between the business and the consumers that you are targeting. What kind of media channels do you need to reach out to them? How comfortable is it to provide feedback mechanisms where you can measure the success of engagement with them? How do you put in place the listening process where you feel the process and ultimately look into research that requires comprehensive knowledge about the product that you actually have out there? Who are the competitors? What is the terrain like? What are the macro engagements that you might need to contend with?
“It is all about the application of the SWOT analysis where you play with your strengths and try to take advantage of that, and see how you can mitigate your weaknesses; because whether you like it or not, people are interested in values. All these come back to the niche,” he concluded.
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