The ideal niche sits at the intersection of your authentic interests, your distinctive capabilities, and genuine market demand. Choosing a niche market can be challenging for many advisors, though, so let’s talk about strategies for finding a niche market for your business to focus on.
Self-assessment – find a niche aligned with your interests.
What strengths, experiences, and passions do you have that you enjoy talking about with clients or prospects? What groups are you regularly participating in? Personal connection and experience can go a long way in converting prospects into ideal clients. Successful niches often align with interests you’ve had for a long time, things you’ve done in “past lives” (e.g. if you switched careers), or hobbies you enjoy.
Look through your client list – you may already have a niche!
Analyze your current client base to spot patterns or opportunities: Utilize tags or groups you’ve built inside your CRM. Sort contacts by location, occupation, hobby, etc. to find new groupings that could be niches. Consider your most engaged clients and the clients most likely to have eligible friends/family that you’re equipped to help.
Let us share a quick story to explain this strategy: Our marketing support team was helping to build a financial advisor website and the lead advisor was heavily involved. He had identified two niche markets and wanted to ensure they were well represented on the site (for client representation, referability, market opportunity, and SEO purposes). While working on this website project, he was also pursuing a business goal that required a lot of CRM-updating work. His work on that project led him to “discover” a third niche market he had already been working with! While in his CRM, it was suddenly obvious that medical professionals made up a healthy percentage of ideal clients, so he made sure to highlight them on the new website build and can now market to this niche more effectively.
Market research – find opportunities through data.
Researching possible niche markets in your area can help you find groups that are underserved or natural matches to your business goals or personal interests. Start by looking at your area’s census information, growth indicators, and using other research tools (working with a lead list company can help with this as well). Consider next the competition you may face with certain areas: The high-net-worth segments will be heavily sought after and marketed to, so if you don't have natural affinity for serving them it may be worth not pursuing that group specifically. A middle-market niche where you have passion or natural ties to can be more profitable long-term than competing in an overcrowded high-end segment where you have no edge. Remember also that while financial advisor office locations can be an indicator of market saturation, not every office does much/any marketing towards their local areas. They may or may not have a good reputation with their neighbors.
Differentiation potential – what makes you unique?
Assessing areas that your local competitors are weak (or ignoring/under-serving) can help guide you to a group that needs your financial services. In general, marketing to this uniqueness is a good idea! To use this differentiation to create a niche market perhaps you can celebrate your longevity with the Chamber of Commerce (business owner clients) or optimize your long-standing sponsorship with local organizations that support a group you enjoy working with (e.g. sponsoring youth teams to work with their parents). Think about where and who you are often with and let that guide you as you find your passion.
Next step: Marketing to your niche audience
Before fully committing to a specific niche market, test to make sure you enjoy working with this group and have good opportunity. If you found your market through a tried-and-true group (e.g. you found one you’ve already been working with), it’s time to get started on the next step, which is marketing to your niche! A few ideas: add content about that niche to your financial advisor website, run digital marketing ads or email campaigns, obtain lead lists and send niche-specific direct mail, host events, or reach out to ideal clients in that niche and ask for introductions. The marketing tactics you choose should depend on your overall marketing strategy and strengths, but you’ll quickly learn that having the niche identified and promoted will help your conversations.
