Does Niche Marketing Cost You Clients?

Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.

Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.

Dear Readers,

This week I have spoken at several events where the topic of whether to use niche marketing has been discussed. What’s the value of niche marketing? Does it limit you and make you more narrowly focused than you should be?

In light of this, this week’s column outlines the key components of niche marketing and why you definitely want to have one in your advisory practice. Everyone needs an advisor – if they don’t have plenty of money to invest, they still need help with planning, preparing for their future and so on. But it’s hard to market to everyone! The world is big and sending a message out saying you can help anyone who needs it isn’t going to draw anyone’s attention to you.

Yes, many advisors have client bases made up of people of all types and backgrounds. Many advisors do an excellent job of serving different clients very well but it gets a lot easier to focus and speak to a specific audience.

Niche marketing helps you to:

  1. Find something you are passionate about. If you love a certain sport or hobby then create your niche around this. There are advisors who have built their businesses by aligning with people who pursue the same interests they do – events can be tailored around this, and conversation flows easily if you love boating and you work with clients who own, or want to own, boats too.