Are You Niching Yourself Into Trouble?

Today I want to give you my five pennies worth around the topic of niching! Is it a good thing? Does niching help you win more clients? Can you niche too far? Is niching essential? In fact, I'll just answer those - haha!

As ****with everything I post on this blog, I can only give you advice based on my own experience, so feel free to ignore it all if you like. However, after almost 20 years in the industry, I recon there might be some gold in here to absorb.

Q: Is niching a good thing?

For me, it has been a great thing. My business and mindset were all over the place before I focused on logos and brand identity, but it did take a long time to build enough momentum for it to support me.

When you niche, you automatically reduce your client market substantially, so it's key that you build trust and do it quickly. It's been almost 8 years since I took the plunge, and during that time, I have marketed myself EVERY DAY, created content around brand identity EVERY DAY, and I have talked about logos EVERY DAY.

Niching is a good thing, but you need to commit to it and live it EVERY DAY to see if it will work out.

Q: Does niching help you win more clients?

This is impossible to answer as I no doubt would have had just as many clients if I did not niche! I would have just been doing a lot of work I didn’t necessarily like doing.

So, I suppose the best answer to this question is this - niching helps you win more work that you want to do.

Personally, I have found that niching has allowed me to raise my prices for my work much quicker. I have now established myself as an expert in my field, which allows me to charge more—something to bear in mind.

Q: Can you niche too far?

ONE MILLION PERCENT YES. I personally feel that there are way too many creatives focusing on an audience that is too small!

For me, brand identity is a niche of graphic design, but I would never narrow it down to a particular industry, e.g., brand identity for the wellness industry.

I am not saying it's wrong to do that, but it's very risky. Imagine being a brand identity designer for the travel industry when COVID-19 hit!

I feel I am a better designer and creative thinker because I work with pretty much every industry. The issue I see with people who niche down to a specific industry is that their work all looks the same—there is not a lot of creativity in that.

Q: Is niching essential?

Not at all.

But I do think it is something that will naturally happen to everyone who has a mission and purpose.

Niching fresh out of school is a silly idea... to be great at something you need to know a little bit of everything! I feel that the ability to 'successfully' niche (as, let's be honest, many fail at it) is a reward for perseverance and patience in any given field.

I have been in the industry for almost 18 years, but I have only been niched for 8 of those.

In my experience, niching has helped me go further than I ever thought possible as a human. It has opened doors and opportunities that I thought were only dreams, but I also know that what has worked for me won’t work for all. My gamble paid off.

I hope this helps my mates.

HAVE THE BEST DAY

MBJ

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