Expanding Beyond Your Niche Audience
A niche audience is a subgroup of a company’s main targeted audience. This specific audience is a selective group of people who have specific wants, needs and interests. Small but mighty, niche audiences hold great value for brands and their success. Niche audiences are so valuable because they are often more engaged, active and responsive users. As well, due to their specific likes/dislikes this makes it very easy for marketers to target content to them, instead of worrying about a large crowd with varying interests. But, you may want to expand past your niche audience. Keep reading for tips on expanding beyond your niche audience.
So, you’ve attracted your niche audience, now what?
1. Start Experimenting with Content
The first step in going beyond your niche audience is seeing what other content you can produce that others will enjoy and engage with. The easiest way to do this is to experiment! Start posting content, whether it’s on social or in your publication, that is different from your typical content. Next, dig through your stats (follows, likes, clicks and shares) on those new posts and see how you did. If you received positive feedback that may be the green light to slightly shift your content to go beyond your niche audience.
2. Ask Your Audience
Another simple way to expand beyond your niche audience is to see what else they are interested in! Continual research within and around your niche audience is the perfect way to generate new ideas and new ways to grow your following. Now with the help of social media, it’s extremely easy to gain knowledge. Post an Instagram Poll, Tweet to your followers for advice, or hold a Facebook Live Q&A and create an open dialogue about interests and how you can expand upon them.
3. Expand Your Messaging
If you feel you’ve hit a wall in terms of engagement, followers or reads, it may be because your messaging and your content’s wording is too narrow. Perhaps new audience members are turned away from your content because it is difficult to understand, intimidating or not easily digestable for the common viewer. To go beyond your niche audience work on expanding your messaging to appeal to a broader crowd — using less industry specific wording and perhaps quick definitions/insights on niche concepts is a simple solution!
Although a broader viewer may not initially be interested in some of the niche content you produce, by leveraging common concepts and linking them to your content you can spark the interest of new followers. Begin crafting content that links to the seasons, holidays, cultural events and food to draw in a new audience and help them form a connection among niche interests.
5. Partner with New Brands/Influencers
In order to grow beyond your niche audience it is necessary for your brand to grow it’s own circle as well. Begin partnering with new brands, products and influencers so you can expand your network of influence. By doing this you will create a common connection for viewers and also leverage the audience base of other reputable brands.
