Put your niche into it! ⛏️

About 2 months ago i posted the results of my mad-dash Reddit experiment to test my positioning, and how that led to a post of mine going viral and ending up on the front page of Reddit.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of the tools were AI wrappers.
(Aka a pretty skin on top of basic AI functionality, used to induce immediate eyerolls into the times before AI by many a developer)

What was surprising was that while yes, a lot of them were copy pastes of existing tools - that didn’t mean that they weren’t useful or didn’t solve a real need.

It’s that they were trying to do too many things for too many people and what they REALLY needed to do what niche down.

Quick Command+F on those posts and…yep i used the phrase “niche down” well over 10 times.

Exhibit A:

So, without further ado, here’s how to niche.

Because what’s wrong with niching down?

But wait, i don’t even know who my target audience is!

oh nelly.

If that’s the case, here’s how to figure out what target audience to start with from the Valley of the Kings Things.

I literally gave a whole presentation on it with MicroConf (say hi if you’re there!) with a real-life example.

Here’s the TLDR from that workshop ⤵️ 

⚡️ Here’s the deck from the workshop where i go into more detail.
💜 And the copy link for the spreadsheet that has pre-weighted tables to help you walk through it all for yourself.

Okay, with that bit about target audiences out of the way, it’s time to get down to the practical parts of looking like you’re actually niched down.

Helps you know you’re talking to your long-lost lover Anck-su-namun.
And not a poor British librarian.

3 ways to make it clear who you’re for (once you know you know who you’re for)

Use your testimonials to make clear the kind of customers you serve 👋🏽

Testimonials and reviews are not static things! you can embellish them (in a ‘gold collar’ not ‘filling with sawdust’ kind of embellishment) to give context.

For example:

• giving the industry,

• giving the company’s size

• giving the years in the industry of the person leaving you the review

Those kinds of details take this review:

to this review:

Choose an industry that is usually left to the sands of time ⏳️ 

This is what i said time, and time, and time again in the comments

SaaS is buried in a sandstorm of SaaS for SaaS companies.

Sometimes i wonder if it’s all just a shell game.

But there are A LOT of industries that are often left to a slow decay where tech does not stray.

They need tech too! And often the tech that does exist there isn’t great, so there’s a HUGE opportunity.

You can even combine industries - like apprenticeships for mechanics or apprenticeships for plumbers.

Use jargon (just not the boring kind)

Every industry has their inside jokes.

Sometimes they’re well known (i say “Patagonia vest”, you say “finance bro!”)

Sometimes they’re truly inside jokes (“Vamps” are phlebotomists in medical parlance)

Sometimes, it’s personal. 🦈

Regardless, using the jokes and eye-roll-inducing-we-all-knowwwww’s for an industry is an immediate way to say “come sit with us”.

A great place to find these? Reddit! (i know, who’da thought it?!)

But seriously. Go to the subs that are industry-specific and look at hot or trending posts that are of the rant-y variety.

Read through the post and the comments.

Do it for a 2-5 of those posts and you’ll have a pretty

Make sure you write down those words and phrases in your messaging guide! and link the best posts and comments you found them in so that if you have someone else join the team (or your memory fails you after two millennia of waiting on your lover) you know where you found them.

Great. Now you know exactly which customers to build for and how to talk to them.

And aren’t facing a horde of possible audiences (about as much fun as fighting the Soldiers of Amun-Ra). 😉

See you in your inbox next week!

Sophia 💜👩🏽‍💻 & Aelia ⚡️🧕 

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