1. Create a cost-effective way to find potential customers.
2. Enable you to spend more time developing relationships with existing customers rather than looking for prospects.
3. Expand your business by creating niche divisions.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Go on a niche hunt

Defining your niche can be the key to a viable business venture.

I recommend: Learn what niche marketing is, how to define your market and how to capitalize on your expertise at isitebuild.com or at About.com. Check out how the Little Black Dress Shop and RedWagons.com identified a niche and turned it into a successful business.

Zero in on your niche market

Identifying your niche market is the first step to attracting them to your business. Once you've identified who your target customers are, you've got to ask yourself a few things: Is this market large enough to generate adequate sales? Are you able to reach this market through cost-effective marketing and advertising? Are you able to meet the needs of this market with your products and services?

I recommend: Estimate the future growth of your market at Business Owner's Toolkit to determine sustainability. Each niche market is as unique as the individuals within that market. To appeal to them, you have to learn as much as you can about them. Learn how to focus on your target and allocate resources directly to them and how to research the market.

Develop niches within your business

Even if your business offers a wide variety of services and products to a large portion of the population, you can still benefit from niche marketing. Some of your products or services may be targeted at a specific segment of your customer base.

I recommend: Discover how other large businesses have geared specific products and services to niche markets at Business Owner's Toolkit.

Get keyword and search engine savvy

Finding out which keywords your potential niche customers are looking up can help you determine exactly what those customers want. And by using the best keywords, you can bring customers directly to your site when they use search engines, such as Google or Yahoo. Search engine optimization (SEO) software allows your site to be toward the top of the list when customers perform a keyword search and helps to bring traffic into your site.

I recommend: Learn the ABCs of keyword data from a real pro, James B. Allen. Two popular SEO software programs are Easy SEO and NicheFinder. Hire an SEO firm to do the research for you and help get you to the top of the search engine list. 1st page is a firm that provides a free analysis of your current place in the search engine and helps you get to the top.

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Differentiate yourself while not choosing such obscure search terms that a customer wouldn't even think to type them into a search engine.
• •  As your brand evolves, so will your niche. Watch the trends in your industry to constantly keep up with what your customers are looking for.