As a new writer, choosing a niche can be one of the fastest ways to start getting clients. So how do you choose your B2B niche? And why is that the case?
By choosing a niche, you can promote that you specialize in that area. Prospective clients will find that attractive.
Also, it narrows your options when you start marketing your services. While you may think marketing to a smaller number of companies is not the way to go, look at the alternative…
How many B2B companies are there? Hundreds of thousands — and there’s no way to market to all of them. But, if you choose a niche, you can cut that number down dramatically. And if you pull out even a smaller segment of that niche, the number of companies to market to becomes more manageable.
Don’t confuse choosing a niche (industry) with the types of writing project you’ll do — like blogs, websites, case studies, emails, sales letters, etc. While you may want to specialize in a few types of writing projects, you first want to choose the industry in which you want to work.
But how do you go about deciding on your niche? Start by looking at everything you’ve done in your work and personal life, including your hobbies, interests, and passions.
Step-by-Step Approach to Choose Your B2B Niche
Step 1: Functional work experience
Start by listing your previous work experience. But don’t just list the companies you worked at or your titles; list the things you actually did in your jobs. For example, I previously worked for a national association and my responsibilities included:
- Planning and running luncheons
- Running awards and scholarship programs
- Writing and designing all methods of communications
- IT administrator
From this one job, I could choose as my niche:
- Membership associations
- Awards programs
- Scholarship programs
- Live events
- SaaS
- Publishing
Do this exercise for every job you’ve ever held.
Step 2: Industry experience
What industries have you worked in?
I’ve worked in:
- Association management
- Live event planning and administration
- Publishing
- Awards program administration
- IT administration
These are all areas I could choose as my niche.
Step 3: Break it down
Break your experience down even further. For example, association management is a broad category. There are more than 35,000 associations, according to the Directory of Associations. I could try to market to all of them, but that would be an unwieldly task. Or I could market to the less than 1,000 associations in the sports space, where I gained my experience.
Step 4: What special skills did or do you have?
Did you play sports? Play an instrument? List them. Each is an area in which you could specialize.
Step 5: What are your hobbies?
What are your hobbies? Or, if you wouldn’t call them hobbies, what do you like to do in your spare time? Some examples include:
- Camp
- Kayak
- Hunt
- Backpack
- Cook
- Garden
- Dance
- Paint
- Sew
- Knit
- Make crafts
- Invest
- Work out
Each of your hobbies is another potential niche.
Step 6: Look at other parts of your life to choose your B2B niche
What other things have you done in your life where you may have a lot of experience? Some things to consider are:
- Having pets
- Caring for elderly parents
- Raising children — this can be further narrowed: stay-at-home mom/dad, exceptional kids, special needs kids, home schooled, etc.
- Moved a lot — locally, cross-state, internationally
- Bought and sold several homes
- Weight loss or weight gain journey
- Search for biological parents or children
- Travel — this could be further broken down by type — camping, glamping, RVing, one-tank trips, international, etc.
- Video gaming or e-sports
- Anime or cosplay
- Cryptocurrency
- Home improvement
- Decorating
Each item on this list could be considered as a potential niche.
Step 7: List what moves you to action
What are you passionate about? For example, this could include:
- Global warming
- Renewable energy
- Green living
- Human rights
- Civil rights
- Racial equality
- Gender equality
- LGBTQ+ rights
- Animal rights
- Impoverished nations
These are all areas in which you could specialize.
For each list you come up with in these seven steps, see if you can narrow the focus even further. For example, instead of sports, which sport? If you chose baseball, you could focus on major league, minor league, college, adult, high school, or youth baseball.
The more closely you narrow your focus, the more targeted your marketing can be.
Review Your Results and Make a Selection
Once you’ve gone through this exercise, review your results and see what jumps out at you. Did you work in an industry in which you also have a hobby or passion?
For example, you may have worked at a sporting goods store and considering hunting and camping to be hobbies. This may be an area you want to consider.
Or you may consider home improvement a hobby and have an interest in green living. This is another area you could pursue.
By spotting these trends, you can more finely focus your marketing. In the last example, instead of just pursuing home improvement or green living, you could fine-tune that into green living home improvement products.
You can select two to four niches and review them to see what would be best. Do online searches to see if there are directories of companies in that field or national associations or trade shows.
On the jobs section of LinkedIn, search “[industry name] copywriter” and see how many openings there are.
These will help you determine how much of an opportunity and demand there is.
Then, select one or two niches to pursue.
Time to Start Marketing
Now that you’ve chosen your niche, you can develop your list of targets and start marketing to them in your preferred method, whether that’s reaching out on LinkedIn, cold or warm emailing, attending trade shows, etc.
Despite your level of experience, you can honestly promote yourself as a specialist because you have chosen to specialize in that industry. This will help you land clients more quickly.
