Building up a niche audience is often the key to success for many brands. Even so, sometimes it becomes important to expand your brand beyond its initial niche.
Introducing your brand to a more global audience carries the obvious benefit of expanding your business and reaching new customers. But how does a brand go about expanding beyond its original audience? In this article, we’ll be discussing strategies for widening your niche.
A niche audience is a smaller, devoted audience base that is interested in reading or viewing specialized content. Where most magazines can cover a broad spectrum of topics, a niche publication or brand will typically zoom in on one thing. This can be one specific topic, or an interesting combination of issues.
Building a niche audience means investing in reliability. Niche audiences tend to read publications consistently; for creators starting their own publication or brand, building a niche audience is a great way to build up a following and an online presence. Even so, there comes a point for many brands where a niche audience is no longer enough; if you’re already successful within your niche, you should consider expanding your audience.
It is likely that if you broaden the breadth of your content, you’ll be able to draw in other interested readers. For example, if you’re a brand specialising in sports products from the East Coast, you might consider expanding your content to include midwestern or southwestern sports topics as well. Doing so will help you attract more readers, who will not only engage with your future content but might also seek out past published content.
When expanding your audience, it is vital that you stay true to your roots. Keep your brand authentic to what it was built on; without this, you have nothing. There are several ways to develop partnerships around your authentic brand to expand beyond your niche audience, ways that won’t threaten to compromise your content. Partnerships for brands and publishers can take many forms. From social media takeovers to event partnership, figure out what works best for you and your audience. Don’t be afraid to experiment.
Another great way to expand your niche audience is to dabble in other niches. If you’re a southwestern food magazine, try featuring editorial pieces about food from the Pacific Northwest, or as far north as Canada. Another thing to try would be environmentally conscious food content, or dabbling with dietary requirement content. Either way, make sure its something your audience would remain interested in, while exploring other fields.
So there you have it! If your brand is reaching a stage where audience growth has plateaued, it might be time to consider expanding your niche. As long as you stay loyal to your roots, and put your existing customer base at the centre of your strategy, you’ll be well on your way.
Ronn Torossian is the CEO and Founder of 5WPR
Discover more from Ronn Torossian
Ronn Torossian’s Professional Profile on Muck Rack
GuideStar Profile for Ronn Torossian Foundation
Ronn Torossian’s Articles on Entrepreneur
Ronn Torossian’s Blog Posts on Times of Israel
Ronn Torossian on SoundCloud
