The Monday Morning Marketing Podcast is brought to you byEsther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. Welcome back to another episode, guys. Today we're talking about the fear of putting yourself in a box. Now, what sort of box are we talking about here, Melanie?
We're talking about pigeon shaped and sized ones and they may even have a hole in the box. Really loosing the thread here.
Not like the bird pigeon?
No.
Okay.
We're talking about being pigeonholed or being classified asand being known for or doing one thing or overly niching, which is what other people refer to it as well.
Yeah. So is too much niching down bad for you?
It really depends on how you do it. Now, let me give you some context first of all. I was doing a group training session and talking about getting your business out there, letting people know, building up awareness of what you are doing. Okay? And this was a course I was running with the Of ally local development company and one of the class, a lady calledValerie, whose businesses, Your Life Matters, just came out of nowhere and said, I'm a little worried about putting myself into a box and feeling pigeonholed and how that's going to possibly hold my brand and my business back. And I can see that being an issue. I can. But isn't it better to be known for doing something really well and getting people to your website in the first place? Then they can learn to understand the other attributes that you offer, the other services, the other products, but overly niching and being known for just one thing, I suppose that's where you're looking for an a-list or you're looking for a very specific audience for your product or your service. It's nota bad thing, but it's a hard thing.
Yeah. It's almost like writing one book and being known for that one book and fearing ever writing another book because it's not like the first book. We're not just talking genres here and whatever. If you're talking about the whole product in itself being totally different, even though you're making a product, you're making the same type of product. If you go really off script and really out there, would people turn away from you because of that? I think it's a hard thing to do because as a business and as a business owner, you have to grow and your business grows and your business matures and there are changes that your business goes through. So can you niche down just enough to still be able to grow and change within that niche?
Well, you know, recently we had a chat with Finola and I loved the way she sort of gave the mindset that you can frame your business oneway, but there's absolutely no harm in later updating your knowledge up skilling, heck, even employing a new member of staff and offering completely different services or products. And I can see how hard it would be to niche. I mean, my husband, for instance, okay, he does market research in the pharmaceutical industry, one of very few people here in the Republic of Ireland that does it. So it's highly competitive. But he's also well up there with some of the most widely known European businesses because he has niched so significantly. So it really depends on how you play it out, how you use that niche. But I can see how a new business would find that scary and daunting.
Yeah, completely. Because when you're so niched down, you limit to a certain extent, the people who can be your customers.
Exactly.
But it doesn't mean that you couldn't find high paying customers within that niche. Just another thing that came to mind there that I remembered when you were talking. A couple of years ago, somebody asked me if I knew anybody who did website design. And I said yes. My company. She says,"oh, I thought you just did social media." Okay, so obviously I'm not getting the message out there enough that I do web design. But maybe it was also because I personally in the company do more of the social media. So that's what I would talk about. And she hadn't met any of the other team members and they're not getting out enough to talk about all the other aspects. So it made me have to change my speal or my speach from what I do and being passionate about social media and email marketing to what the business does and what we do as a whole. Because I felt really like, okay, honestly, how could you have known me for five years and not know that we build websites?
That bonkers.
But she had pigeonholed me into, okay, so she does this and never thought that I did something else. So strange.
So how can we help people overcome this fear, do you think?
Well, with every fear, you have to recognise that it's a valid fear. Just by saying, "don't be silly, get over it, it'll be all right". That's a very Northern Irish way of dealing with things, but you just have to sort of take one step at a time and go, okay, this is what I don't want, and find ways to avoid it. If that's what you want, or if you do want to be pigeonholed as just that one niche company, the only one on the island ofIreland and the whole of Europe and the world that does such a thing, then own it, run with it and be the best company doing that one thing.
Yes, Finola
Did I just regurgitate what she said.
Yes.
In all honesty, just have it that - own the fear. First of all, if you don't want to do it. You don't have to niche down. That's the way I look at it. You and I haven't fully niche down. Finola thinks we have.
That was so funny, wasn't it?
Well, that was off record. We didn't record that part.
I wish we did.
But I mean, I suppose we have sort of because we're do ing digital marketing. Yeah, like we're not brain surgeons. We're not doing digital marketing and brain surgery. So in a way, we have niched down, but we're not over niched. If you come at me with a lobotomy, you can go the other way. But people wouldn't come to us and ask for advice on cryptocurrency, for example, even though it's a digital thing. So we have to have niched down to a certain extent. Would we fully niche down? Like, would IPA only do web design? I don't think so, because we'd be bored. Would you only do social media training? I don't think so.
You would do a disservice to the knowledge that you have.And I agree that it's important that you inventory what you know, because that can rapidly become something that you can market. But if you don't know something well enough for now, it doesn't mean it's not something you don't offer later. So you can niche right down to doing one service or two services really well and then announce in a year, 18 months time: "delighted to announce we're now offering a further service to our package, or new products are coming on board". And everybody loves a success story.
Absolutely. But there's also another way, because I workedwith an author before, and she exclusively wrote horror stories and murdermysteries and things like that. And then she went into the let's just say moreadult industry. Yeah, but went under a different name. So changed her author penname for this other genre because she felt like her. It's obviously going to bea totally different readership. People who read horror stories don't generally, and I'm generalising, maybe don't go for the more adult material, but shedidn't want people to get confused. So it was rebranding. She's a well knownauthor to then turn around and go become a nobody under her pen name and startagain. And it was really hard going for, I bet, rebuilding and having people have to come and find you and look for you and search for you and publish underdifferent names and publish in different places. It can be hard. So even if you're in the same industry doing the same thing, you may need to have anotherbranch of your business.
Well, that's kind of what we did, isn't it?
Yeah. I mean, Monday Morning Marketing is under both your brand and my brand.
We have our own businesses, and we've niched talking because, as you say, you've got this knowledge of other things and I've got knowledge of other things. You don't have to be known for doing absolutely everything at once. In fact, I've actually told people to reduce the product sand services they're initially talking about, not to stop doing them, but to stop talking about them because the messaging gets a bit too confused so you can do too much as well.
Definitely. And the same as when you're starting out with your social media. People go and think, I need to open all platforms and have a presence on all platforms. No, you don't.
We can claim all platforms, but you don't have to be on all of them.
Exactly. But that's a chat for another day. That's it for today, guys. We have Waffled on long enough to you. If you found this interesting and helpful, do share it with your friends and family
And tell us we'd love to know if you like it as well.
Oh, yeah, that would be helpful too. And if you have any questions or anything that you would like us to cover, do get in touch. We do love hearing from you. Our email address is at the bottom of the website. You can find us there, find us on all our socials, find us on all the podcast platforms and we hope you have a great day and a great week. See you then. Bye bye.
Ta ta for now.