It is commonly known that there are specific niches in the online arena that are significantly harder to market to, and not always for the obvious reasons. Every online marketing expert comes across such a client at one point or another in their career and at that moment they realise that their knowledge of online marketing is no longer relevant or requires some alterations. In this article, you will learn how to approach such niches with minimum damage and maximum success.
Identifying your promoted niche and the challenges it faces
The best way to determine how competitive a niche is will be to check how Google’s AdWords system regards it.
If the niche is denied by Google, it means it’s going to be harder to market through online channels.
The reason for this is the fact that Google is, like it or not, a trendsetter. Google is generally followed by other online ads platforms, including the big ones like Facebook or Yahoo, and the small-medium ones – like Blogs or News sites. Some examples for these niches include: tobacco, pharmaceutical and gambling. These niches can be legitimate offline, but when it comes to the online arena, you face a completely different reality. It’s not only the acceptance of ads or media buying possibilities, but also the general public perception. Even marketing channels like SEO become harder due to the false myth that says Google will somehow ‘punish’ websites if they, god forbid, mention a word related to such niches.
The best strategy for competitive niches
When you face a highly competitive niche, like the ones mentioned above, the best strategy is multi-channel. Multi-channel means you use as many marketing channels as possible and in as many markets as you can. For instance, if you own an online gambling site, you should target several countries (ones that allow online gambling of course), and use different channels, such as branding through social media and press releases, media buying, affiliation, SEO and even AdWords, where permitted. For instance – you can advertise gambling ads on AdWords in the UK. There are many online marketing agencies out there that offer this mixture of channels as a whole package. The advantage that multiple channel marketing will give you is finding markets with relatively low competition, which will require less marketing effort from your side. Plus, think about multiple markets as multiple backup plans – when one falls, you’ve got others to rely on.
Don’t Do’s and some valuable tips
- Avoid direct risks – Don’t take risks with your main brand site. Any new marketing methods you use in each of the above mentioned channels should be first tested on network sites you open for specifically that purpose. For instance, if you’re using a new SEO method you’ve read about or were recommended to, test it first on a small website you’ve setup with a blank sheet as far as SEO parameters are concerned. Run a test for roughly a month or two and only when you’re sure it’s completely safe, start using it on your brand site, or as some would call it in the industry, your money site.
- Brand monitoring – Brand awareness is always important, but it’s especially important in these highly competitive niches since you’re constantly facing: prejudice or ignorance, legal limitations and fierce, plus not always ‘kosher’, competition. All these force an online marketer to be very careful about what is associated to the promoted brand. This is why monitoring the brand is essential. In order to monitor the brand’s current exposure, there are tools such as Google and Twitter alerts (with the brand’s name), and Google suggest, beginning with the brand’s name followed by a space. This last method will give you the latest queries which were searched by Google’s users and are associated with your brand.
- No haste – marketing in highly competitive markets is a gradual process that includes building a strategy, setting up the foundations, running tests and finally, going live with them on your money site. All these take time and trying to find shortcuts usually gets a negative outcome. A reasonable time frame for a newly promoted brand, until you start seeing results from all marketing channels, is around a year.
This article only provides you with basic guidelines for how to do online marketing in competitive niches. It’s obvious that from here on the road doesn’t get any easier. However, if you set your foundations correctly and know what to expect, what to do and what to avoid, your work will be slightly easier and much more effective.
