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( votes)Converting leads has always been one of the most challenging pieces of the marketing puzzle. When you are trying to target small niche markets, this can be even more difficult. Niche lead conversion often requires a great deal of effort – as the target pool is extremely focused and wise. In other words, you really need to understand the industry and the challenges your potential customers are facing.
There is, of course, a high amount of opportunity with niche markets since competition is lower and you can specialize in unique offerings. Further, as online consumerism continues to grow, brands can connect with customers who are searching for products or services that meet their specific needs, interests, hobbies, or desires.
If you have found a hole in the market that you can fill with little to no competition, you should be able to convert customers easily, right?
Yet for many niche industries, conversion rates are still incredibly low. The global average conversion rate for business websites is 4.31% – but for niche stores selling one-category products, conversion rates can be as high as 16.3%.
There are many “secrets” to growing lead conversions out there.
If you enter this as a search on Google, you will see hundreds if not thousands of articles, videos, and marketing podcast episodes on the topic. But the truth is that if you are targeting a small, niche audience, a generalized approach is not going to cut it. You need to formulate a niche lead conversion strategy that is customized to your market.
You’re probably wondering: how can I do this? If the typical strategies don’t work, then what can I do?
Well, here are five unique and specialized lead conversion growth hacks that are specifically designed with niche markets in mind.
Let’s dive in.
1. Get Specific on the Perfect Clients
No marketing strategy is ever going to be truly successful if you are unsure of what customers you are trying to attract.
With a niche market, you need to get extremely specific on the little details that businesses with larger target audiences cannot.
The concept of buyer personas is nothing new. In fact, 85% of B2B marketers alone said that they use them in their strategies. But the fact is that with niche lead generation and conversion, you really need to get into the nuts and bolts if you are going to make it work.
To give you an example, say you’re an IT company focused on providing managed services to the advertising niche specifically. Unlike an IT company that serves the masses, your buyer personas are going to be a bit more layered than just professionals who use computers.
For the advertising industry, your users would generally:
- Work with Macs
- Need robust software for studio capabilities
- Require a specialized approach for data management.
Now, determining this information can be tricky – as you need to support all of your details with data – not assumptions. If you already have some sales information, you will need to look for overlapping patterns that will help you qualify leads in the future. Otherwise, you will have to surmise this on your own and adjust as you start to generate customer data.
This information should include precise details, such as:
- Demographics: Gender, age, ethnicity (if applicable), income, or educational level.
- Geographic data: What country, region, state, or specific metropolitan areas do your customers reside in?
- Business size and industry: If you are a B2B entity, what kind of niche businesses do you attract? What industry do they serve, what is their annual revenue or budget allotment? What is the typical company size?
- Purchase behavior: How do these niche customers like to consume content? Do they use social media to research brands? Are they influenced by reviews, testimonials, or user-generated content?
- Personality traits: Sense of style, purchasing motivation, occasion, habits, or hobbies.
You may need to make several different buyer personas to fully encapsulate all of the details that make up your niche audience. Perhaps half of your customers are 20-something professionals looking for quirky gifts around the holidays while the other half are middle-aged parents with disposable income in suburban neighborhoods – who find unique products through Facebook.
Getting down and dirty with the details can help you get a better grasp of the types of leads you want to attract. It also helps to filter out any leads that do not meet the criteria, which will result in a higher conversion ratio.
2. Create Laser-Focused Content
Content marketing is likely a major part of your strategy already – or it definitely should be.
Content resources like blog posts or YouTube videos are the best medium for you to incorporate niche keywords that will attract the right sets of eyes. A big mistake that so many brands make is being far too generalized with their topics.
If you are going to create a content mix that drives in and converts leads, you have to create pieces that are specially formulated for each niche industry you intend to serve. Rather than sticking to comprehensive pieces that cover the full gambit, create ones revolving around super focused topics, businesses, or industries.
Long-tail phrases are going to be the best option to narrow down your leads to the most relevant audiences. The more words in a keyword phrase, the more specific the results will be. Generic searches generate generic results – so it is no wonder that most Google searches are made up of three or more words.
For example, say you specialize in manufacturing marketing. Before you begin creating content, you need to understand the types of questions being asked. Using a keyword tool like Ahrefs or Ubersuggest, you can simply start with a focus keyword of manufacturing marketing, manufacturing sales, or anything else related to the industry.
From here, you can see the trending questions being asked – which should form the basis of your content ideation.
For the more popular keywords/questions, you can build out long term strategies for each with a hub or content silo. Essentially, these hubs or silos are based around a singular subject related to your targeted audience, then branch off with numerous pieces that really dive into the details.
3. Do Your Best to Personalize All Communication
Personalization is far and away one of the best strategies to convert customers these days. Ninety percent of consumers appreciate content personalization – particularly in email campaigns. Further, 76% are more likely to purchase from companies that offer personalized online experiences.
Find ways to customize communication, especially with initial reach outs. It may be easier to segment your niche audience into smaller groups so you can personalize these messages even more based on specific details.
For instance, one group could be people who have purchased from your competitors in the past. Another could be new Instagram or LinkedIn followers who have interacted with your posts within the last month. For B2B, a group could be based on leads you generated at a business conference or from referrals, and another could be businesses that have recently grown in size.
One brand that does a great job of this is The Expert Institute, a B2B legal services platform. They have gotten their personalized email messaging plan down to a science. These messages are triggered based on the lead’s actions – and personalized details are included, such as content suggestions.
Their marketing team also separates lead groups into “more engaged” and “less engaged” groups and customizes content based on these factors. Overall, this approach helped them to quadruple their lead conversion rates.
While you can automate lead nurturing emails, you should use programs – like HubSpot or Optin Monster – that allow you to insert customized details. Of course, including a name is key – but nearly all companies do this at this point. Be sure to include additional information that creates a message that is personally created for that lead.
4. Expand Your Online Presence
To draw in the highest number of niche customers, you need to go where they are.
While using the typical outlets like social media or paid Google Ad space may get you in front of the largest numbers of eyes, you need to expand to pockets where your niche audiences hang out.
As a small brand that caters to niche markets, the majority of consumers might not be familiar with your brand name. So, you may not get a high number of leads through direct searches or organic post views. Instead, introduce your company by inserting your content in the places where they turn for information, advice, or brand discovery.
Many brands are starting to use sites like Quora and Reddit to gain visibility and connect with niche audiences.
This works well as niche communities thrive on these types of public forums and use these sites to interact or conduct research about topics that interest them. There are Reddit and Quora threads for just about every single niche market out there – and users are generally quite active and engaged.
You can start to connect by answering posted questions and inserting a link back to your home site – such as a related blog post that answers the query.
Another option is to create content for other outlets to drive in niche leads. Take a look at other publications that cater to your audiences, like online magazines or blog sites. While you should steer away from blatantly promotional content, most sites will allow you to include one promotional link in the piece or author bio.
Consider getting involved with niche podcasting. This is great if you want to promote your CEO or another team leader as an industry expert, too. Podcasts have become increasingly popular amongst audiences, and 74% of people say they listen to podcasts specifically to learn about new topics, products, or concepts. This creates the perfect opportunity to introduce yourself to new audiences to cover related topics, explain the benefits of your company’s services, or to simply share meaningful advice and build brand trust.
5. Get Creative with Keyword and Audience Research
Niche audiences, in essence, are very focused. But this doesn’t mean they are one-dimensional.
We talked about using keyword and audience analysis for content creation. Now we’re going to get a little deeper into the subject matter. Keep in mind, your niche audience may share common interests with others – and there may be some SEO and content overlap opportunities.
Depending on who you are targeting, there might be goldmines of untapped potential beneath the surface. This will be more common if you specialize in working with agencies.
For example, say you’re a consulting firm working exclusively with app developers.
The app development niche will have its own set of internal interests and high-value keywords – like iOS app development, Android app development, python app development, etc.
Now, the app developers you are targeting with your consulting services likely serve an array of clientele – maybe it’s game creators, retail shops, delivery services, and so on. This is where you should be looking for areas of content overlap and SEO potential.
Again, Ubersuggest and Ahrefs are great at finding niche keywords and trends.
By diving beneath the surface of your niche audience, you can open yourself up to a wealth of lead conversion potential.
Let’s go back to the app development consultation example. Creating content or lead magnets to show potential clients that you have a strong knowledge of python is great, but can you apply it to their interests – and how they can better serve clients?
- How can an app developer use python to create a killer delivery service app?
- What are some python tips and tricks that make retail apps more robust?
In addition to keyword research, look into niche communities to see what questions are being asked. Once again, Reddit and Quora will be very helpful for research.
Conclusion
Connecting with super-specific audiences can seem like trying to find a single needle in a global digital haystack.
But once you discover the niche that meshes with your messaging, converting them into paying customers will likely be the easy part.
However, boosting your niche lead conversion rate is not something that will happen overnight.
It requires patience and it will take you a lot of time to first identify your ideal customer persona, build up a content list and brand visibility, and discover niche keywords to attract them. By using these tips, you can build a powerful foundation for an effective lead conversion strategy that drives in niche customers who are ready to buy.
