Imagine you knew exactly who your prospective clients are, where to go to find them and exactly what it is they want.
Imagine having a highly responsive list of prospective clients who were hungry, ready and able to pay for your services.
It’s every fitness professionals dream. A constant stream of new customers on tap. Does it really exist? Well, welcome to the world of niche marketing.
Niche marketing is about narrowing down your prospective client base and finding the customer group that fits the demographics (the characteristics of a population segment), occupation, Geographic’s (location) or psychographics (ideas, thought, values etc) of your target market.
In other words it’s about finding the people you would consider your ideal clients.
Business owners are often afraid they will ‘miss out’ on getting prospective clients when they niche market. It’s a valid concern that’s often driven by the fear rather than fact. One of Australia’s largest fitness chains have built their business on a niche market. The truth is niche marketing opens up a whole new world of possibilities for your business.
Without a niche everyone is a potential client and this can pose some major problems. Here are some of them:
1. How exactly do you reach everyone?
The only way to reach everyone is through mass marketing and mass marketing can be a very expensive exercise for a small business. It’s a process which I call Spray and Pray advertising. You spray your marketing message all over the place, newspapers, saver coupons, mail outs and more. All in an effort to reach as many people as you possibly can and then you pray that someone will notice it and take action. It’s a hit and miss approach that can be very costly.
2. How do you get their attention
You want your marketing message to capture your audience’s attention, and the way you do that is by putting a message in front of a person that is directly relevant to them. When you mass market you can’t possibly know who will see your marketing message and therefore you don’t know what message is going to relevant to them. So you try and please everyone by using generic messages. The result is a generalized, diluted marketing message, that has lost it’s potential and power to get people to respond
3. Lack of Direction
Mass marketing attracts a broad range of people to your business, all with very different needs and wants. A professional athlete has very different needs and wants from a person wanting to loose weight for their wedding. Trying to be all things to all people puts a huge strain on you and your business. It takes your focus away from what you love doing and instead you spend your time simply trying to keep up with it all and trying to keep everyone happy.
A world of possibilities…
Focusing on a niche opens a world of possibilities for you. Here are just 5 of the many ways in which choosing a niche will transform your business.
1. You become more desirable
Generating new leads and selling your services can be hard work. Being clear on who it is you want to target gives you the opportunity to develop marketing, services, and information directly relevant to your niche. You become more desirable to your niche simply because you are more relevant to them, and by including information products you’ll also be seen as an ‘expert’ in your niche.
2. Your business will demand attention
Specializing in niche helps to give you and your business more focus. You know exactly who you want to target and what you have to offer them. By targeting a specific niche you’re able to create a very powerful marketing message that demands their attention. You can speak directly to your prospect in terms of their values.
People with back pain will be much more likely to respond to:
“Suffer from Back Pain?  Eliminate back pain for good with our ‘7 steps to a pain free back’ program”
Rather then to a generic message such as:
“Want to get fit?”
3. Easier to generate leads
Knowing who you are marketing too makes it much easier to reach them. You can identify places they would visit, magazines they would read or products they would use and strategically place your marketing message in front of them at these points. An example of this would be to target people suffering from back pain by creating referral programs with chiropractors.
4. Lower cost of lead generating
Generating new leads can be costly exercise. Knowing exactly where and how to reach your target market can dramatically lower your cost of lead generating and increase your conversion rate. You don’t need to rely on costly mass marketing campaigns and because you are targeting a specific target group with a message that is highly relevant to them you also increase you conversion rate which means the cost per client decreases.
5. Your business becomes easier to manage
By it’s very definition a niche is a group of people that share things in common, they have common needs and wants. This makes it much easier for you to begin to systemize your business. You can develop standard procedures in many area’s of your business, freeing you up to do more of the things you love.
Choosing a niche
There are a number of important factors in choosing a niche for your business. You want to target a niche that has a genuine desire for your services. One of the biggest mistakes fitness professional make is to target a niche that they believe needs there services.
People are motivated by their wants not there needs. Eg. People who want to loose weight take action on it, people who need to loose weight but don’t want to will do little about it. Make sure your niche wants what you are offering.
Are they willing and able to pay for it? For example if your niche is high school students who want to improve there athletic performance, chances are the students themselves could not afford your service. In this case you might do better to market to their parents.
Is your niche easily contactable? You want a niche that is easy and affordable to contact. Let me give you an example.
People who are going to have a sports injury. Imagine how much work you would have to put in to contact people who may some time in the future have a sporting injury.
The other side to this is people who have had a sporting injury. In this case you could associate yourself with a number of sporting injury specialists such as chiropractors and physiotherapists. This way you can readily and easily get your message in front of your target market at a low cost.
Remember, niche marketing is about narrowing down your target base and approaching them with an effective marketing message that is relevant to them. You can’t be all things to all people.
If your current marketing is not working for you or even if it is but you want to increase your client base and decrease your marketing costs, start a niche marketing program in conjunction with your current marketing campaigns.

This morning we arrived in Agra - the city of the world famous Taj Mahal and a number of other breathtaking monuments.

The first thing that strikes me about this place is the atmosphere: We were told Agra was a really filthy and ennerving place, but I found the opposite to be true:
It seems much cleaner than the other big cities we’ve visited so far, the air is breathable and the skies are blue - not grey and brown with smog.
O yeah, and the people!
I don’t know why it is, but the people here seem blown away by the sight of us!

Especially the young ones - children and teenager - get totally excitet at our sight.
We drove through the city in one of the mororised rickshaws (2 wheels in the back, one in the front, a roof and open sides), and whenever a child saw us their eyes would light up, a huge excited smile parted their faces and they waved happily and called out their Hello.
All of them! And it’s not like we’re such a rare sight, being the city of the Taj Mahal there must be thousands of westeners, but they react as if they just saw Santa Clause.
And the teenagers! Mostly students, quite educated, coming up and asking for photos with us!

A group of young guys couldn’t get enough of it, all 7 of them needed a photo with the western girl, and another one, and another one… And the smiles on their faces! So proud!! I feel a bit like a movie star…

Hotel Maya where we’re staying is the nicest one so far: About 10 min walk from the Taj Mahal, and, incredibly: CLEAN!!!!!
Clean floors, clean smell, clean SHEETS (!), it’s like heaven!

Oh, and: Thick matrasses!! About 15 cm thick! And dooners!
I can’t believe how wonderful it is.

So amazing: In Australia this would be a pretty average, almost lower class place, but here it feels like pure luxury.

It’s fascinating to observe how grateful we become for the little things that seem so granted back home: The other day Mark performed a genuine dance of joy over a piece of toast and some water (we were starving on the train). Before that Ivon was in heaven thanks to a hot water bottle, absolutely making his day.

I love how the small things become so big and important here.
It reminds me of how blessed I am, it makes me appreciate little details a lot more, and it gives me something to celebrate every day.

Oh, and then there’s one more interesting new thing for me: The sqatting toilets.
As you might know people in India (like China) do not use our westener thrones for their business; their system is a hole in the ground that you squad over.

Because there are so many tourists in the country most hotels have our style of toilets; not this one.
So we’re all getting used to squatting now.
At first it felt quite odd, but I’m starting to actually appreciate it, somehow it feels much more natural than sitting up on a throne to do it.

But enough now about the toilet business, let’s talk about the palaces.
We went on a bit of a sightseeing tour today, with the highlight being the the baby taj (like a smaller version of the Taj Mahal) and the red fort:

It is a huge fort made out of red stone, the walls about 50 meters high (I’m guessing here, that might not be accurate), and within it the most beautiful buildings. They are palaces build about 4 or 5 hundred years ago by the moghuls who conquered India at the time, they are huge and elegant and simply beautiful.

I’m noticing that I’m finding it really hard to describe, so I will put in some pictures for you instead (including one of some excited teenagers in photo mood).

That will still not give you the whole experience and essence of course, to get that you simply have to come and experience it, but at least you’ll get an idea.
Enjoy! Posted by Jenny

         

Varanasi is one of the oldest living cities in the world. And it is also considered a holy city. It is where the buddha first preached his message of buddhism.

Â	After spending time in the mountains the buddha came down to where the city of varanasi now is and sat under a tree and taught his message to five students. These five stsudents where then given the responsibility to spread his message all over the world. This is the very same tree. Â

At this same spot a temple and school was built. Over thousands of years the school and temple came to ruin and were covered up laying hidden from view. In the mid 1800’s they were rediscovered, and archeological works began on the site.

Here are some of the remains of these ancient buildings.

 

Another early start today. We were up at 4:30 am and hurrying down to the gaghis river, one of the larget rivers in the world.

We are in the city Varanasi, a city which at 6,000 years old is said to be the worlds oldest living city.

We arranged for a boat to take us down the river before sunrise and I was surprised to see a small, rickety old timber boat pull up for the trip. Nevertheless we piled 8 of our companions in and set of down river.

We passed towering stone buildings rising up out of the river like giant mountains, greyed with age and pollution. In the distance we could see fires burning on the stone steps that led down into the grey waters of the ganghis.

We discovered that these fires are the immortal fires of shiva, burning for over 2,000 years. They are the ceremonial fires used to burn the dead.

As we approached in the dim light of early morning we saw groups of people around the fires buring their dead. With more bodies wrapped in white linen lying on the steps next to the fires waiting for their turn to go from this world to the next.

We spent 28 hours travelling across india.

The station was fascinating. We were sharing the platform with not only people but dogs, cows and rats as well.

I’ll post some pictures in the next day or two.

The train ride was suprisingly comfortable. Jenny and I shared a cabin with two of our friends Andrew and Julie. We had a 4 bed airconditioned cabin which made the long journey quite a pleasure to be on.

We arrived in Varanassi at around 8 pm and hoped into our taxis to be taken to a wonderfully restored hotel which used to be one of the residences of the king of nepal.

We’ve got an early start tommorrow to watch the sunrise of the ganghis river.

It’s news years eve and I’m stuck in bed, sick as a dog after getting a decent dose of food poisoning, fever and everything else that comes with it.

Jenny is enjoying new years with our companions. Not much else happening.

We were up at 3:30am this morning getting ready for a 11km trek up the mountains in a 4wd to watch the sunrise over himalyas at 9,000 feet

It was freeeeeezing (below 0) but definately worthwhile. Watchin the sun rise over the mountain peaks, in a brialliant display of deep reds, orange and gold, then casting a pure white light over the snow topped mountain peaks rising 9,000 feet from the earth below.

We took over 60 photos some of which I’ll be posting over the next few days. (First I have to figure out how to get them from the camera to the blog) I’ll update you when I figure it out.

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