4 Levels To Niche Down Your Audience (Even If You Don't Think You Can Anymore)
Successful online businesses understand the need to have a specific target audience in mind.
They understand that narrowing doesn't eliminate people, but makes content more valuable for specific people. But for beginners, it can seem difficult to narrow their audience further than it already is, like Makers for example. The easy answer is to not narrow, but we're not settling for easy, we want effective.
These are my 4 favorite levels to continue narrowing your target audience and have used all 4 myself over the last 6 months.
Level 1: Narrow The Topic
Most people pick a general topic and stop there, but the topic is really Level 0.
Every topic has plenty of subtopics that we can narrow by. If the Topic is "making things," we can narrow down to woodworkers, 3D printers, CNC machinists, metal work, cosplay, etc.
Level 2: Narrow The Skill Level
We have a solid subtopic, but can go deeper to establish where our audience is starting from.
Are viewers just beginning in their journey, experts in the field, or somewhere in between? Understanding where people start from also helps us identify their unique problems only faced at that level for when we work on what value we're providing to them.
Level 3: Narrow The Platform
We know where people are starting from within the subtopic, but where are they working or finding information from?
Platform can really be either the social platform they are using the most or their environment. Think about whether your audience likes to scroll Instagram or browse YouTube for online platform, or for their work environment are they working in a shared Maker space, their garage, or a dedicated large workshop.
Level 4: Narrow The Outcome
Once we have the subtopic, where people start, and either where they like to learn or their work environment, we need to understand their why.
Are they working on projects for themselves and want to understand how to pursue a hobby along with time constraints like a full time job? Or are they building their own business and splitting time between creating, business, and family life?
