The world of business is truly global now. The internet revolution, big data and the interconnected nature of technologies mean that traditional barriers to entrepreneurship are dissolving. But the other half of that story is that it’s harder than ever to get heard, to cut through the noise and build a customer base. For an emerging business to compete with both larger, more established companies and well-equipped, leaner start-ups is one of the steepest challenges to face. But there is one route that new businesses can focus on to try and give themselves the best chance of success in a crowded marketplace – specialization.
Carving Out A Niche In Business
Specialization can offer a chance to stand out and find a group of loyal customers who may become brand advocates. In every single industry, disruption and innovation are happening at breakneck speed. This pace of change is extraordinary and means that only a third of major companies operating today are expected to survive the next 25 years. This incredible thought can seem disheartening on the face of it. If large entities, with huge resources, are going to struggle what hope is there for small businesses? Well, actually, it could leave them in the best position. By virtue of being leaner and able to pivot quicker to meet ever-evolving market demand, as well as being more efficient, small to medium enterprises have an unique advantage – if they can leverage it.
How Can You Specialize?
The key to becoming a specialist is really consider what your audience needs and what you can deliver. It’s looking for those micro-gaps in the market and having the right positioning to take advantage of them. There is a lot to be said for continuous education and training for you to stay on top of all this. Whether that’s an online boutique owner staying on top of the catwalk reports and major lifestyle trends or a life sciences business working with computational medicine, knowledge really is the key to be able to spot these emerging patterns and synergies. Knowing how to translate those into business opportunities is another skill, one that can be refined over time. Being in touch with your audience can be as simple as running forums to encourage a community or even doing some social listening to understand the hot topics and causes for concern.
Create A Stronger Value Proposition
Specializing can sound scary to a lot of businesses who think they need to attract the widest customer base possible in order to be profitable. But by refining down who your marketing strategy is aimed at and what you can offer them, you are able to create a highly compelling value proposition. The idea is to have a smaller pipeline and a much higher conversion rate. You instantly narrow down the competitors that you have by offering something they can’t match, and you can offer services which can’t be matched by automated solutions as well. Specialization can also reduce the learning curve – if you only work within a few niches, it’s easier to stay on top of all the latest developments and keep your business one step ahead of the curve.
