IDENTIFYING A CLEAR NICHE HELPS YOU ATTRACT YOUR IDEAL AUDIENCE
You know that feeling when you’re having a conversation with someone and you accidentally let slip something personal about yourself that you don’t often tell people because they’ll think you’re weird… like how sometimes you only have popcorn for dinner or something?
You suddenly bite on your lips and think “Oh no, I didn’t mean to say that…” but then instead of the awkward, judgemental silence, they scream “OMG, saaaaaame”!
Yeh, that feeling! 🥰
That’s what it means to find your people. Your tribe. Or in business terms, your audience.
There’s no better feeling than finding someone who just gets you and your weird, unique traits and needs – for both you as a business owner, as well as your audience!
Finding your audience is so important for your business, and it might be that having a “teacher audience” is actually just too vague. Casting your net too wide or not being clear on what your audience will learn from you, could mean you will lose them as they’re not sure if “you’re right for each other.”
Your people need to see your site / title / content / what you offer and think “Yaaaas, this is so meeeeee!” and the more specific you can be the better.
THE TIGHTER THE NICHE, THE TIGHTER THE BOND
I will preface this by saying there is no perfect niche for you. It’s normal for your niche to change as your business changes, so let’s take that pressure off right away!
The thing you are going to focus on when niching down, is not the people or avatar – it’s the problem you are going to be solving for them.
Your first step then, is to sum up very simply what the main problem is you can help solve. What are people struggling with where you can help?
- For example, the DIY Teacherpreneur audience has the problem of wanting to grow and expand their business independently, but might lack the technical know-how to do it themselves.
- One teacherpreneur’s audience might have trouble implementing technology into their every day teaching.
- Another teacherpreneur’s audience might be struggling to balance running their TpT business whilst trying to run a family and a classroom.
Are there more problems within these scenarios? Yes, of course! But if we break it down to basics, these main issues are what they all revolve around. Keep it simple and specific.
Be specific to attract your ideal audience. Even if your niche seems too tight at first, chances are there are more of you out there and you can be the one to bring the tribe together.
While we’re on the topic of keeping it simple, keep your language simple too! It’s important to use the same words that your audience would use so that they can connect with you and what you have to offer them.
HOW TO IDENTIFY YOUR NEW TEACHERPRENEUR NICHE
OK so we know your niche should be specific to solving a problem, but how do you find out what that problem is? Great question. Ask yourself the following:
- What motivated you to move in this direction to expand your business beyond TpT?
- What problems are you MOST excited to work with?
- What would you consider yourself confident / an expert in?
- What do other people often admire in you?
If you’re still feeling stuck, you must have seen something that you wanted to change, or maybe you went through a change yourself and want to help people do something similar?
An insightful exercise is to go through your Q&As in your TpT store. What common questions do teachers ask you? What struggles did you have in the classroom that you have managed to overcome? I guarantee there are problems you can help people solve!
If you're struggling to find a niche, you must have seen something that you wanted to change, or maybe you went through a change yourself and want to help people do something similar. Follow that!
SUB-PROBLEMS WITHIN YOUR NICHE
So you’ve established one main problem to help your audience with. We know that one problem won’t solve all the things, but it’s an umbrella that covers sub-problems!
Now it’s time to identify these subproblems. So for DIY Teacherpreneur, it might look like this:
MAIN PROBLEM:
☂️ Teacherpreneurs who want to extend their business beyond TpT but lack the confidence or technical know how to do so.
SUB PROBLEMS:
💧 They are not sure which direction to take their business.
💧 They don’t know how to scale up and generate more revenue.
💧 They lack the technical know-how to DIY growth themselves.
There are many, many more sub-problems I could identify in this niche, but the things I am most excited about helping you do are the techy bits! Teaching you via tutorials onw how to do things yourself to build your business, so that’s what I am going to focus on. You can afford to be picky. Choose the problems that excite you the most!
WHO HAS THESE PROBLEMS?
As we identified earlier on in this article, you want to keep things specific. That includes the group of people as well as the problem you want to solve.
Here are some examples of groups within the Teacher audience:
New teachers with less than 3 years experience Primary teachers teaching reading Secondary teachers teaching History School counselors Math teachers teaching fractionsThe list is absolutely endless and you can be as specific as you want with this one! Remember, you want your audience to say “Yasss, this is so for meeee!”
If you want to go through step by step on how to identify your own ideal niche, you can follow this DIY blueprint. You can type straight into the document and answer the key questions to help you find your ideal people and start building a tribe you can support:
