If You Want to Stand Out from the Competition, Don't Pick a Niche
Instead, Pick a Micro-Niche and Watch What Happens
“The riches are in the niches.”
“A business niche allows you to be a big fish in a small pond.”
These are factual statements, but…
If you want to stand out, go further than simply picking a niche.
While some popular online writers recommend against picking a niche for writers and urge you to “write about whatever you want,” that’s terrible advice for most writers.
Why does choosing a niche matter?
Because writers are humans, and all humans develop interests and areas of deep interest.
For some, it’s business or woodworking.
For others, it might be travel.
Or everything you ever wanted to know about Excel spreadsheets.
But it’s not enough to call yourself the Emperess of Excel or the Wizard of Woodworking.
While there’s nothing wrong with either niche, both are too broad to be very interesting.
If only there were a way you could make a broad, dull niche sparkle like a shiny new bauble.
Introducing: The Micro-Niche
It sounds like a micro-niche: a subset of a more prominent, generic-sounding niche name.
GENERIC NICHE ———————> SUBSET NICHE
Travel Tips ——————> Budget-Friendly Travel Tips
Sales & Marketing ——> Sales & Marketing for Soccer Moms
Email Tips & Tricks ——> Email Tips for Non-Profits
Here’s an example of a niche
I’m Baz, a copywriter specializing in the newsletter genre. I can help you boost your monthly subscriber rate by 30%.
Here’s an example of a micro-niche
I’m Baz, a copywriter specializing in newsletters. Instead of writing articles, I carefully craft the copy to just three pages on a client’s Substack, Ghost, or Beehiiv newsletter site, increasing 30-50 new subscribers every month.
Why the subset niche works
Anything we can do to help total strangers understand what we do is a Win.
That’s because we too often get cute or clever when naming our newsletters, domain names, or products and services.
Cute and clever is for high school, not for business.
In the land of the confused, clarity is king.
Strive to be clear, not clever.
How a well-known beer can help you find your micro-niche
Miller Genuine Draft — a brand from the Molson-Coors line of beers— had a problem.
They were like any other beer.
They already had two brands, ‘Miller High Life’ and ‘Miller Lite.’
However, the ad executives knew they needed to differentiate the new brand. Their mission was to be unique enough to attract the attention of other brand loyalists and establish the brand.
After doing so, they would let new brand loyalties drive sales.
In a marketing meeting, a junior copywriter, who usually only spoke when spoken to, suddenly piped up… mainly to break the awkward silence.
“What about saying something about it being cold-filtered?”
“Every beer is cold-filtered,” replied her boss.
The Executive VP perked up.
The boss started to speak, but the VP lifted her hand and immediately shut him down. (You go, girl!)
“What did you say?” she asked, nodding to the junior staff member.
“Uh,” stammered the junior staffer, “Well, I uh, I read in the specs where we filter the beer as part of the brewing process. Cold-filtered just had a ring to it… but since all beer makers cold-filter, it’s probably nothing…”
The Executive VP grinned, closed her leather portfolio, and walked to the door before turning around.
“With one big difference… no other company mentions it. Well done….we’ll go with that.”
Cold Filtered was invented
Miller Genuine Draft is still known for being cold-filtered, partly because it wisely chose a micro-niche (cold-filtered beer) instead of a generic niche (beer).
How to nail down your subset niche
Identify your generic (boring) niche :
Knitting
Look for a slight difference that can differentiate your business from the next business like yours:
You can use location, T.A., and processes to sub- or micro-niche.
Knitting for Non-Knitters (TA)
Vancouver Knitter, Unite! (Location)
Slow Knitting for Arthritic Hands (Process)
Speed Knitting (Process)
Mindful Knitters (TA, Process)
NICHE—————————> NICHE SUBSET
Cooking ————————>15-Minute Healthy Air Fryer Cooking
Photography—————-→iPhone Photography
Dog Walking——————>Dog Walking for Doodles
Relationships—————→Win Back Your Ex 🤨
Copywriting——————→Copywriting that Boosts Subscribers by 30-50/Month
Speaking of Micro-Niches…
Check out the Pages To Profits training here.
It’s a 4 Week of micro-niched copywriting training that equips you with a DONE-FOR-YOU service to generate immediate cash flow.
It begins this Saturday.
Message me if you’d like more details about the training.
We’ll chat again soon,
Baz
Also, this post was previously published in my private newsletter. Click here to ensure you don’t miss another—I usually don’t publish them on Substack.