M02.01 Niches

This week at BodyChance, 29 people joined our general purpose mailing lists. These are mailing lists we have been maintaining since the time I made the decision to get serious about internet marketing – we started about 5 years ago. These lists are all pitched to anyone who visits our BodyChance website, which is basically niched to people who are seeking more information about "Alexander Technique." It's a niche. However, in recent years we have also been building other websites that are focused to non-Alexander Technique niches. One of these groups are Musicians, and Basil Kritzer has been leading our marketing to this niche. During this same week, 88 people joined our music lists. That's almost 3 times more! And this happens every week = evidence for the power of niching Although we have been building our generic list for 5 years, and our music list for only 2 years, the music list will soon surpass and dwarf our generic list. The kick in revenue and growth of BodyChance in Japan is now powered by the addition of the music niche, mostly through the masterly efforts of Basil, the first person to graduate from my Alexander Technique biz course CareerThinking a.k.a. the 12 Point Plan to building a successful Alexander Technique business. Niching has power, multi-niching is weak. Most Alexander Technique teachers multi-niche – hoping that anyone with anything will find them for help. Since they don't know who's coming, all they can do is explain Alexander Technique on their top page: it's benefits, the medical credibility, how it was discovered, who was FM etc. We've seen dozens of them. Most people arrive at these teacher websites by searching Alexander Technique or some variation of that. However, having a website that explains what Alexander Technique is will not attract people who have never heard of it. This leaves someone else with the job of letting people know the Alexander Technique exists. Have a look at this chart – it shows the number of Google searches for the item "Alexander Technique" from 2004 to 2013... Depressing isn't it? A steady decline, with a few peaks whenever the media does the job of informing people that Alexander Technique exists. The pool of people who are searching for Alexander Technique online is in steady decline… So what do you do? You niche. You look for people who have never heard of the Alexander Technique, and you present them with compelling reasons to spend their money on your sessions. And that's what this month is all about: what is a niche? how do you find one? how do you know it will work for you? how do attract the niche to you? how do you convert them into students? This is a critical topic because with an appropriate pool of people to draw from: you can be a teacher, you can make your business, you can make money and have a successful career as a teacher of Alexander Technique!