Finding your Niche - The Startup Blog

by Startacus Admin

Last week Lauren addressed the all important issue of sales, and attracting sales. This week Lauren returns and highlights the process she is going through in finding her business niche and some initial steps into brand awareness...

"Start-up diary week 6"

In past posts, I’ve talked about my business idea as something targeted towards the gift market. The gift market, of course, is a very large area and I am starting this business from scratch with minimal investment in it. I decided early on when creating my business plan that my best strategy was to focus on a narrower target market for the initial launch of the business, expanding to a wider audience once I have some traction behind the idea.

I spent time thinking about a suitable target market, and there was one which stood out to me: gifts for baby showers. I chose this because the baby shower market in the UK is a growing one. It’s traditionally an American fashion but something that many expectant mums are now adopting in the UK. On top of that, having had a baby of my own just under a year ago, I’m very familiar with the customer as I am one. The knowledge of this group will hopefully me to engage with my customer better: I know how to communicate with them, how to relate to them, and what they are after. I know what circles they socialise in, where to advertise and promote my business, and how to best market my business offerings. Plus, I’ve read plenty of times that when you start a business, do what you know! So that is why I have chosen this market.

In the past week, I’ve started writing a blog that will eventually go onto my website, and the purpose of this blog at the moment is really to start to engage my target audience. It certainly isn’t my business concept but it might start to give you some clues as to what direction I’m going in with the gift idea for my start up. I’ve tried to write about things I know, write in a light-hearted fashion that other mums can relate to, and it is simply a way to get my name out there. Starting work now on brand awareness will hopefully give me a bit of a head start when I actually come to launch the website. The blog is very new, but you can check out what I’ve done so far at this address: http://giftizzi.com/

I’ve also been finalising the designs this week, and there is still some work to do. However, I’ve put up the example logo on my business blog if you are curious (it’s very much ‘work in progress’). You can find it here: http://www.theglitteringeyesbrigade.com/sneak-peak-at-my-logo/

About the author: Lauren is an entrepreneur and author of www.theglitteringeyesbrigade.com – a blog about her journey in starting her own business

If you are all into gifts - you maybe interested in reading our previous post on the Best Promotional gifts & products for your startup... and also feel free to visit the Design section of our business toolkit.

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Published on: 18th July 2013