Name that Niche
“Read this if: You haven’t quite nailed down your specific audience, are wondering why you can’t grow OR you’ve failed on your fashion entrepreneurship journey & need some encouragement…”
It was a hot summer day in 2011 as I packed up the car for the road trip back home after feeling like a complete failure…I had an excruciating headache from the stress, sadness, and disappointment I experienced that day. I looked at my sister and whispered “Thank you” and didn’t say another word for the 6 hour trip from Chicago back to Ohio.
One of my favorite shows used to be Project Runway. Although I didn’t design clothes, I always had a love for fashion and dabbled in wardrobe styling here and there. In 2009 I started my jewelry company (formerly known as M Renee Designs) so designing was my favorite pastime and new business venture. Project Runway represented me, the “struggling creative” making products on the living room floor, and I wanted to make it big and debut on the coolest TV show so I could feel some sense of success. One day after working my 9-5, I saw a commercial online for a new spin-off of Project Runway- Project Accessory- the sister show of Project Runway where designers create accessories instead of clothing.
There I was sitting on the floor stringing beads, with my head in the clouds envisioning myself on TV, having the time of my life & my business exploding and dare I say: winning this competition. As a true creative, risk taker, and fearless newbie entrepreneur, I decided to go for it. After finding out details online I saw the tryouts were true American Idol style. Come to a random hotel in a random city, stand in line and “present” your work, go to the next round or get the boot. I was up for the challenge so I convinced my sister to be my road trip partner and planned on a trip to the nearest audition city, Chicago, Illinois.
After a long 6 hour trip to Chicago and a day of shopping, I was ready for my audition. I woke up at the crack of dawn, stood in line for 2.5 hours & entered a grand hotel ready to hear that I was exactly what the judges had been looking for. And as you probably could’ve guessed, I didn’t make it to the next round. I was embarrassed, disappointed, and felt that my work was not worthy of the big screen. It took me a week to get out of that funk and after that excruciating ride back home with my sister (my supportive angel that day) I reevaluated what went wrong and how I could improve my business and here’s one of the biggest lessons I learned.
After years of having a jewelry business and even taking a 3-year break on selling while being a wardrobe stylist, one of the biggest things I learned that I lacked in my early years was a specific niche. I know this is a feared, avoided word in marketing and among entrepreneurs, but if you can get anything from this story, know that the niche is your friend. This applies to any avenue you choose to take in fashion: wardrobe styling, designing, content creating, blogging, online store, etc. When I had my first jewelry business, my brand, concept, and designs were all over the place. I made all different types of jewelry, all styles, metals, beads you name it. It really was just one big pile of jewelry with no focus. And a business with no niche is just a catch-all with no focus, brand identity, or recognizable theme.
Now, my current business Pretty Perfect Style has a focused niche (a specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service) of big, bold statement bracelets. My niche is clear, which in turn means my ideal customer is more defined and my ideal customer also knows what to expect from my brand, and that has shown to produce so much more success this time around.
I challenge you to examine your fashion-based business and if you are struggling or feeling more rejection than success, ask yourself if you have truly narrowed down on your niche. This is a hard pill to swallow when you’re starting a new business venture because niching down is always associated with eliminating potential customers. But, the first sign of a successful brand is clarity and a customer that knows exactly what they are going to get when they log on to your website, when they look on your Instagram page, and when you come out with your next launch, service or blog.
So, because I’ve been where you are (and on some days still find myself there), I already know what you’re thinking and I’m going to address the elephant in the room/blog and discuss the following question. It’s a very popular question when it comes to niching & one I had as well as a new business owner. Here it is:
“If niching down works so well why does (insert favorite brand) sell/offer 10 things and they are wildly successful?”
This is a great question and something most of us have wondered about niching down so let’s address this concern.
Niching down is such a popular business basic because it works. And oftentimes when we compare our businesses to our favorite brands we don’t take into consideration the size of that brand compared to ours, how long they’ve been in business or where that brand started.
As a new brand focus is key! Your audience doesn’t know you yet, so throwing multiple things at them is confusing and does not help build a loyal community.
Oftentimes when we compare our business to another one we look up to, that business is in a totally different life cycle compared to ours. If you are a newbie business owner, the brand that you are envying that offers multiple products & services is often an established brand that’s been around for a while; so comparing their business to yours is comparing apples to oranges. This leads to my next point…
You don’t know where every business started. What I mean by that is businesses that sell or offer many things sometimes start off selling one thing in the beginning. After they reach initial success, they often expand their product line or services. Take a look at brands like Dannijo- who started off selling jewelry and then started selling clothing. Or Rebecca Minkoff, who started selling handbags and then expanded her product line to shoes & clothes. These are great examples of brands who were super niche but then moved to greater offerings ONLY AFTER their original idea took off.
So what’s the lesson? Follow the greats, follow me, follow every marketing guru out there and niche, niche, niche! You have your whole life to get into the other 12 products, classes & services floating around in your brain.
If you enjoyed this blog, bookmark it, refer back to it and share it with another fashion-based business owner. I’ll leave you with a short success story from a major entrepreneur in the lifestyle space as another reminder that failure and setbacks are part of the journey. Let me know your thoughts about this blog over on Instagram.
Photo credit - Ronne Brown