In today's increasingly competitive marketplace,
demand for specialized products or services will also increase. If your business sells everything or to everyone, chances are that your audience will not perceive any greater value in buying from you than from anyone else. If so, price becomes only metric by which visitors will compare you to others.Keep in mind that price is not important. It is an arbitrary figure that merely represents value of an offering. When you compare apples to apples, only point of comparison is price since it is only real, visible distinction between two. Thus, if *your* value is perceived as equal to that of others, naturally cheapest alternative will win.
Price is only a metric -- a currency to which most people can relate. Take weather, for example. When you meet someone on street, it will likely be a topic of discussion because weather is a common denominator. Temperature is same for everyone. "Hot" and "cold," however, are different.
Similarly, price is only used when there's nothing to which one can compare your value. (Of course, price is not only metric. But most people understand units of dollars more than they do value, which is more subjective.) Therefore, if you're too similar to competitors, price will always be an issue.
The more unique you are, less competition you will have. And less competition you will have, less substitutable you are (or your product is). And less substitutable you are, less elastic demand for your product will be (in other words, less important price becomes, in this case).
So, if you are copying your competition, or trying to promote your offering as one that's better than your competition, like it or not you're only reminding people of that which you are better: your competition. So, don't duplicate, differentiate! Or as Earl Nightingale once said, "Don't copy, create!"
Being all things to all people will likely help you to stumble onto some people who will visit your site and respond to your offer. It's law of averages. But underlying problem is that, with such an approach, you must generate a substantial quantity of hits in order to produce an acceptable result.
Also, more general or broad you are, greater need will be to paint your website, content and marketing messages with broad brushstrokes in order to appeal to everyone. In end, traffic generated will be just as general or broad.
Even if your product is a perfect fit for some, it will only be a fit for a small percentage. Also, "generalness" you project will likely convey that your value is equal to that of others and that there's no added value in buying from you. If so, price is metric others will use to measure your value.
Additionally, out of small handful of qualified prospects that hopefully hit your site, a large number of them -- if not all of them -- will likely leave due to your apparent lack of understanding of their specific needs, goals and concerns.
However, sales you generate will increase dramatically if your site is narrowly centered on a specific theme, product, audience or outcome. And niche marketing has an added benefit: need to produce a sufficient quantity of website visitors to produce similar results will lessen significantly.
Offline, being everything to everyone is understandable to a certain degree since, geographically, a niche will likely be considerably small. But online, however, niche marketing can work since a market will expand, even if it is a small niche.
However, it's a double-edged sword: since Internet expands your market, it also expands competition. Niche marketing is therefore more important online: by narrowing your focus, you both increase your market and decrease your competition!
Here's an illustration: let's say that your best client is corporate executive earning $50,000 annually or more, and that your website receives approximately 200,000 hits per month.
