Should Your RIA Firm Choose a Niche? (The Answer Is Yes!)
To niche or not to niche… that is the question so many RIAs struggle to answer. At first thought, the idea of narrowing your audience can be scary. We tend to assume that defining a niche means limiting ourselves or boxing our potential revenue into a corner. In reality, defining your niche is a key marketing strategy that helps align you, your expertise, and your passion for helping others with the right people.
Rather than fade into the endless crowd of other firms, a niche helps you stand out and provides a much-needed competitive edge. Simply put, defining a niche should be a priority for any firm that’s focused on growth.
Keep It Broad or Get Specific?
Choosing a niche target audience puts you in a position where your expertise is in high demand and low supply. For that reason, it’s important to find the right balance between choosing a niche that’s not too broad or too specific.
Take “retirees” for example. Yes, you could say retirees are a niche audience. But in reality, there are around 56 million people who are 65 and older.1 An audience that large is already saturated with plenty of advisors gearing their content and marketing efforts toward this group’s concerns about retirement.
Instead, try to narrow it down a bit more. You could still work with and target retirees, but consider how different groups of retirees could use more specialized services. Perhaps you live in a city with large hospital networks or lots of corporate offices, for example. It might make sense to make your niche affluent medical professionals or corporate executives in or near retirement. By getting a bit more specific, you’re finding an audience that has a need for certain expertise and far fewer advisors offering it.
What If Someone Doesn’t Fit Into Your Niche?
A niche lets people know that you are able to address their specific and unique concerns. It’s what makes you more valuable to your audience than the advisor next door.
The great thing about defining your niche is that it drives your growth goals, not diminish them. Just because you’ve determined your niche audience doesn’t mean that you have to turn away those who don’t fit into it exactly (unless, of course, it’s just not a good fit for your firm).
It’s not unlikely that someone has an exceptional client experience with your team and decides to refer a family member, friend, or coworker. No matter who you gear your marketing efforts toward, people will still be eager to work with you if they hear firsthand how much value you can bring to their financial life.
Create Your Niche100 List
Now that you’ve decided to define your niche, your next step is to research who already has your audience’s attention and where.
In short, who do they listen to and what do they like? Your Niche100 list should consist of 100 people or businesses that your target audience already gives their attention to and have sizeable followings. Include celebrities, brands, influencers, podcast hosts, or anyone else you can think of.
Then, consider how your audience is connecting with this list of influential people and companies. Are they primarily following them on Twitter? Watching them on the nightly news? What about the radio or podcast episodes? You should take the time to determine how your audience is connecting with the people who already have their attention.
Figure this out, and you have your first clue into how you too can get in front of your ideal audience.
So what should you include on the Niche100 list? Feel free to use this template we created for RIA firms. As you’ll see, it includes important categories like:
Name of the person or business
Main topic
Social media profile URLs (LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube, etc.)
Social media follower counts
Podcast name (if they have one)
Website
Email
Why is it so important to create your own Niche100 list? Because instead of trying to reinvent the wheel or start from scratch, you’re using platforms and followings that have already been built. You’re leveraging the work of others to connect with your audience (for free!).
How Defining Your Niche Drives Growth
Once you know who you’re trying to attract, it becomes much easier to determine where to focus your marketing efforts. The more specific your niche is, the more opportunity you have to bring value to your target audience.
Create content (blogs, social posts, podcasts, etc.) that address the specific pain points of your ideal audience. Put yourself in their shoes. As you connect with them via email, on social media, or in their favorite publications, give away so much value that they can’t help but come back for more.
Think of your marketing efforts as the second half of the formula for growth. The first half is getting yourself into the places where your audience already is. Now, you’re creating relevant content that speaks directly to them, educates them, solves their problems, and showcases your expertise.
Want to learn more about defining your niche? Join our free RIA Operators community to connect with other advisors and discover even more ways to accelerate growth.
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