Niche market: a small audience that cares, and a ceiling you'll hit

What a niche gives an online shop that a broad range can't

A niche shop talks to people who already care. They know the subject, they search for it by name, and they talk to each other in forums, clubs and group chats. Win a few of them properly and word gets round.

It makes the copy easier too. You're not writing for everybody, so you can use the words your customers use and skip the explaining. A broad shop has to sell the category before it sells the product. A niche shop starts at the product.

When a niche runs out of new customers

The honest catch: a niche has a ceiling. At some point you've reached most of the people who'll ever want what you sell, and each new customer costs more to find than the last.

That's the point where retention stops being a nice extra and becomes the growth plan. More orders from the same people, products that sit next to the first one, and referrals from customers who know everyone else in the niche.

Writing emails for people who know more than your copywriter

A generic sale email reads as noise to somebody who knows the subject better than whoever wrote it. Experts open emails that teach them something and ignore the rest.

• Teach something they'd want to know, even in a week they don't buy
• Use their vocabulary and get the details right, because they'll notice when you don't
• Ask what they're into, then split the list by it: breed, brew method, discipline
• Feature your customers, who are often the best content a niche has

A niche list is smaller by definition. Make every send worth an expert's time and it'll still be listening when you've got something to sell. List segmentation covers how to split it without overdoing it.