Target Advertising – Niche Audiences Result in Brand Loyalty

Do you have a product or service that only appeals to a certain audience? Niche audiences can bring a stream of sales to your business – regularly. It used to be that if you had a product or service that didn’t appeal to the masses that your business would fail. Now with social networking, niche audiences can build brand loyalty and the best part about it is that your niche audience can be your foot soldiers!

Here is a really great example of taking advantage of a captive audience within a specific niche. I recently read in a media relations newsletter that a magazine that ceased publication nearly four years ago is coming back. The magazine is called, “Victoria.” It isn’t a fashion magazine or a gossip magazine, it is an elegant publication about living a simple yet elegant lifestyle. And it has rabid fans.

Since it ceased publication, fans of the magazine have been getting together virtually in online forums, sharing their love for the magazine and the information similar to what was in the magazine. The magazine’s publishers, Hoffman Publications, noticed that these rabid fans would be a perfect and CAPTIVE audience. “Victoria” will be back as a subscriber publication in 2008. Besides finding out that the fans were extremely loyal, publishers also learned that readers HATED the redesign of the publication months before it stopped publishing. The revitalized “Victoria” will be the pre-redesign version.

Another example of this is that CBS cancelled a program called, “Jericho.” Fans were so outraged they conducted a very organized campaign directed toward to the programming department at CBS. They went as far as sending large amounts of items that represented a theme from the show to CBS headquarters. End result? This program is coming back for another season for its rabid fans in January 2008.

Lesson learned? Even if your product or service has a smaller reach than desired, if you have clients or customers loyal to your brand, they will do some of the marketing for you. Social networking is a powerful tool for brand loyalty. If you have a website, think about posting a message board that your customers can use to talk about your product or service. If you are concerned about the material that will be posted, be sure to have moderating capabilities. Send your loyal customers information about your products or services using services such as Constant Contact.

There is something to be said about targeting a niche audience for brand loyalty. Take a good look at who your audience is and figure out how to best appease them so they go to market on your behalf.