(2011-09-22) Hoy Niches Dont Work But Worldviews Do

Amy Hoy: Niches Don't Work - but Worldviews Do. Niches are groups of people. Typically a niche defines a group of people by slots and numbers: middle-aged housewives, young men with disposable income and technical skills between the age of 18 and 35.

But take any group of new mothers, cat fanciers, young men, Rails developers, web designers, or white Republicans with a firmly middle-class income, and you’ll find they vary hugely when it comes to opinions.

The best way to use the Laws of Customer Physics [see below!] to your favor is to take a stand. (Point of view)

If you respect the awesome power of worldviews to direct attention and interest, you can use them to lure the Right People to be your customers: (cf warm niche)

you have a worldview (or taste) that drives your product, and you let it out, you’ll exert gravity. You’ll pull the Right People in, when they land on your site or pass by your store, and feel OH YEAH! THAT’S FOR ME!

This is positioning. It’s messaging. It’s branding. It’s purple cows, and differentiation, and customer segmentation. Those things are all important — but it’s the worldview, the tastes and beliefs, that drive them.

This happy confluence of worldviews should influence everything, from feature choice to the way you write.