Work Through the Niche Matrix: Steps 3, 4, 5 - Choose, Validate, Campaign

We're still working through the Nail A Niche workshop exercise, picking up from last week's post Work Through the Niche Matrix: Step 2 - Messaging Ingredients. Now, time to fight the Fear Of Missing Out dragon to pick 'fewer, better' to pursue...

- - - - -

Step 3: Choose

Now we've (1) made a list of our niche opportunities/markets, then (2) reviewed their pros and cons, so now (3) it's time to choose 1-3 of them to pursue. There is no magic number to choose - it depends on your team's capacity to pursue and test. But 'choose fewer, better.' Overwhelming teams with too many paths to pursue is more of a risk than missing out on something.

If you have more than 2-3 that you’re excited about, remember that by digging deep into one or two niches, you’ll learn SO MUCH about it and the process... when you go back to evaluate niche ideas later you'll be faster and better. You’re not going to miss out on anything by putting the others on hold.

Step 4: Validate

We're closing on the whole point of this: being able to run more targeted, insightful lead generation or upsell campaigns, which will be Step 5 here, just below. However...

• Ready to Go? In parallel, while set up your lead generation campaign in Step 5, look to set up interviews with even a couple prospects or customers in your target niche(s) to confirm or deny your 'whiteboarded ideas', especially in the Pains, and Results area (from "Step 2" last time). In a perfect world, you can find people who don’t know very well or a customer who is not afraid to give you brutally honest answers. People who are too close to you will struggle to give you truly useful feedback on your messaging.
• If something's not ready... you may realize that although your top niche is promising, something important's missing. Maybe it's a product or feature, a case study(s), research into regulations, licensing, or another kind of validation or proof. Before going on here, read “The 20-Interview Rule” (Jason Lemkin's blog post) or find it on page 38 in the PDF excerpt of the Nail A Niche section of From Impossible To Inevitable (click to get PDF).

Step 5: Campaign to (a) Learn Fast Now to (b) Grow Fast Later

If you feel like you are ready to start targeting that niche, you should be clear enough by this point to start a lead generation program around it (whether to new or current customers). Spending effort on a lead generation campaign of some kind (any kind) forces you to jump in and keep iterating whom you’re going after, why they should care, and what they’re interested in.

It’s not the leads here that are important yet. It’s the learning. Heard the phrase "slow makes smooth, smooth makes fast?" Well, "learn fast now, to grow fast later." Focus on learning what creates or doesn't create results - not the results themselves (yet).

The faster you learn how to generate leads, the faster you can get ready to grow. Give yourself 90 days as the learning or beta-test period before counting your growth chickens. Essentially, what you’re doing here are four things:

1. Define a target list, usually of prospects, partners, or marketing outlets.
2. Decide on how you want to reach out, that is, cold emailing, calling, referrals, social, mail, blogging, and so on, and what you’ll say and ask for. Remember to write from the reader’s point of view: What’s in it for them?
3. What’s the minimum required preparation needed before you can start campaigning? Don’t over plan here on creating the ultimate marketing or outbound plan, building a ton of content, and then nothing works. For example, if you’re prospecting, ideally you have a case study or short introductory video you can use. But if you don’t let that stop you from getting started. It’s more efficient to learn and create any other tools or content along the way.
4. Pick a date to send the first campaign. Even if it’s just one phone call, letter, tweet, or email. Send more. Measure results. Adjust. Try again. Act, learn, and adjust. Fire, ready, aim. The more tests you run, the faster you learn. Speed of learning creates speed to growth.

AGAIN: Speed of learning creates speed to growth!

The learnings are more important than the results in this step. If you get 10 sales right away but don’t know why you can’t repeat them. If you get two sales but know how to replicate them, you’re golden and can ramp things up.

Once you get something working, you’ll be able to step back and have a better sense of when and how fast you can grow next, in what niche, and with what kind of lead generation. Or, you’ll realize you need to revisit your matrix again (back to Step 3).

- - - - -

Observations: You'll notice I repeat the mantra "slow down to speed up" a lot here - it's because EVERYONE wants fast results! I have seen companies get better results the next day (but SO rarely) you should expect that results will actually come from months (or even years, for consultants, services companies or pre-revenue startups) of ongoing, incremental testing, conversations and learnings. John Wooden said "big castles are made of little bricks" and this is 100% true for nailing your niche.

- - - - -

NEXT WEEK: Case Study: How Twilio Nailed a Billion-Dollar Niche By Walking In Its Customers’ Shoes

PRIOR POST:? Work Through the Niche Matrix: Step 2 - Messaging Ingredients