As a designer, particularly if you’re jumping into the freelance market, setting yourself apart from the rest of the pack and make all the difference in your business growth and attracting new clients. Why is finding a niche so important? Credibility.
While your long-term clients and your work as a whole will greatly benefit from the wealth of knowledge, skills, and experience you’ve developed throughout your career, when new potential clients are looking to get design work done, they have a specific goal in mind.
Setting yourself up, or branding yourself, as an expert in a specific niche will only help bridge the gap between those looking for that skill and yourself as a professional. While most people feel comfortable with a one-stop-shop for their needs, those people don’t always go looking for a design shop that does everything — but rather someone who does what they’re looking for very very well. As you work rapidly with your clients, they’ll develop loyalty to your brand, and will seek out your advice, consultation, and professional offering for a larger scope of their design needs.
Essentially, developing yourself as a niche provider in the design world doesn’t shut you down as a versatile one-stop-shop. The two concepts aren’t mutually exclusive, but promoting your niche offerings will give you an edge on discoverability and finding new clients.
How do you find your niche?
That part is easy. You probably already have an idea of your best assets, and a body of work you’ve done with clients. Reflect upon some of those most successful interactions and place yourself in the mind of someone who needs a designer for a specific task. Then, it’s as simple as looking for it. Start by Googling those design needs… you can start broadly and get as specific as you want. All of the major search engines will let you know how frequently others are searching for the same thing — and more importantly, which of those keywords or niches are most heavily marketed against.
Your goal is to find a design niche you can perform confidently in, that other are promoting less. Google’s KeywordPlanner Tool can be extremely useful for this.
Finding your niche will solidify your presence and status as an expert in the field, encouraging others to seek you out with confidence.
