In this day and age, ecommerce has become a huge entity that has changed the way that people shop and look for products. As such, it is estimated that global ecommerce sales will have grown by over 20% by the end of 2019, for a total of $3.535 trillion in total sales. While much of this makes up routine products that are available on the likes of Amazon and eBay, there is more demand beyond this for niche products. These can include anything from collectibles, such as vintage video games and old school comic books, to old baseball cards and historical memorabilia. Fandom and hobbyists are a key driver of niche product purchases, and should not be ignored when it comes to ecommerce. With that in mind, here is how you can connect with these niches online and effectively sell products to them.
Look to Connect with Online Communities
There’s no better place to start on a niche marketing strategy than within an online community. This is because this is where most of the people who would be interested in your niche products online will be spending time. For example, if you are selling vintage video games, you may want to connect on Facebook groups and forums with people who would be interested in these types of products. To find these, all you need to do is type relevant keywords into Facebook or Google and see what comes up. Then you should join the community, not as a seller, but as a member, and act as though you are a member.
While you certainly don’t want to act like you’re infiltrating the community, you should become a legitimate member of the community before trying to promote your niche products. You should comment on posts, share relevant content to the Facebook group or forum, and become an active and engaged member who has insightful things to say. Once you have established the trust of people in the online community, they will be more interested to hear that you have products to sell, as long as you have legitimately built these relationships.
Build Relationships with Niche Industry Influencers
Although large-scale industry influencers are on the decline, micro-influencers who target a specific niche demographic are on the rise. This is especially true in specific industries such as travel, nerd culture, and DIY hobbyists. To market products to these demographics, you should consider contacting these micro-influencers and sending them some of your products to try out. If they like what you’ve given them, they’ll likely happily promote you on their social media channels.
Although this may not move the needle on your product sales much, if you get enough micro-influencers interested in you niche products, then you will have a good shot at starting to convert some of their fans into regular paying customers. This is particularly true if you have built good relationships with these micro-influencers and they start to promote your products again and again after you send them to them.
