You may have heard the term “the riches are in the niches.”
Let me explain how that might benefit you as you create a lucrative touring career.
Return gigs and referral gigs can be your life’s blood, certainly these sorts of gigs play an integral part of your career’s livelihood. But a return gig to a choice venue or event can be so difficult to score. And if you don’t have a strategy in place that you implement with regularity, referral gigs could be slipping through your fingers.
Wouldn’t it be great to be in a situation where the gigs are coming to you, the calls are incoming rather than outgoing? What performer wouldn’t love to have that be happening to them?
Well why not set yourself up to enjoy that very scenario, year after year. You can, you know, once you identify your target niche market and focus your attention for booking within that niche market.
Now I’ve talked about this often, but as a refresher, I’d like to go over this once again. A niche market is not playing schools or clubs or performing art centers. Rather it is all about the audience members rather than the venue type. The following are some suggested niche markets that many of my artist clients have worked within:
Nature conservationists
Peace and justice
Military branches
Teacher organizations
Healthcare givers
Hospice workers
Ethnic organizations
Religious organizations
Golf enthusiasts
Ski Clubs
Insurance Companies
Realtors
Charitable organizations such as Food Bank, MS, Cancer Care
Ecology organizations
4H, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Girls & Boys Clubs
Shelters
Animal Preservation
Think about how any of these categories of niche markets might fit into your life’s work. Can you come up with a niche market with whom you have an affinity? Do the following simple exercise to help you discover a niche that is just right for you and one you may care about.
Find Your Niche Market Exercise
1. List any past employment situations you may have had, such as working in an industry of some sort other than as an entertainer.
2. List any religious affiliations you have.
3. List any hobbies or interests you have.
After looking at these lists, select 3 things that you are particularly excited about. I’ve had clients that loved golf and began playing golf tournaments. Or one artist focuses on gatherings of nature conservationists and gets invited to speak and perform at events all over the country, even to train national park rangers.
Benefits of Identifying a Niche Market
1. When there are chapters, your referral rate increases exponentially.
2. The internal media for the niche helps promote you to a large and very focused market that may never attend a “regular” gig.
3. Once you are recognized within the niche market, the competition for gigs you now are challenged with, virtually disappears.
4. As word spreads throughout the niche market, calls come to you for more gigs and better gigs.
5. Your work is more respected, so your fees increase, along with travel expenses being reimbursed as a given, not a struggle.
So, if return gigs and referral gigs are a boon to your thriving career, give yourself an edge. Leave the competition behind and narrow your focus to expand your audience—get niched, because the riches are in the niches.
Have you identified a specific niche market for your act? How have you nurtured that niche? Has it made a difference in your income and gig quality?
Leave me a comment on the blog
I can’t wait to hear about your success.
Thanks to Carol Ehrlich for this week’s graphic image.
Check out her work at v360.com
Now, Thanks to the Band Curfew from the UK for providing the Biz Booster theme Music, Future Dance.
And for more career boosting tips, articles, books, resources, tele-seminars and online courses, visit me at Performingbiz.com
I absolutely love this post! Finally, somebody clarified this important aspect of entertainment marketing. Thanks, Jeri!
Hey Todd,
Thanks. I’ve heard and read so many comments about niche marketing that just don’t hit the mark. I really drill down on this topic because so many of the artists I work with have found some great niches that have completely changed their lives.
Jeri