The power of the niche.

Guest blog by James Lovett, Founder of ThePurposeLed.

When I first set out on my journey of running an agency, it was by accident. And like all accidents, there wasn’t much planning involved.

I’d just sold my own Amazon brand and there was a sudden rise in Amazon agencies appearing. I’d followed the growth of Molzi and was already consulting for some brands - and so our Amazon agency was born.

But not long into this journey, we started to notice a problem.

We’d often get clients asking us why we were any different from agency X.

The problem was, we didn’t have the answer. Almost all of the agencies out there were full-service agencies (just like ours) and even though we knew we were really good at what we did, in all honesty, it was hard to separate any of them and stand out.

Back to the drawing board.

When looking more deeply into different types of agencies in more experienced sectors, a theme started to appear. A lot of the agencies would either focus on just ONE area of the market, or ONE type of client. So the next question was how do you choose who you focus on?

The answer was staring me in the face.

I looked at all of the brands that we used as a family, and they were all in the same eco/sustainable sector - and as a bonus were all pretty terrible at using Amazon as a platform to sell on.

So we re-focused the agency and ThePurposeLed was born.

We were still a full-service Amazon agency but now we were ONLY focusing on brands in the ethical and sustainable space. It was even better that these were the brands that we personally used day-to-day and as consumers we knew a lot about. Brands in this space all had the same questions and concerns around Amazon and how it would help a brand like theirs. And when you are having the same questions and conversations time and time again, it becomes so much easier to explain and ultimately show why their initial concerns were misplaced (and what they can do instead).

Once you've identified your niche, everything becomes easier:

• Your messaging and targeting works for all the brands you want to work with.

• All of your pitches revolve around the same topics and questions.

• You start to understand your customer in incredible detail, so you can continue to evolve your business to be a perfect fit.

• You also come across the same types of problems and get to become experts on these (so when they do arise, you know how to resolve them).

• As all of our clients are in the same space, it means the knowledge we learn for one brand is often then applicable for others and can be shared with the wider client base. For us we have gained a huge amount of knowledge around B-Corps, organic certification, HFSS regulations, the climate pledge friendly program and many more.

  
  

At ThePurposeLed we chose our niche based on the products and brands we used ourselves and would like to work with. I don’t think it matters so much if you chose your niche based on the service you offer, or the customers you want to work with (like we did) - the main thing is you have a service or offering that you own, and when anyone thinks or searches for this, you appear.

Over the next 5 years I think there will be more and more hyper-niche type agencies that appear and thrive in their space. After all, brands want to feel a connection to the companies they work with and focusing your business in one area is a great way to stand out.

For us it's gone beyond that, it's more like a community of brands that now communicate between themselves. We have several trusted partners that also work just within our niche and referrals into these businesses continue to flow.

Our customers work with us because they love our message and philosophy, they love that we help champion sustainability and take the side of the often underdog to help them win and succeed on Amazon.

When compared to a sea of other agencies, we are the ones that stand out - the ones who are slightly different and have morals and ethics that align with their brand, so it becomes a much easier choice for them to choose us.

You can find James on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-lovett-2b2b1133