Letting Others Define Your Niche
Written on December 14, 2009 by Susan Payton
I’ve started working with Collective Bias, a marketing company that focuses on the shopper’s experience. It’s exciting because it enables me to work on exciting projects and cool brands. I figured as a company that uses social media to help clients, we’d be on target with what Collective Bias is doing in this space.
But they rejected the offer.
What I mean is: the company didn’t want Egg for its experience working with bloggers or social media. They’ve got that covered. What they wanted Egg for is its healthy PR experience. Writing press releases, reaching out to media contacts. What, in fact, Egg does well.
As the owner, I was frustrated at first. I just declared my niche! I want to work in it! But here was a client saying, “No, Egg, what you do best for us is PR. We don’t know how to do traditional + social PR and you do.”
And it’s true. I could write press releases in my sleep, pitch them, and get coverage by bloggers and news channels. Why wouldn’t I want to do that for a client?
After I got over my ego, I realized it was a good thing. When a client sees better what you do than you see it, you know you’ve got a winner. For Collective Bias, they’re all over the mobile space, as well as integrating bloggers into marketing campaigns. Egg, on the other hand, is great at bridging the gap between traditional PR and social PR. And so that’s what we’ll do.
I think it’s ok to have more than one niche. The key is in recognizing where you best fit in.
What do you think? Do you have more than one niche?
Collective Bias sure knows their stuff. Love your honesty in presenting this article.
Sounds like you are so good at what they want you for….you should feel very honored.
We recognize talent, and your talent is in press releases, that said – the pitching press releases has changed so much in the past 5 years, that it is important to have someone who understands the social media space to also do your press releases. Egg Marketing gets them both.
Sandy–
I write nothing but the honest truth, even if it’s not pretty!
Katja–
I’m enjoying the experience, and it’s great to see Egg through your eyes.
You know where you fit in and thats enough. Many people never quite know what their niche is.
An occupational bias or a silly prejudice or our very own ego sometimes deter us when opportunity comes knocking. Nice to know you overcame them in your endeavor.