If you want more people to trust your brand, if you want a competitive edge, or if you just want to earn more respect in your community, you’ll need to work to establish your organization as a niche expert in your chosen niche.
Of course, this is sometimes easier said than done, especially with so many other digital marketers competing to be seen as experts in similar spaces.
How do you do it?
Choosing the Right Niche
You can start by choosing the right niche from the outset. If you choose something too broad, you simply aren’t going to be competitive. But if you choose something too narrow, you may not have enough room to explore. You want to choose something specific enough for your organization to be seen as competitively dominant but also general enough for you to have credibility and room to explore.
For example, you might want to develop expertise on the topic of cancer. But it’s more specific to position yourself as an expert in a specific type of cancer, such as mesothelioma. There are even specific types of mesothelioma that you can become an expert on, such as pleural mesothelioma. There’s simply no point in trying to become a niche expert in all types of cancer, and there’s no point in specializing in exactly one symptom of one specific type of mesothelioma, either.
In larger organizations, you can aim more broadly and build more specific niche expertise through individual experts or subdepartments in your organization.
Building the Credibility
Everything starts with building your initial credibility. These are some of the best ways to do it:
- Hire (or collaborate with) known experts. You can start by hiring or collaborating with people who are already known as experts in this field. For example, you can recruit people who have established careers in this niche or produce content alongside people with similar credentials and experiences.
- Show off your credentials. Credentialism can sometimes be problematic, but generally speaking, credentials will make you seem more credible. There’s a reason these concepts share the same root word. Earning degrees, certifications, awards, and other objective recognitions can instantly make you seem more knowledgeable and trustworthy.
- Produce excellent content. Content marketing is a great outlet for building niche expertise since you can share your knowledge and insights with the world. These days, there are more mediums and channels to explore than ever before, but it’s important that your content is unimpeachable and unrivaled in terms of quality. Make sure everything you say is precise, accurate, and written or developed in a way that the average person can understand.
- Dig deep. You aren’t going to convince anyone you’re a niche expert in a subject by regurgitating a Wikipedia article on that subject. You need to dig deep and do your research on every subtopic you explore within your area of expertise.
- Say things no one else is saying. Similarly, you need to be able to say things no one else is saying. Again, simply repeating what can be found elsewhere online isn’t going to make you seem like more of a niche expert. You need to be willing to make bold claims, issue controversial opinions, and stand out in your work.
- Get involved in discourse communities. It’s also helpful to involve your organization in discourse communities relevant to your area of expertise. Are there any professional organizations, forums, or journals where you can regularly engage, network, and build influence?
Promoting Your Work
Then, you can work on promoting your core material:
- Speak objectively, not subjectively. When promoting your organization as a niche expert, it’s valuable to remain as objective as possible. Don’t just say you’re the best in the world; prove it by demonstrating your accolades. What credentials, accomplishments, and other objective markers of expertise can you show to people in your target audience?
- Promote yourself on multiple channels. Omnichannel marketing has been dominant in digital marketing for more than a decade – and for good reason. It’s arguably the best way to reach more people, even if you’re working with a limited budget. Reaching across mediums and platforms can build your brand’s influence and staying power while boosting your content’s recognizability.
- Engage with your community. Your community is more than just a network of passive content consumers. If you want more trust and respect, you must engage with your community members directly, especially if they ask questions or challenge some of your claims.
- Scale up. Over time, you can scale up your efforts, investing more so that your expertly developed content reaches even further.
Becoming a niche expert in something isn’t easy. But suppose you can sufficiently develop your knowledge and expertise within the context of your organization. In that case, you can greatly increase trust and credibility for your brand – and eventually attract and retain more customers.
Photo by Carlos Gil on Unsplash
