Do I need a niche? Plus how to choose a niche as a freelancer?
You’ve probably heard how important it is to choose a niche. But choosing your niche can be overwhelming and confusing. It can bring up fears of feeling “boxed-in” or fears of “cutting-out” clients *which BTW is totally not true*. If you’re wondering what the heck a niche is, before I go on, a niche is simply a focus zone that you can serve (or learn to serve) really darn well. And when you find it, leads, cash and ease shall follow.
Do I really need a niche?
Oh the resistance, I know this all too well. Like so many freelancers, in the beginning, I operated from a scarcity mindset. I said yes to work that didn't light me up and worked with less than ideal clients (gotta pay the bills right!?). But slowly over time, I narrowed my focus and started saying no to work that wasn't aligned. And guess what? My business grew!
When you have a niche you start to build your reputation as an expert, you get to hone your skills in an area that you love, you can charge a premium and you can communicate your offering with crystal-like clarity. Pretty cool right? Niching enabled me to raise my rates and build my reputation as a sought-after copywriter. Plus I had more fun with what I do.
When you don’t have a niche, you run the risk of burning out, not appealing to your dream clients, feeling stuck with the work you’re doing, and being just another creative competing on price.
With millions of freelancers out there, which path would you prefer?
Now I know choosing a niche might feel “limiting” at first, *I’m guessing like me you’re a multi-passionate creative being*. It may feel like your boxing yourself in, or cutting out some of the things you like to do. But I promise, there is beauty in the boundaries. Let’s find your niche!
How do I choose my niche?
Start with a braindump
Like most things I suggest, we need to go inward first yep, stop looking at what everyone else is doing…seriously. Pour yourself a cuppa, and write down the answers to the following questions to learn more about the things you love:
What are you naturally good at?
What works makes you feel the most inflow?
What do you love to do (in work and outside of work)?
What are you passionate about (again, think in work and in the broader scheme of things)?
What kind of clients do you love working with?
Now do the same for the things you don’t love or enjoy. Braindump the answers to these questions:
What work do I find challenging?
What specific skills in my profession am I not so strong in?
What clients do I find draining?
Once you‘ve spent time reflecting on your passions and how you feel about certain work and clients, it’s time to play and explore possible niches for you. There are quite a few ways to cut a niche, here are the main four areas. One may align more strongly for you or you may blend a mix of all of them.
Industry niche
Do you love travel, wellness, activism or horror films? You could make a niche out of it. It’s that simple. Some of our Cool Wow members are already doing this well. Emma solely helps salon owners grow their businesses, Velvet specialises in health and medical writing, Rach writes and designs for regional tourism and event brands and LJ helps health and fitness professionals.
Take action: What industry are you passionate about?Values-aligned niche
Are you all for the environment, equality, LGBTQI, veganism? You can get personal here. There will be other businesses that value the exact same things as you. You may choose to lean into this in a big way or keep it subtle through the words you choose and actions you take, either way, when you can express your values you will appeal to like-minded clients *which makes working with them way more fun*.
For me, I work with purpose-driven brands, they are the ones trying to make a difference in the world for good. If a client isn’t interested in having an impact, I know I’m not going to feel as deeply aligned to the work I’m doing. This kind of niche is growing today and I’m so here for it!
Take action: What do you care about?Style niche
This relates to your own signature style. Are you a copywriter who writes beautiful long-form blogs rich with storytelling, or do you nerd out over high-converting microcopy on website buttons? Are you a graphic designer who gets lost for hours in hand-drawn typography, or do your eyes light up when creating clean minimal websites?
Whatever you love doing, and do a little differently to others that’s a clue. Do more of it, and only show that kind of work on your website (hide the rest) to start attracting more of the work you adore. I know it’s hard to say goodbye to other jobs you’re proud of, and I know there will be fear about not attracting enough clients for that specific style, but I promise, those fears are not warranted, the more known you become for something, the more sought after you will become.
For me as a copywriter, I write concise, conversational, down-to-earth copy for brands—and clients love my no-fluff, no-filler approach to words. It’s also way easier for me not to shift and change from formal to funny with every client—that takes way too much of my energy. So I keep it within a style I love for the best results all around.
Take action: What’s your style?Services niche
A lot of us start out offering everything under the sun. I certainly did as a marketer—I stretched myself doing blogs, social media strategy, video scripts, magazine writing, eCommerce, project management, event work, whatever I could get my hands on. But then I tuned in to see what I actually enjoyed and felt excited about doing, and slowly started to move away from the services that felt more draining than dreamy.
It’s hard to kill off some of the things you love, but I swear honing in on your services is a gamechanger. Now I only offer website copy for new clients (I will extend into other areas after we get to know each other and have a good thing going too, that’s the beauty of being your own boss, you can choose). This makes quoting easier, it makes project management easier, it enables me to really refine the customer experience and it positions me as a leader who can guide my clients through the journey.
Take action: What services do you love delivering?
Your turn!
Start exploring how you can use these layers to build your custom niche. There are no hard and fast rules, you don’t need to choose something from every category necessarily, but it can help. Don’t overthink it. Simply write it into an ugly ol paragraph (remember no one needs to see this but you). For my copywriting business I might scribble down the following….
I work with established (at least 3 years in biz) purpose-driven brands or individuals—i.e. they are doing meaningful work, driving positive change in their industry [Industry niche]. I offer brand strategy and website copywriting [Services niche]. My style is concise, conversational, down-to-earth copy [Style niche]. My client’s value wellbeing, human, and environmental rights [Values niche].
See how rough that was? And I’m a copywriter! Haha.
Once you get clear on these details, you can communicate this through everything you do to attract more dream clients and do more of the work you love.
I promise if you niche, you’ll start to enjoy working in your business more, you will be able to streamline processes, buy back time, attract more dream clients, and be able to raise your prices with confidence as a sought after specialist.
Clients will be able to connect and buy from you easily when there is that perfect fit, you stop becoming a commodity and can start to get booked based on your skills and values vs. your prices. Remember, business is a long game, so make it fun, enjoy the journey, and don’t be afraid to try out new things until you find your sweet spot and profitable niche. You can always evolve and change, that’s the beauty of running your own biz!
Let me know…
Do you have a niche? Will you try to lean into one now? I’d love to know. Drop me a DM at @coolwowcollective on Instagram.
“Perhaps the reason price is all your customers care about is because you haven’t given them anything else to care about.”