If you’re like us, you go on a major marketing drive and/or look at why your existing marketing activities aren’t working. But for some businesses (who don’t have humongous marketing budgets to waste), that’s easier said than done. And here’s why…

Of every single person I have ever coached/mentored/consulted, there is one common reason why their marketing efforts fail and they constantly struggle to get business: they have a poorly defined target market.

If you have a clearly defined target market, it makes it simple to:

• Offer people something they really do want and really will buy
• Reach out and contact people who already want what you’re selling
• Communicate with the people who are interested in what you have to say & will listen

But often many people struggle to define their market fearing it will limit the business they attract (on the contrary, it will explode it if you can get laser-focused about who you target) and unsure of what niches are right for them.

If that sounds like you, then here are a few ideas I’ve had percolating in my head for a while now – they’re largely markets that I think are under-served, not yet dominated by a major player and could do with being filled, so feel free to do so :)

Niches for Life Coaches

• Major Life Change coach – or even more specific, focusing on helping a client thrive through one particular life change (e.g. Marriage, Divorce, Parenthood, Grievance).
• Corporate Escape coach – helping rat racers escape the cubicle, much like Pam Slim does but would be great to have a “go to” UK version.
• Location Independent/Digital Nomad coach – I get asked for this on a frequent basis, but I just don’t have the appetite to do it. However there is definitely a market for helping people make the leap into the world of running a business whilst travelling.

Niches for Personal Trainers/CHEK Practitioners

• Conception coach – utilising a full range of holistic health approaches (including the CHEK approach, Functional Medicine, Parasite elimination, hormone balancing etc.).
• Pregnancy coach – both health (MT-based diets) and fitness throughout pregnancy using all above holistic approaches.
• New Healthy Baby coach – covering all the decisions & choices new parents need to make about the health of their baby.

Niches for Blogging/Social Media Consultants

With this one, there are so many untapped niches out there it’s easy. Whilst I know that if you can do it for one industry, you can very likely do it for many others when it comes to social media marketing – from a branding and marketing perspective, rather than calling yourself a Blogging Consultant or Social Media Consultant, call yourself “The Restaurant Blogging Coach” or the “Social Media Consultant for the Catering Industry”. Focus on one specific industry and position yourself as the “go to” expert for that industry.

There are plenty more ideas where those came from – just ask if you want them!

What if you ever want to sell the business? What if your name changes?

There are some instances however when branding yourself as the business can work wonders (look at Oprah, Rachael Ray, Beckham  & plenty of others).

A recent client of ours is one such instance…Jennie Delbridge is an Exercise & Nutrition Coach. You might say she sells health, wellness & fitness. We suggested she sold a lot more than that…

Jennie hired us to create a brand, logo, website and other marketing materials for her. We also set up the online exercise library for her, complete with Jonathan’s moving exercise graphics (and yes, those figures are based on me!!).

This is what Jennie said about working with us:

I am an extremely busy woman, running a business as an Exercise and Nutrition Coach.

I needed a website fast! I didn’t have time for endless phone conversations and technical details. I wanted fresh, unique branding, an eye-catching logo and a great functional website. That’s exactly what I got with the least amount of hassle possible. Fantastic!

Lea and Jonathan are a great team. Lea’s knowledge of branding, marketing and copy writing, combined with Jonathan’s creative ideas and superb design skills mean that you, the client, get the whole package.

I have had a wonderful response to my logo from my clients and many have said I have one the most eye catching business cards they have ever seen! Thanks guys!

If you do regularly stay up late and suffer from any of the following symptoms, then you might want to take note of what follows:

• Allergies
• High blood pressure
• Poor skin, hair & nails
• Acne & spots
• Bad memory
• Depression
• Problems with healing (i.e. slow healing)
• Struggling to lose weight

From my days as a holistic health coach, I learned that sleep can play a vital role in all of the above. Why?

It’s simple…the body has a natural rhythm (called the Circadian rhythm) which basically controls the levels of hormones in your body at any point throughout the day. If you know anything about how the body works, you’ll know that hormones are the regulators – they control pretty much all of your bodily functions.

The time of day typically determines how your hormones should be behaving and what levels they’re at; for example, at night the hormone melatonin is produced to help you sleep and help kick start all the other bodily functions your body performs whilst you sleep. These functions include the healing, regenerative, recovery, recharging and restorative processes.

Research has shown that the crucial times for most people to sleep are between 11pm and 3am – with each major organ having a specific time during which it recovers/recharges and heals itself.

If you frequently fail to sleep during these crucial hours of your body’s own circadian rhythm – then you’re missing out on your body’s natural methods of keeping you healthy, young and productive…with the end result being that both your blogging and business will suffer (as of course, will your health).

For 33 tips to help you get a better night’s sleep, check out what Dr. Mercola says (he’s someone I do trust when it comes to this health stuff).

Let’s hope he makes it!

However, if you’re not quite at the stage when you feel like venturing to the gym or actually doing some kind of exercise, then why not get yourself into that mood by checking out this rather fantastic new ebook, Crunches Are Not Enough?

Full disclosure: Yes, this is one of my latest ventures although I didn’t actually write it, I was one of the editors.