The Halo Niche

Almost every business can break its customers into two groups. Group A is impressive for some reason: big, well known, rich. Group B is not, but is impressed that people in Group A hire you.

Say you're a knee surgeon at a hospital in Cleveland. Most of your business is regular people with knee problems: plumbers, delivery drivers. But you're also a preferred knee surgeon for Cleveland's professional athletes, and they're the ones on your office wall. None of the pro athletes hire you because you work on Joe the plumber. But Joe the plumber chooses you because you work with pro athletes.

The athletes are the halo niche. They're customers, but they also help bring in other customers.

So when you think about your marketing, think about who your Group A and Group B customers are. Who are the halo niche customers, and who is everyone else? Then you tell everyone else: look at these halo niche customers. It's basically instant expert status. It's instant safety and hope. If she's good enough that my favorite athlete chooses her for their million-dollar knees, she's good enough for me.