Niche marketing: How brands can use influencers to reach niche pockets of the internet

As the saying goes, when you try to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one. Niche marketing is a highly targeted form of advertisement. With niche marketing, businesses promote their products and services to a small, specific and well-defined audience.

As social media algorithms become increasingly specific and personal, it gets harder for brands to cut through the noise. Companies need to tap into these distinct niches with highly relevant marketing campaigns to compete in today’s environment.

Fortunately, influencer marketing helps brands get in front of these niche communities. By working with popular social media figures who have already grown a loyal following of these target demographics, brands can boost their visibility and reach niche audiences authentically.

This article will cover everything you need to know about niche marketing. You’ll also get a step-by-step plan for developing niche influencer partnerships, along with some campaign examples to inspire your work.

What is niche marketing?

Consumers in a niche market have specific preferences or needs that differ from the broader sector. Brands divide almost every market into subsections according to things like:

• Geographic location
• Psychographic data (interests, attitudes‌ and values)
• Demographic base (age, income level, gender, education level)
• Quality level (premium, moderate, high, low)
• Price (high, discount, wholesale)

Niche marketing is often easier than promoting to a wide audience. Niche audiences have very specific needs and wants.

For instance, a company that simply sold handbags would need to appeal to a broad range of tastes and expectations. However, a business selling handbags for new moms that also work as diaper bags has more of a focus. Niche marketing has also become easier with tools like Facebook ad targeting and social media monitoring.

The benefits of niche marketing

Niche marketing allows companies to understand the specific needs of their audience and speak to them directly. It’s all about making the right connections, which is why many social media channels have improved their targeting options for niche markets. With niche marketing and a social strategy, companies can reap the following benefits:

Develop greater brand loyalty

Fewer people in a niche audience mean more chances to develop intimate, valuable relationships Take the company Black Girl Sunscreen, for example.

There are plenty of sunscreen brands on the market, but few are created with the needs of Black skin in mind. Most use ingredients that oxidize on the skin, leaving a white cast or grayish tint on deeper skin tones. Black Girl Sunscreen created a product specifically for Black women and has become a cult-followed product as a result.

Compete against fewer brands

The more specialized your business is, the fewer competitors you’ll have offering the exact same products or services. A niche reinforces your unique selling proposition, allowing your brand to differentiate itself in the marketplace.

Humankind, for example, is a gender-inclusive swimwear and apparel brand. Instead of competing with every other clothing brand, it creates stylish, comfortable and inclusive clothing that appeals to people who don’t want to be limited by traditional gender norms.

Because they cater specifically to people looking for gender-neutral clothing, they face less competition than swimwear brands looking to appeal to everyone.

Optimize marketing spend

Ads tailored to a niche audience are more likely to be relevant and appealing, leading to better performance metrics, such as higher click-through rates (CTR) and lower bounce rates. Similarly, working with niche influencers offers a higher return on investment because their rates are typically much lower than those of macro-influencers with mass appeal.

This cost-effectiveness doesn’t come at the expense of impact. Niche influencers often have highly engaged audiences who trust their recommendations. According to the 2024 Influencer Marketing Report, nearly half (49%) of consumers of all ages make purchases at least once a month because of influencer posts, highlighting the significant influence that well-targeted, authentic content can have on driving conversions.

How brands can use influencers to connect with niche markets

There are many benefits to niche marketing and working with niche influencers, but there’s a learning curve. Plus, while you might already know of some well-known broad influencers, finding an influencer within a specific niche requires a little more digging.

Here’s what you need to do to get started.

Identify a niche within your target audience

The niche pockets within your target audience have unique preferences and needs. For instance, the makeup sector is broad, but within that market, there’s makeup for acne-prone skin, professional artists, older skin—and that’s just scratching the surface.

To identify niches thriving within your target audience, start with native platform research. Unless you’re looking into a specific hunch, there’s no need to start off with a hyper-structured approach. Instead, consume content with an open mind for potential brand applications.

Scroll through the comment sections of your brand profiles. Check out competitor profiles or use the “see similar accounts” feature to see what’s trending.

Build on any hunches using a social listening tool. Social listening data can summarize the conversations surrounding a topic and reveal the insights that matter most for your strategy.

Find influencers trending within the niche

Once you’ve identified a niche you want to target, start looking for influencers. Native platform research is also critical during this step. Use relevant hashtags to discover top posts in a specific niche. You could also go through the comment sections of trending posts to find prominent influencers in the space.

If you’re strapped for time, an influencer marketing tool like Sprout Social Influencer Marketing (formerly Tagger) can speed up this process. Its profile discovery tool simplifies influencer research through smart filters that sort and analyze creators who have built audiences relevant to your brand or a specific niche.

Conduct influencer outreach

At this point, you should have a shortlist of potential influencers with whom to collaborate. Before contacting them, ensure your social media profiles and existing social content are up-to-date. You can also set a foundation for warmer outreach by preemptively engaging with their content from your brand accounts.

When you start the outreach process, check to see if they’ve shared guidelines around communication preferences. For example, some prefer you email their management company or agent instead of contacting them directly. Then, send a friendly message that clearly states why you think they’re a great fit for your brand, what you’re offering and what you hope to achieve with the collaboration.

If you get stuck on what to say, try out these influencer outreach email templates.

Collaborate on content

We know it’s tough to relinquish creative control, but Forrester research found that overdirection is the most common pitfall for brands engaging in creator partnerships.

Influencers know their audience better than anyone else. They know what they like and what content resonates with them. When brands allow influencers to create content in their style, it feels more authentic and genuine, leading to better results.

Fans also prefer this. Our influencer marketing report shows that more than two-thirds (67%) of consumers believe the best influencer-brand partnerships are honest and unbiased.

Engage with the niche’s community

There’s still more work to do once the campaign goes live. When brands actively engage with influencer partners and their fans, it shows that you genuinely care about connecting with that community (and aren’t just there to cash in).

Engagement can take many forms, from responding to TikTok comments to participating in social media conversations and sharing user-generated content. Being active and present online through the campaign will build trust with that community, leading to increased loyalty and brand visibility through word-of-mouth marketing.

Niche marketing examples to inspire your strategy

What could your niche marketing campaign look like? Here are some examples to get your creative juices flowing.

1. e.l.f. ’s Make up over Makeup campaign

Ian Paget (@ianpaget) and Chris Olsen (@chrisolsen) were a famous social media couple with over 12.7 million TikTok followers and 327,000 subscribers on a co-managed YouTube channel. When they broke up, fans were devastated. However, cosmetic brand e.l.f. saw an opportunity for a unique brand partnership.

The “Make up over Makeup” campaign brought together the two social media stars for a YouTube video in which they rehashed their breakup while applying each other’s makeup. By partnering with two prominent creators within the LGBTQ+ community, the campaign helped e.l.f. reach a niche audience in the beauty industry.

2. Dunkin Donuts x Corporate Natalie

Natalie Marshall (@corporatenatalie) is a content creator with over a million followers across TikTok and Instagram. She’s known for her humorous videos about work-from-home corporate life.

Recently, food brand Dunkin Donuts partnered with Natalie and actor Will Arnett on a short commercial featuring a cast of up-and-coming stars posing as “summer interns.” Considering Natalie’s strong appeal with fans of corporate humor, the partnership helps Dunkin connect with this audience in a relatable way.

3. Ring x Pet-fluencers

Home security company Ring asked pet parents to share videos or pictures from their Ring camera on Instagram or TikTok with the hashtag #RingPets. For each submission, Ring pledged a donation to the ASPCA (the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and local animal shelters. In total, the brand donated $500,000.

As an added plus, contestants who used the hashtag #contest were entered into a competition for their pet to appear in an upcoming Ring commercial. Since many customers use their Ring device to monitor their furry friends, the campaign helped raise awareness for their pet protection features and aligned the company with this niche audience.

Kick start your niche influencer marketing strategy

You don’t have to cast a wide net to create a lasting brand. One of the best and quickest paths to marketing success is focusing on a specific segment of customers. You’ll earn their trust and loyalty, which can lead to increased revenue.

A clear niche will also help you identify influencers who have already built a following containing your target customers. Partnering with them will increase your growth, getting you in front of an engaged audience of loyal fans.

Ready to get started? Download our influencer marketing toolkit for resources that’ll help you find and connect with influencers to grow your brand with audiences that matter.