The Best Guide We’ve Found on a Finding a Niche for Your Handmade Business

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Do you ever find yourself shopping for something very specific? These days, especially when shopping online, it’s easier than ever to find exactly what we need when we go to look for it.

You want a pan that makes emoji faced pancakes?

You got it.

You want a llama shaped wine charm to sit on the rim of your prized cabernet?

Nooooo problem.

When you go to buy your 4 year old nephew a birthday gift, do you go online and Google “kid toys”? 

Of course not. If you did, you’d be digging through thousands of toys that weren’t right for him, his interests, or his age.

Instead, you think about what he would love to play with and what would make him happy. You think about how he’s obsessed with dinosaurs and bugs, and how his favorite tractor themed lunchbox just recently got lost at his pre-school.

So you would base your search off these very specific facts and your searches would naturally look more like “tractor lunchbox” or “bug catching kit for kids”. 

What I’m getting at is that in general, we are usually shopping for something very specific because we know we can probably find it.

Now, how can handmade business owners use this information to get found and sell their work?

Well, it all comes down to finding and owning your handmade business niche.

What is a handmade niche?

Picking a niche for your business essentially means picking one specific area to specialize in. This allows you to stand out and become known for one product or skill instead of spreading yourself thin trying to make too many things in too many areas.

Why You Need a Niche

Choosing your niche is a big step that you need to take in the beginning stages of your business. It can be a little intimidating to make such a defining decision for your future when there are so many unknowns in front of you.

You may feel like you want to put this off or avoid it altogether, so before you start to tune me out, let me give you a few reasons why choosing a niche will help you grow your business in a much faster and strategic way: 

1. You become the ‘go-to’ expert in your field

When you only sell products centered around a specific type of person, activity, or niche, by default you will appear as an expert in your field.

If you walk into a shoe store and you see that every shoe on the shelf is specifically for running and you hear the guy at the counter talking about the last marathon he ran…you’ll know that he’s an likely an expert runner and he’s the guy to buy a shoe from if you’re trying to hit your PR (personal record) in the next Boston Marathon (very competitive race).

Alternatively, you could choose to go down to your local generic shoe shop and buy a pair of running shoes; however, if you’re a runner who is even remotely interested in competing, then it’s a no-brainer to buy from the specialized shop so you can get the best shoe for your racing needs.

2. It attracts the right customers to you

A niche helps your products stand out to your potential buyers when they are shopping around. Here’s an example of exactly how you can attract your ideal customer by niching down, and why it’s so important.

Let’s say you make padded ipad covers that are specifically made for travelers on the go. In fact, you even have a secure zipper pouch inside the cover that can hold a passport and a few other items. 

Now put yourself in your customer’s situation. 

Your customer is going on a trip overseas and needs to cover her new ipad. 

She’s looking for something soft that will protect it, but that’s not so bulky that it takes up too much space in her carry-on bag.

She’s looking for a cover that has a pocket or zipper pouch of some kind so that she can store a notepad, a few cords, and her passport because it always gets lost in her bag.

So she starts searching online for ‘padded ipad covers’ and gets millions of results. Your product is in there somewhere, but it’s buried on page 247 where she’ll never find it.

She then updates her search to “padded ipad covers for traveling; passport”. Your listing shoots straight to the top. It’s exactly what she’s been looking for and your detailed descriptions and travel-centric shop strongly resonate with her and her jet-set lifestyle.

Within 10 minutes of searching around your site, she’s checked out and bought your ipad cover. You successfully attracted your ideal customer by niching down your business and positioning your products as specifically ‘for travel’.

Now that you see how important it is to pick your niche, let’s talk about how to do it, step by step.

How to Find Your Niche in 3 Steps

Finding your perfect niche is not as difficult as you might imagine, but it does require you to sit down and think a bit.

I use a simple 3 part exercise to help my craft business clients find their niche quickly and easily. I’m sharing it below so you can start organizing your ideas and see which paths are realistically worth pursuing.

Before you start, make sure to download my Niche-in-3 Workbook that corresponds with the exercises we’re about to do. You’ll use the worksheets to help you work through the 3 simple steps to finding your creative purpose. 

Ok, let’s get started.

1. Brain Dump

In this step you want to write down every single possible business idea you’re considering, no matter how small it is. The idea is to clear your mind and get every thought out onto paper so you can start to narrow down your options.

Use the Brain Dump worksheet to write out product ideas, niche ideas, and even ideas that you haven’t quite thought through yet but are still intriguing. Don’t censor yourself at this point, you’ll be able to edit your list in the next step.

2. Eliminate

Next, you’re going to start eliminating some of the ideas that just don’t line up with your future goals. Once you get everything onto paper, you’re going to quickly realize which ideas stand out, and which are not that great.

This process might take a while. You may have to spend a few days going back and forth and really thinking these ideas through and that’s ok. Don’t rush this process.

Go back through the Brain Dump worksheet and slowly cross out the mediocre ideas. Your goal is to narrow it down until you reach your top 3 niche ideas.

3. Compare and Contrast

Now that you have your top 3 niche ideas, it’s time to get organized. Use the Compare and Contrast worksheet to list out each of your 3 niche ideas, along with their corresponding product ideas and price points.

Take some time here and think about what niche excites you the most, which one lines up with your lifestyle, and which you think could be the most fun and most profitable.

Then pick a winner and stick with it. 

If you’re feeling a little hesitant after you pick your final niche, either go back and repeat the process, or chalk it up to fear of commitment and jump in fearlessly. In the latter case, any niche you pick will make you feel uneasy, so you need to just fight that feeling and move forward.

If you jump in and you realize that you chose wrong, it’s easy to quickly pivot before anybody knows the difference. You’ll gain clarity by taking action so this is why I think it’s best to take your best guess and move forward no matter what.

Why So Many Artists are Afraid of Niching Down

Although it has been proven time and time again that ‘niching’ your business down is the most profitable way to run a business and much easier to manage than trying to do everything under the sun, most artists continue to meet this idea with much resistance.

Many creatives are scared of picking a niche. They fear that narrowing down their vision will stifle their creativity, limit their reach, and inevitably make them feel trapped and bored.

However, if you want to stand out (especially if you’re just starting) it’s a necessary evil. (Honestly it’s going to benefit you in so many ways.)

Create an Umbrella Brand

One genius way to feel better about narrowing your niche that will give you a little more variety is to create an umbrella brand.

As you go through the niching process, you may have noticed that you have a lot of similar interests that play well together. If this is true for you then you could possibly combine them in a unique way to become even more niche. 

For example, my business, The Recoverie, is centered around block printing. Do you think I want to do only block printing every single day? I love it, but absolutely not! 

No matter how much you love something, no one wants to do one thing for work every single day, especially when you’re a creative that loves to dabble in crafts.

My other interests include interior design, graphic design, illustration, watercolor, and other types of surface pattern design. So I understand how it feels when someone says you have to pick one thing.

Here’s how I compromised. My main business is still based around block printing and that’s what I’m known for…but it’s not just block printing for crafts, it’s block printing for interior design (home goods). Additionally, as part of my process I use graphic design to design my patterns, so I also share that process with my audience.

So although the main ‘umbrella’ of my business is block printing, the interior design and graphic design aspects are both still very relevant, and I’m no longer competing with businesses that sell block printed fashion or small block printed crafts. 

This is how you take more than one creative interest and combine it to create a super unique niche that keeps you excited and makes you stand out.

Example of a Niche

Think about how oversaturated the kids toy industry is. If you sell kids toys, you’re sure to have a difficult time standing out…unless you niche your products down.

Watch how simple this is to do (obviously do your research before you settle on anything here.)

I’m going to filter down a product from general to niche, with the most general version at the top, and the most niche at the bottom:

• kids toys
• toddler toys
• wooden toddler toys
• wooden animal toddler toys

Now imagine a few different products that you can design in that niche.

Product ideas: 

• wooden animal pull toy
• wooden animal 8pc puzzles
• wooden animal block set
• wooden animal threading toy

This shop below has done exactly that. They even wrote their niche out as the tagline, so it’s very clear. “Wooden toys for kids”.

You can see this shop appears to be doing very well from the number of sales in the shop header, so getting specific has paid off here.

In conclusion, the niching process can be intimidating, but you’ll thank yourself later for going through with it. Remember, you can always expand your business and products down the road, but when you’re just starting out it’s much easier to stand out if you can become known for one specific thing.

Next steps: 
Download the Niche-in-3 Workbook and start the process of finding your own handmade business niche.

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