🤔 Knowing your niche
When figuring out what you're good at, a lot of people look outward, but we're here to tell you it starts from within. If you want to earn a living creating, you've got to learn how you live. Once you know the right ways to use your passions and skills, you can find a niche that will last you a lifetime. This week's newsletter is about the unexpected ways to discover your niche, creating content using healthy habits, and how to make people fall in love with what you're putting out there. Let's go!
In this week's issue 📨
- How to find your niche
- Create content consistently
- Making people obsessed
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Jack of all trades
A niche is more than just a topic. It's every single factor that contributes to the unique value you bring to your audience. To find your niche, you have to recognize what gets you up in the morning. What makes you happy? What keeps you going? What skills can you utilize to create more passion around your passions? Knowing yourself is knowing your niche.
Let's examine some proven ways to find your niche, so you can differentiate your work in a crowded digital space.
What does "niche" really mean?
- Your niche can be specific, but if you're doing things right, it'll never be narrow or shallow. The most successful creators use multiple elements, like format, audience, voice, and platform, to set themselves apart. Knowing when, where, and how these elements unify will be your secret sauce.
- Creators like agency designer Jack Butcher used all of these layers to build a seven-figure business, drawing pictures for a small audience on Twitter and Instagram while giving away 90% of his work for free. Once you find your niche, this can be possible for you, too.
How do you gain the advantage?
- After spending a decade working in graphic design, Jack decided to build a business on his own terms using a process called identifying the overlap. This is where your experience, skills, interests, and the customers’ needs all meet. Where there is overlap, there is opportunity.
- If you're struggling to find where your own overlap lies, start by creating what you can with the skills you have for the people you know. Every action you take will function as a new connection to the next thing, opening up opportunities that couldn’t be seen previously. Take risks and be imperfect!
How do you get noticed?
- One of the best ways to get noticed is to create lots of quality content. Volume helps your audience believe your message, and if you have only a few posts on your site compared to your competitor's 150, you may not be taken as seriously. Think of every piece of content as a personal invitation to a new subscriber.
- Don't take your followers' feelings for granted. The more content you put out there, the more eyeballs on the screen and the more feedback you'll receive on what is and isn't working. If you only post a few times a month, it'll take you that much longer to hone in on what your audience wants from you.
How do you monetize?
- You can't make money until people know who you are, and that won't happen until you start creating. Once you start creating, that's when you can begin building a community, and a loyal fanbase will pay you to solve their problems. Start solving the actual needs of real people.
- Grow your audience through quality content, pay attention to the evolution of their needs, respond with a solution, use those solutions to build trust, use that trust to build community, use your community to discover new problems, create more quality content to solve them, repeat, and make a living!
Interesting stories & ideas 📚
- The AI productivity paradox – Platformer
- The state of the news industry in 2026 – Twipe
- Tell me you're a writer without telling me – Ann Handley
- Every marketer says you need taste – Ahrefs
- You might just have to be bored – Embedded
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Under pressure
We're going to be real. Some of you reading this will quit creating content by the time spring has sprung. Not because you don't have the drive and skills, but because you haven't discovered how to ignore perfection. Taking the big leap to run your own business is hard enough, so there's no need to make everything else difficult, too. If you're already feeling stressed, we're here to calm your inner saboteur.
Marketer Jon Loomer breaks down the secret to consistent content creation so you can focus on what matters.
#1 Quality content is great, and making a lot of it is great too, but the best content always communicates your message effectively. Don't let the lack of polish keep you from publishing. As long as your message is clear, you'll see results.
#2 Don't create roadblocks for yourself, like worrying about the equipment you have, how long things take, or how snazzy you look on camera. Insecurities like these will keep you from creating, and will naturally improve over time.
#3 You won't create great content until you make some mediocre content first. You're never the top dog when you first start, and you may never be, but coming to terms with creating bad content will take a lot of the pressure off.
Creating imperfect content? Perfect!
#4 Coming up with content will probably get harder as you go, so stay tuned into your community, your most successful work, and what's going on in the world around you. This will provide a consistent pipeline of ideas you can grab from.
#5 Give yourself time to establish a routine you can easily do each day. Creating habits will establish a strong content creation foundation you can lean on during the hard days. Healthy routines lead to less publishing pressure.
#6 Make time to create content, rather than only creating when you have time. This sets the expectation that content creation will happen, even when you're not feeling it or it's not perfect. You can make magic at any time!
Obsessed
You know how to find your niche and create consistently, but how do you make it all genuine? How do you connect all of your hard work with the people out there? How do you get them to "get" you? Building real, emotional connections with your followers is what keeps them coming back and encourages them to share it with the world. If you want loyal advocates, you have to be faithful to them first.
The team at Holistic Public Speaking explains how to make people fall in love with your content by falling in love with you.
‣ Repetition is one of the easiest ways for you to click with your subscribers. Start working in any key messages, taglines, or hooks to make you and your content memorable. Just ensure that any catchphrases feel natural so you aren't trying too hard to make fetch happen.
‣ Your subscribers want to know what you really think and how you really feel. Using your expertise to solve problems is great, but sharing your personal opinion is also an exciting angle. However, you don't have to be 100% open 24/7. Keeping some things close to your chest creates an interesting air of mystery.
‣ When making a video or hosting a webinar, be mindful of your body language. Speak directly to your members by leaning into the camera, using eye contact, and showing off your sense of humor. This makes you more real to them, which makes your content more real, too. Positive energy is contagious!
‣ Start replacing "I" or "me" with "us" and "we." Speak to your subscribers like they're in the passenger seat. Make them feel like they're your Robin to your Batman. Including them in your endeavors makes them feel like they're a part of something much bigger than the both of you.
‣ At the end of the day, your readers want to connect with you, not your brand. Sharing personal stories, struggles, and imperfections helps your audience feel like they know you. And they should! Vulnerability leads to authenticity. The more authentic you are, the more loyal they'll be.
‣ Make a point to call out your biggest supporters and highlight how they've benefitted your life. Share personal stories and express how much they matter. This creates an emotional bond and will encourage your followers to share their stories with you in return. Remember, we're all in this together.
Curator's pick ✍️
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