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Though likelihood is low, you may succeed with niche market DIY website builder if you can figure out: 1. What your target customers will get that they can't g

by akg_67 14y ago

Though likelihood is low, you may succeed with niche market DIY website builder if you can figure out: 1. What your target customers will get that they can't get from mass-market/ plain vanilla website builder? The differentiation and value offered has to be significantly high for niche market customer to consider DIY website builder. Small set of templates and $9 monthly fee are not going to cut it. 2. How would you get to prospects in niche market? I expect the customer acquisition cost to be much higher trying to reach narrow set of qualified prospects. First, you will need to move beyond online marketing to reach niche segments then you need to figure out how to reach qualified prospects among the niche segment. I don't believe DIY website builder for niche segments will succeed as the biggest hurdle to overcome is customer's lack of time, interest and technical knowledge and the value they may receive by spending non-monetary resources in DIY project. If you are targeting niche like Church, Doctors, or Restaurants, the business will be more profitable if you offer full-service package from website development, hosting to maintenance and just specialize in the selected niche.

hkarthik 14y ago
This is excellent feedback and exactly what I was looking for. Thanks! Regarding the full service option, is this fairly common today? I found quite a few services in the Church niche (one was on Andrew Warner's Mixergy podcast a while back) but I think there's still quite a bit of DIY involved. I think such business are profitable if your operating costs are small (1-2 full timers maximum with someone doing direct sales at least 20-40% of the time).
- akg_67 14y ago
  The full service is very common in non-tech niche segment who value the importance of website. Most of your time will go into acquiring customers in your niche: Convincing why prospects need a website and why should prospects buy from you? A minimal setup will be to have a partnership between two people. One spend 80% of time acquiring customers and second one spends 80% of time delivering service. With experience and traction, your cost of customer acquisition and cost of service delivery will go down. DIY is pretty much dead as a starter in such niche segments and typically will attract clients looking for lowest cost, i.e. high unpaid overhead.

by akg_67 14y ago

hkarthik 14y ago

This is excellent feedback and exactly what I was looking for. Thanks! Regarding the full service option, is this fairly common today? I found quite a few services in the Church niche (one was on Andrew Warner's Mixergy podcast a while back) but I think there's still quite a bit of DIY involved. I think such business are profitable if your operating costs are small (1-2 full timers maximum with someone doing direct sales at least 20-40% of the time).

akg_67 14y ago
The full service is very common in non-tech niche segment who value the importance of website. Most of your time will go into acquiring customers in your niche: Convincing why prospects need a website and why should prospects buy from you? A minimal setup will be to have a partnership between two people. One spend 80% of time acquiring customers and second one spends 80% of time delivering service. With experience and traction, your cost of customer acquisition and cost of service delivery will go down. DIY is pretty much dead as a starter in such niche segments and typically will attract clients looking for lowest cost, i.e. high unpaid overhead.