Today I’m sharing part two of the series Creating a Niche Service. If you missed what this is all about then check out part 1 here!
So the last couple of days I have been a brainstorming freak and my brain hurts! [Tweet “The more you brainstorm the more ideas you get!”]
I was thinking about how I get great results with the freebies I create to build my list and how I could turn that into a service. And then one thought led to another and another…
But then I remembered this niche service must be SIMPLE. It’s a niche service so it is very ONE TASK(ish) oriented. So in keeping it simple and thinking about freebie offers I came up with this particular idea.
Why send out boring, ugly Word-doc-turned-PDF when you can send beautiful, fun, inspiring PDFs instead? Why not make it match the look and feel of your brand? Then the light bulb went off – I could create Pretty PDFs for people/businesses who care about the details.
Check out Pretty PDF (still a work in progress)!
Here is what I have done so far:
Define Ideal Client
First I started thinking about the type of people that would want it. I started weeding out groups of people like internet marketers who would most likely not use this service or if they did they would go to Fiverr. People who opt to go to Fiverr first are not my ideal client for this service.
I had to define my ideal client.
My first thought is heart based, passionate solopreneurs would use it. Women in particular who run businesses where they care deeply about branding and how things look and feel. They care about the customer/client experience. Women who follow Marie Forleo and Melanie Duncan are likely my ideal clients.
I began to observe various groups I’m involved in. I asked questions that were based around what I 
was looking for – but not exactly just to see people’s reactions. And I found out that people do in fact thing that their PDF files should be pretty.
In one post I had almost 30 people respond saying they should be pretty.
So if people think they should be pretty then there are two options: they do it themselves or they outsource it. Now I want to find the people who rather outsource it but also avoid those that want it done super cheap. This leads me to pricing.
Pricing
How do you price your services so you actually make money? This can be tough. With all of the outsourcing sites like Fiverr around we have some serious competition. But then it does come back to who your ideal client is. There are SO many people/business that still charge hundreds of dollars for their services. Do NOT be fooled into thinking that everyone uses sites like Fiverr.
It can be tempting to price low. But when everyone starts pricing low in an industry it actually brings everyone down and the little guy/gal gets stomped out by the big guys/gals. So I don’t recommend doing that. Your price should be based on a mix of things – what you need to pay your bills, what the market in general will pay, and what others are charging. Find the right mix for you. But don’t go so low that you can’t pay your bills! I’ve seen it done before and it’s not pretty.
I came up with numbers that were good for me for now – that doesn’t mean I won’t change them. I also feel people like options so I gave three different pricing options based on quantity. Try pricing options and see if that works for you.
Setup Basic Site
After playing pricing wars with myself I got the domain name and set up the WordPress site with a Studiopress theme – Parallax Pro. I also created my PayPal buttons to collect payments for now (I might change later).
I also added the following pages to start with:
- FAQs
- Contact
- About (not done yet)
- Examples (not done yet)
- Testimonials (not done yet)
- Add Popup Ally to collect emails (on to do list)
The best way to start getting work is to highlight work you’ve done for someone else. You can quickly and easily do this by working for free or half the price for a couple of clients. Just make sure they are ideal clients so you can get a feel of your process and make sure things run smoothly AND you can find others like them by highlighting the work you did for them.
Launch It
Once you have everything set up and ready to go you can launch your service to the world. Oh and you don’t have to wait to launch either. You can start looking for clients as you are putting everything together – I am. 🙂
Stay tuned to part 3 where I will share what happens as I launch and find clients to work with!
Remember to keep everything as simple as possible.
How is your niche service coming along? Did you set up a sales page? Are you taking orders already?