Great or stupid?
If you follow the marketing experts they all talk about niching down. But what is exactly niching down and why is it so important and is it something you should always do?
Well let's talk about it in this blog post and get your answers about: if and how you should be niching down with your YouTube channel.
Here's what we will cover:
Niche on YouTube
Let's start with what a niche is on YouTube. And the difference between a niche and super niche or niching down.
A niche on YouTube is the main topic, the main category that a video creator focuses on when creating YouTube content. The more niched down the topic is, the easier it is for the algorithm and your targeted audience to view you as an expert or go-to channel in that particular niche.
We at TUBEup consider 3 layers of niches
Main niche
Sub niches
Super niches
For example with our channel Feel the Breeze family - we have our overall niche and that is a lifestyle channel, with sub niches and super niches. These sub niches and some super niches, are themes we stick by for a fixed period. As we are a lifestyle channel, the channel moves along with our lives. This is a bit difficult from time to time, especially because our lives evolve not in a particular constant direction. So it is not always possible for us to stick long enough to a sub niche or super niche.
A niche is the main topic, the main category that a video creator focuses on when creating YouTube content.
How we niched down
But we did start with a niche and niching down to blow up our channel. We focussed on sailing and picked the super niche: refitting a sailboat. This made our channel grow exponentially: from 600 to 10.000 subscribers. We did this for 3 months, if we would have continued we could have grown to between 60-100K in one year, see Sailing Yaba & Expedition Evans.
So our niche levels (detailed to sailing):
main niche: lifestyle
sub niches: sailing, road tripping, entrepreneurs
super niches sailing: refitting, boat jobs, family sailing around the world, sailing certain areas (Turkey, Mediterranean, Italy), boat reviews, boat and sailing gear etc.
Within 3 months our channel grow from 600 to 10K subscribers
What we did
After refitting a sailboat, we changed to the super niche: family sailing around the world. Within 8 months we grew from 10k to 30k subscribers. Looking back we would probably have made more refitting video's to grow our channel (but it also has a downside - which we will talk about in our next blog article next week).
Other examples of niches and niching down:
Finances - cryptocurrency - bitcoin
Renovating home - cabin in the mountains
Food - vegan - vegan ice-creams
Gardening - food garden - permaculture garden
Online education - online courses - online courses for personal growth
Lifestyle - sailing - artic sailing
Profession - refit - refitting a sailboat
sailing - technical sailing - technical sailing offshore
One thing you should do is choose a main niche and stick to that niche. Don't make vlogs about sailing, and then one about vegan recipes, and then one about meditation or yoga and then another about setting up a remote business or working as a digital nomad. these sub and super niches all fall under different main niches.
The worst thing is having a lot of subscribers but only a fraction of them watching your content
This way not only the algorithm will have trouble following and pushing your content, but also your viewers get confused and will not know what your channel is about and why they would stick around.
The worst thing is having a lot of subscribers but only a fraction of them is watching your channel (for example a wonderful couple, with amazing content creation skills - Wild we roam - I Rianne adore them, but they made a few mistakes - more in our next blog article, stay tuned).
Niching down on YouTube Yes or No?
Now the question remains is niching down a good thing on YouTube.
Well, to be honest, the answer is YES and NO.
In the beginning, it is definitely something we recommend. It all starts with choosing your niche. If you found your niche, think about all the sub niches that fit within that niche.
Let's take the example of sailing. Sub niches of sailing can be:
Sailing offshore,
Sailing holidays,
Boat jobs,
Refit,
Off the grid,
Atlantic crossing,
Mediterranean sea (yes even locations can be sub niches),
Caribbean,
Pacific
Family sailing,
Sailing lifestyle,
And so on.
If you're new to YouTube or have a small channel it is highly recommendable to niche down
Note: Important to keep in mind that a sub niche can belong to another niche as well as refitting a sailboat for example (we will talk more about this in the next blog article).
If you have a new or small channel it is highly recommendable to niche down. To pick a smaller niche and stick to that for at least 3 to maybe even 12 months. Because you need to give the algorithm the chance to pick it up and grow. Then, the bigger your channel gets the more sub niches and content you can add to your channel. This will make your growth possibilities increase.
A sub niche, especially a super niche like refitting a sailboat has a fixed amount of people that actually will enjoy watching your content every week. So if you stick to that niche you will top your growth possibilities.
Is your channel growing? Then you can gradually increase your sub niches
That is why it is important that when your channel has grown you can gradually increase your sub niches (very strategically) and you will reach a broader audience and grow your community outside that super niche.
In the end, it is important to have 7 sub niches - buckets - you can make content about. Every video should at least fit into one bucket and if you grow, the more buckets a video fits into, the better it is.
The answer, niching down or not?
So conclusion, yes you should stick to a niche and in the beginning niching down is the best thing to do.
This is actually a very strategic process and within our course Finding your Niche & Target Audience we share in-depth knowledge and a step by step process to finding your niche.
If you have any questions, drop us a message we love to help you out.