

Ask HN: What's the best way you've found to reach a niche audience online? - wheresclark


======
jcr
I nearly flagged your recent submission from adventureplaybook.com:

"Adventure destinations that slip through the cracks"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7762095](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7762095)

From the submission title I figured it was just the usual travel spam, but
after looking over the site and not finding you selling anything, I left it
unflagged. I only visited the site to make sure it was spam before flagging,
so it was a close call.

Though adventuring sure sounds like fun, unfortunately, I'm not in your target
demographic.

I really don't know how to reach your desired demographic other than the
obvious methods (SEO, A-B testing, cross-promotion with related
sites/services, contributing to related forums, gathering email addresses of
interested people for mailings, ... and just about everything else patio11
regularly tells people to do).

What kinds of things have you tried so far?

~~~
wheresclark
Thanks for letting me know. The title sounds pretty spammy now that I think
about it. I'm still experimenting with various ways to reach an adventure
audience but I've tried guest posts, SEO, adventure forums and cross promotion
are all the usual suspects. I'm not after big growth, just some ideas for
reaching the right people at the right time.

I imagine there are some interesting case-studies from people who frequent HN.

~~~
jcr
Patrick (patio11) has a great blog and covers all sorts of interesting topics,
including marketing/targeting:

[http://www.kalzumeus.com](http://www.kalzumeus.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=patio11](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=patio11)

Also, there's plenty of previous HN discussions on niche targeting:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=niche#!/story/forever/0/niche](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=niche#!/story/forever/0/niche)

As for the cross-over between hikers and hackers, I've seen the OpenBSD
developers self-described as "A hiking club with a hacking problem." Nearly
all of their main hackathons involve a hike of some sort.

[http://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html](http://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html)

------
3stripe
Blog as honestly as possible about things that matter to your audience.

If you don't know what those things are yet you don't have a niche.

And maybe you don't actually want a 'niche' in the traditional sense — see
[http://unicornfree.com/2011/niches-are-for-
suckers](http://unicornfree.com/2011/niches-are-for-suckers)

~~~
wheresclark
Thanks for the link. Good read.

------
singold
I've heard that for small niches, Facebook ads work pretty well.

An acquaintance of mine used this for reaching some pretty specific niche,
like males from a specific country, in a specific age range who like some type
of cars.

He said that it worked better than other online alternatives, but as always
YMMV.

------
webstartupper
Hang out where your audience hangs out. As an example, if they hang out at a
forum, participate there, offer value and thereby build your brand.

Best advice ever - Be your own customer!

------
askar
Other than Facebook Ads you can try hashtags on Twitter, Pinterest and
Instagram to reach a few more of those audience.

------
sergiotapia
Depending on your target niche, well timed post to a subreddit will do plenty.

