April 21, 2018
Specialization story from reader Mauro Chojrin
Long-time reader and friend-of-the-list Mauro Chojrin sent in this gem about a possible niche market for SEO folks (shared with permission):
Hi Jonathan: I have a little story to share that I hope you find interesting :) Just yesterday I got a whatsapp msg from an unknown number saying something along the lines of: “Hi, My name is Valerie. I found your number. I need to optimize and position a WordPress website”. At first glance I didn’t find it very interesting (I don’t do digital marketing) but I was very intrigued as to how she found my phone (Specially my cellphone...) and besides I thought by “optimize” she might mean performance optimization (which is something I used to offer). So, I called her, she tells me that she’s looking for basically SEO services and then the following dialogue takes place: Me: So... how did you find my number? V: Well... I didn’t really “find it”... we have a mutual connection who referred you Me: Great! Can you tell me who it is? V: I can’t... I run an escort agency I didn’t really know how to respond to that (you can imagine that now my curiosity was way bigger than initially) but I think I still did it somewhat professionally and followed the conversation saying I will refer her to someone else who does perform such services. And now comes the part about the specialization. As I was mentally going through my personal Rolodex I realized I know some people who do SEM and some others who do SEO, so I decided to ask V whether she’d be willing to invest in online advertising to which she responded that, because of the market she’s in, SEM is off the table (Something I had no idea about). Further that day I emailed a couple of SEO friends I have and one told me that she doesn’t work with those kind of businesses because they’re specially hard to do SEO for... immediately I thought wow, that’s a great way to position your offering SEO for escort agencies :) How do you like it? —Mauro
Thanks for sharing, Mauro!
Yours,
—J
P.S. If you do SEO and would like an intro to Valerie, you can get Mauro on Twitter.
P.P.S. Need help specializing? Book a 1-on-1 coaching call with me -> https://jonathanstark.com/call