A niche will help your online t-shirt business stand out and better attract the right target audience without blowing your budget.

You hear the term “niche” tossed around a lot, but it’s important to choose one when looking for t-shirt business opportunities. One of the most important parts of building a successful t-shirt business is the ability to stand out, and one of the best ways to do that is by catering to a specific target audience or interest group.

Generally, categories like “t-shirts for people who like funny slogans” are going to be too broad to get noticed in a very developed market. You’re going to want to tighten it up a little more. An example of a more specific niche would be t-shirts with funny slogans that relate to doctors and nurses, or to dog owners, as pictured below.

There are many ways to find and evaluate a niche, but here are a few:

1. Visit your prospective niche’s subreddits and evaluate the subscriber count and level of engagement.

2. Use Facebook’s Audience Insights tool to gauge the size of your niche on the platform.

3. Scan this list of popular hobbies on Wikipedia for inspiration.

4. Consider your own interests and the communities you belong to—sometimes it’s OK to trust your gut.

Once you narrow down your niche, create a business plan for your t-shirt company that covers your goals and different opportunities to sell custom t-shirts, then figure out how you’ll execute that plan.