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Here are two quick rules that makes niche marketing profitable: 1. Find a niche market that's easy to identify or find. 2. Make sure your niche market is easy and inexpensive to contact. Here's a classic example of me messing up these two rules. As a shareholder and meddler in a software company, I thought one of our products would take the business market by storm. The product is a forms generation program that duplicates ordinary paper forms. Businesses could simply design a master form on the computer and customers or employees would fill out the form. The filled out form could be stored neatly on the computer. No filing cabinet needed. No wasted time at the photocopier. Big savings ahead for businesses -- big profits for our software company. Sounds like the ideal product, doesn't it? Money-sucking marketing disaster around the corner. Every business needed this product. The market was bigger than a niche. The market was enormous. But we couldn't exactly identify or find the people who actually buy this software. Purchasing agents for large companies never heard of a program like this. Department heads who really could use this program didn't have funds allocated from last year's budget for this program. The heads of the computer departments saw this program was simple, easy, and would put them out of work. The entire photocopy department staffing was built on making copies of forms, and they didn't like the idea of being out of work. The owners of the companies didn't understand how this program would work or save them money. And we mailed, we advertised, we called, and we watched our marketing efforts suck large amounts of money from our bank account. We violated Rule #1. We couldn't identify exactly who should receive our marketing materials. We violated Rule #2. We had to market to the masses and that cost us a fortune. Lots of postage, printing and advertising dollars wasted trying to reach the right person. I could go on . . . but why bother? Life is easier when you put the past behind you and make marketing corrections on your future projects. How can I use these two niche marketing rules in my business? Let's forget the theories and go right to some practical real-life case studies that show us winning niche marketing campaigns. You can't sell multivitamins to the masses. The market is too big. You don't know which prospect needs multivitamins. However, you can sell diet products to overweight prospects. Rule #1. We can easily identify and find this niche market. Overweight prospects are easy to find. You can see me from blocks away. We congregate in groups at the all-you-can-eat buffets. Most ice cream franchises built their business plan around us. Rule #2. We can easily be contacted inexpensively. You won't have to waste time and money trying to find us at: Health clubs 10k weekend running events Thong swim suit modeling competitions Bicycle shops Sushi restaurants Just by applying these two rules, the marketing solutions appear. It's easy, isn't it? If you want to attract overweight prospects to an event, simply offer an all-you-can-eat contest at the event. We'll show up hordes. Free food samples work great to attract us to opportunity meetings. But let's get a little more creative and targeted. Maybe you want a very, very inexpensive marketing campaign for your secret product, "Fat-Be-Gone." 1. You create a one-third page coupon. Your coupon points out how your product dissolves fat and reduces the fat absorbed from fatty foods. Maybe you offer a free candy bar as a premium with the first month's purchase. 2. You get your coupons printed. At a local printer, your coupons will cost about 2 cents each. (They'll cost less when you use your employer's photocopy machine, but that's another story.) 3. You get your coupons inexpensively distributed to targeted, overweight prospects. Want an example? You decide that couch potatoes are so lazy that they will order food delivered to their door. Why waste time driving to a local restaurant when someone will bring you food while you watch television? And what kind of food would have a high fat content and could be delivered in 30 minutes or less? Pizza. So you go to a pizza delivery store and talk with the manager. You tell the manager that you'd like to put one of your "Fat-Be-Gone" coupons in every pizza box delivered. That's targeted niche marketing. But why would the pizza manager allow you to insert your coupons for free? Well, maybe your coupon says that just one "Fat-Be-Gone" capsule reduces fat intake and now you can eat all the pizza you want. That's good news to the pizza manager. Now his favorite couch potato customers can order pizza twice a day. Or maybe the pizza manager refuses to put your coupons in the pizza boxes. What can you do then? Talk to the pizza delivery boys. They're not rich yet and they would be glad to make a little extra money. Tell them to put a coupon in every box they deliver, or at least leave a coupon with every customer. Have them put their name or initials on the coupon so you can track their results and commissions. The motivation of bribes. Offer to pay the pizza delivery boys a 25% commission on the first bottle ordered by the customer. It's not a lot of money, but it's probably a lot more than the tip received from the customer. The pizza delivery boys simply think: If the boys are sharp, they'll pass out your coupons to other "targeted prospects" they meet during the day. The key to this campaign is that the prospects are easy to target, easy to find, and easy to market to. Case Study #2: Run a contest. The real marketing secret of contests is to pick the right prize. You don’t want to pick cash. Everybody wants cash. That’s not very targeted. You want your contest prize to only be interesting to qualified prospects. For instance, if you sell carpets, make three rooms of free carpeting the contest prize. People who need new carpeting will enter the contest. You’ll have highly qualified prospects that need your product now. People who don’t need carpeting won’t enter. That will save you from weeding through hundreds of unqualified leads. If you sell mobile telephones, offer a basic starter telephone as the prize. Current owners (non-prospects) won’t enter as they already have their telephone. If you sell expensive skin care for women, offer a year or a lifetime supply of your skin care. You will get highly qualified prospects as entries to your contest. If you didn’t want to use your product as a prize, pick a prize that still targets your niche. So instead of offering a year supply of skin care, you could offer: A year of visits to the local hair dresser. A year supply of expensive cosmetics. A $300 coupon good for Italian purses. A day at the local spa. A $300 coupon at the local women’s shoe store. A maid for the week. A date with the most eligible bachelor in town. A round trip three-day vacation to the world’s largest shopping mall in Edmonton, Canada. A man to listen to the winner talk. A lady’s day out with their friends. A television remote control override. Ten free sessions for a babysitter. A $100 Godiva chocolate certificate. So ask yourself this question: “Where can I find a great niche of targeted prospects that’s easy to market to?” Tom Big Al Schreiter is the author of the Fortune Now Newsletter, a generic training resource for professional network marketing leaders. If you’d like to read some free back issues, go to http://www.fortunenow.com.
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