Niche markets and their importance

    I'm running a contest to seek out people who, given a chance, can sell perfume. It's called the "Marketer Most Likely To Sell The Most Perfume" contest and the prize for the winners will be perfume, with their own brand name and artwork on each bottle, to sell. The "entry form" is a simple business plan in which the contestant explains how he or she would sell their own perfume, if they had their own perfume to sell.

    I'm coaching the contestants as I want to see more than one winner and part of my coaching is to advise them to find niches where they have or can develop a following, even though the niche may seem very small at first. In fact, in my Perfume Strategies newsletter I've been writing about several global marketing giants that, in order to expand even further, have tailored promotions to what they previously might have considered to be insignificant niches, too small to bother with.

    Because of the contest, my own efforts to market perfume, and what I've been observing and writing about concerning global marketing giants, I was a bit taken back when I came across an online article suggesting "finding your niche is bad advice." So I read the article, thinking that I might gain insight. Sadly it was a sham. It was also a warning that successful marketing requires solid data, genuine research, thought, and common sense.

    The author of the article begins by posing a false and very misleading view of what a niche is. He then describes what he claims to the the antithesis of a niche and, not surprisingly, defines a niche.

    In case you stumble across this article, which I won't link to, I'll give you an example of his incorrect thinking.

    As an example of a niche he chooses "single moms needing work at home income to help support their children." Bizarrely he suggests this niche will be extinguished when the children grow up and the moms move on. In this he proclaims his ignorance of one of any marketer's most important chores -- customer acquisition -- constantly adding new customers to the database, knowing that over time even the best existing customers will drop out. New customer acquisition is an essential function for any successful business (the other essential being selling additional products to existing customers.)

    When this fellow "defines" the "right" approach to gathering up customers, he talks about shared interests rather than age, sex, race, home town, etc. -- but this is exactly what defines a great many niches.

    I'll make one more comment about this unhelpful article. The author suggests that you can attract followers by taking a controversial point of view, a view which might be silly but will stand out. This reminds me of the days when a manufacturer of packaging machinery might use a girl in a swimsuit to advertise his machines in trade magazines. The girl (please remember,  a model are always referred to as "the girl" rather than "a young women") in the bikini attracted the eyes of male viewers -- but when they looked at the ad, all they saw or thought of was the girl. A person actually looking for packaging machinery might miss the ad entirely, or be put off by the advertisers crude appeal.

    So there are two lessons here. If you are an individual or small business trying to sell your own perfume you will be selling into a niche of some sort -- people who are attracted to you, what you are doing, your perfumes, your graphics, or something that brings them together in your customer base. Once you have it, you can define it, but it will be your niche that you are defining.

    The second and lesser point -- an honest position pays. You don't have to be phony controversial to attract people who really will become your customers. Be yourself, enjoy yourself, be real with your customers. The marketer who catches attention with false promises is unlikely to develop a strong, enduring following. Fool people and, in the future, they are likely to avoid you, and that's not good for business.

    Footnote: We had a local business, a restaurant, that gave away coupons -- but then you came to eat and redeem your coupon, they always found some loophole to dishonor it. Their food was excellent but word got around and in a short time they were gone.

    You can follow our contest through our free newsletter, "Perfume Strategies You Missed This Month" or you can register for the contest here. (It costs nothing to register! You have nothing to lose!)