Search
Recommended Products
Related Links


 

 

Informative Articles

5 Free Ways to Increase Traffic to your Online Store
So you’ve finally created a website for your small online store! Now you think, “How do I get people to visit my site?” If you’re like most new website owners, you wonder how to bring potential customers to your site without spending lots...

Email - Is it Still a Promotional Tool?
Email, don't you just love it? What a tool: you can contact anybody in the world without spending a dime on postage, paper or ink! All the above are the reasons email is such a formidable tool to promote your business, stay in touch with your...

Extra! Extra! Knowledge Is The Ultimate Power Online...
Everyone is asking the ultimate question, how do I get to have a successful website in this highly competitive age? The answer is simple... In order to learn how to do it properly, we need to take a look at others who are already doing...

Leverage Your Sales Through Affiliate Programs
Copyright 2005 Michael Tansey What could be better than exceeding your personal sales goals for a given month or year? How about doubling, tripling or even, your sales goal for the month? This is exactly what having a team of affiliates can...

Work at Home Mom Hits the National Market With Prayer Plates
Prayer Plates® are designed to be used at the dinner table to encourage children to say grace and teach them a variety of dinnertime prayers. All dinnerware is food and dishwasher safe. Originally designed and crafted in London Edwards own...

 
What "Big Pharma" Can Teach You About Niche Marketing

A recent newspaper review of a new book, Selling Sickness, got me thinking about niche marketing (The Globe and Mail, Saturday, August 6, 2005, D8-D9). The book in question considers case studies that purport to show how “Big Pharma” (the entire pharmaceutical industry, from manufacturers to drug salespeople) manipulates data to “create” a disease that they have the “cure” for.

Regardless of how one feels about the pharmaceutical industry, the book does demonstrate one thing—the ability of this industry to correctly identify small-but-profitable niches and exploit them for huge profits. The book, as indicated by the reviewer, identified a “familiar pattern” for the “selling of sickness”:

A pharmaceutical company identifies a wedge condition, set of symptoms, or “risk factors”; hires a PR firm to come up with a “disease” name, ideally something catchy with a pronounceable acronym (e.g., SAD); develops a drug, or adapts an existing one, to tout as a “fix” for this new medical problem; and begins massive marketing to physicians and the public. The media pick up the story, suggesting that the “new” disease is greatly undiagnosed/undertreated; the market expands; drugs sales rise. And voila! Another blockbuster is born. (Direct quote from the


review)

Do you see the building blocks for a niche business in this description? Following Big Pharma’s lead can help you begin a small niche business and grow it into a financial success. Simply follow these steps:

1. Within your industry, identify a “wedge” that you can target.
2. Create a fancy way of describing the number one problem your product or service solves; make it stand out from any other site that offers the same thing.
3. Demonstrate, by way of strong benefits, how your product or service will solve the problem.
4. Tailor your marketing efforts to your “wedge” by these means.
5. As your marketing catches on, you will grow from marketing to just a “wedge” to marketing on a larger scale.
6. Voila! You have your own niche blockbuster business!

Such a process certainly takes time, but these 6 steps provide a solid foundation for any niche business to gain a foothold and grow into a success.

About the Author

Jeremy M. Hoover is an online article and content writer. If you need articles for promotion or for your website, contact Jeremy at his website, www.jhooverwebcopy.com . Read more marketing articles by Jeremy at his blog, www.jhooverwebcopy.blogspot.com .