Marketing With a Twist: Niche Entrepreneurs Target Overlooked Opportunity

By George Berkheimer, STAFF WRITER



Risk comes with the territory for entrepreneurs and can be particularly amplified for those involved in niche enterprises. While niche entrepreneurs may enjoy the advantage of focusing on a well-defined market, they also tend to have unique concerns that less specialized businesses rarely encounter. As successful niche entrepreneurs have found, it's a business model that calls for strategies - and delivers rewards - both common and uncommon.



Matchmaking

For Guy and Margaret Timberlake, who founded the American Small Business Coalition (ASBC) in Columbia in 2004, marketing isn't a major focus. "In fact, we don't market," said CEO Guy Timberlake. Instead, "We have created an entire community that revolves around the ASBC. Literally speaking, the only marketing activities that we conduct are the [networking] breakfasts we sponsor."

Described as a business development-centric membership organization for small companies doing business with the United States government and Government Prime Contractors, the ASBC works with government and industry to facilitate relationships that help various federal agencies achieve their mission goals and objectives.

It's an arena with enormous potential for both ASBC and the dues-paying companies it serves. "Last year we grew 75% over the previous year with an additional 150 companies joining us," Timberlake said. During the first six weeks of 2008 alone, ASBC has already registered one-third of the membership growth of 2007.

Counting approximately 350 members in 27 states and four countries, ASBC's net result since its founding has been the facilitation of $500 billion in teaming assets.

"Members attribute about $1.6 billion in government contract amounts directly to their relationship with us," Timberlake added.

ASBC is not focused on any particular vertical. "Our competition is the status quo," he added. "The most difficult thing for us has been finding our voice and being able to articulate what it is that we do. Our greatest satisfaction comes from helping small businesses overcome obstacles and accomplish things they didn't think they would be able to - our success is precipitated on others' successes."



Strategic Partnering

After 15 years as a travel agent, Jill Ring decided the timing was right to start her own company and concentrate on destination travel when she recognized a growing demand for honeymoon packages and destination weddings. Now in operation for three years, All About Travel & Honeymoons of Columbia focuses on dream vacations in Mexico and the Caribbean.

"Our key to success has been to partner with select [operators] in the industry," Ring said, such as the highly popular Sandals and Beaches Resorts. The strategy helps All About Travel & Honeymoons increase its exposure and promote its products.

Although there is still a high level of competition with traditional travel agents, Ring gets the most distance out of her advertising budget by marketing her company's services through different online wedding sites.

"We approach it by realizing that we're selling a dream," she said, "and I love making people's dreams come true."

Partnerships are also a large part of Chinyere and Mark Mathewson's strategy to establish a Cartridge World printer and toner cartridge refilling franchise in Laurel.

Despite opening in mid-November and closing over the Thanksgiving holiday, the owners still managed to break a record for highest first month revenue figures (based on calendar month) within the community of Maryland, Virginia and District of Columbia franchise holders.

"The key to niche marketing is having an intimate knowledge of who will and will not benefit from your product, and maintaining a laser focus on your target demographic," said Chinyere Mathewson.

Rather than focusing on a vague notion of local small businesses, Cartridge world identified a more specific target of businesses with 100 or fewer employees within a 7-mile radius of the store in print-intensive industries that would really notice a 40% reduction in printing costs. That takes into account a fair number of insurance and titling companies, accountants, schools and medical offices.

"By having a clear and detailed vision of who we are going after, we can more effectively target the advertising efforts to get the most value from a tight budget," Mathewson explained.

The downside: "Not a lot of businesses know about refilling enough to trust it; it's still an unknown. We're also not a national brand, so there's some apprehension and uncertainty."



Unique Concerns

Another niche entrepreneur who knows his target market is Russ Lease of Jessup, who makes and sells replicas of suits and other attire worn by the Beatles. About 35% of his sales are to Beatles tribute bands around the world, with the remaining 65% consisting primarily of male boomers with a fascination for the band. A coincidental resurgence of fashion reminiscent of the Beatles' choice of stage wear has also played in his favor.

Lease markets his suits as a vendor at Beatles conventions and festivals, and through his web site, www.beatlesuits.com. He has also enjoyed a run of free advertising through mass media outlets that continue to report on his business as a human interest story.

As the world's only supplier of authentic Beatles suits, and with continuing high demand, "there's really no downside," he observed, so long as he keeps the price within reason.

By far the biggest obstacle for his business is his ability to obtain the fabric he needs for the suits.

"I'm not large enough to mill fabric to my own specifications," Lease said. "I depend on jobbers and have to buy fabric in smaller lots, so continuity of fabric is a problem when I have to go back to the well."



Sharing Expertise

For the most part, niche entrepreneurs pursue the potential for profit that overlooked opportunities represent, but not all niche entrepreneurs are in it for the money. Launched in Maryland six months ago, the nonprofit Military Spouse Business Association (MSBA) offers marketing, advertising and networking assistance to military spouses who own businesses.

The MSBA evolved out of an informal support network established by three military spouses - Rebecca Poynter, Lanette Lepper and Joanna Williamson - who relied on one other to discuss business and financial topics and for encouragement when military duties called their husbands away from home.

Poynter, an Annapolis-based public relations professional and writer who is married to an Army officer stationed at Fort Meade, said the military spouse business model is unique because families move frequently from one assignment to another. Some business owners also decide to relocate and move in with other family members when a husband or wife deploys for an extended time.

"They literally have to alter and adapt their business plan every couple of years," she said. "They have to be completely portable."

Unfortunately, she added, that means leaving behind the clients, contacts and support network they work so hard to build.

"That's one of the biggest reasons we had for creating this web site and [membership association]," Poynter said.

Further assistance is provided through three MSBA forums moderated by three experts, including a life coach who focuses on self-motivation; a military family financial planning expert who addresses financial readiness; and a representative from SCORE, a business mentoring organization that offers expertise on business success.

The association's web site (www.milspousebiz.org) also serves as a directory for military spouse-owned businesses, with listings in its Red, White and Blue Pages categorized by services, products and direct sales.

Current MSBA membership stands at approximately 200 members, and the organization is planning a major membership drive this year. Of the approximately 750,000 active duty military spouses, approximately 10% are self-employed, Poynter said. To get the word out to them, she and her associates will concentrate their advertising in military oriented publications.

"The concept of a virtual professional organization is challenging," she acknowledged. "But if anyone can make it work, it's [military spouses] who can."