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The Unstoppable Marketer®
Trevor Crump and Mark Goldhardt bring you quick marketing and entrepreneurial tips, tricks, and trends for DTC business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers. These are lessons they've learned through the years of being right in the thick of scaling dozens of businesses. Whether you have an established business looking to grow, just starting your business journey, or trying to become a digital marketer, this marketing podcast will not let you down.
The Unstoppable Marketer®
EP. 88 The Niche Effect: Where Weirdness & Specificity Wins
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Strap in as we take a hard look at the niche market's might, where the Davids of e-commerce sling their stones at the Goliaths. In a world where Dyson vacuums and Liquid Death mountain water reign supreme, we uncover the secret sauce to thriving amidst the market's wild waves. Our journey doesn't stop there, as we share heartwarming tales of businesses turning wedding bouquets into everlasting memories and even turning breast milk into bespoke jewelry. It's a testament to the magnetic pull of these specialized products and the communities they create.
For the final stitch in our eclectic tapestry, we're making a throwback to the MTV glory days and pondering if today's minimalist logo trend has us missing the mark. Amidst the laughter, we're threading the needle between nostalgia and novelty, celebrating the unsung heroes of the branding world. So whether you're a 'boy mom' seeking boy-proof fashion or a business owner navigating the challenges of a niche market, this episode is for you. Join us as we tailor a conversation fit for those who appreciate the beauty of the unique and the enduring.
Richard's a funny name, right, because you can the nicknames like what is the? It's Rich, rick and Dick.
Speaker 2Ricky and Ricky, we got to introduce the podcast first though.
Speaker 1How does that happen with the name Richard?
Speaker 2I'll bring it back up.
Speaker 1And when did Dick become a bad bird?
Speaker 2Stop, I will bring it up. Yo, what's going on everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. With me, as always, always is mark goldhart solo episode. Well, not solo the two of us, no guest episode, and we were just in a not a heated discussion a duet. Yeah, some might say a dynamic, the dynamic duo. The dynamic duo, that's right. Well, we were just talking about um. Are you wearing shorts today? I am wearing shorts. Maybe this camera will see up them. Catch the YouTube if you want to find out.
Speaker 1How do you feel putting on shorts?
Speaker 2How do I feel when I put on shorts?
Speaker 1Do you feel a little self-conscious at the beginning of the year?
Speaker 2Oh, because, like my legs, might be a little ghostly. Yeah, are you saying they're ghostly right now?
Speaker 1No, Abby's got some warm light in here so you can't really Thank you, abby. Thank you, abby Ray. They don't look too white, but you know, changing into summer clothes there's a little. Some people go through some self-conscious thoughts, do you?
Speaker 2I never do. I very rarely have a single self-conscious thought, except for when I see pictures or videos of me from behind and my head looks significantly more bald than it actually really is through imagery, and I don't know why. I just don't like it you don't like it, yeah I don't mind it from the front, even though it's, it's the same thing right, but from from behind it just looks worse because, like it'll be really dark, you know, like underneath, and it almost looks like I should like when I see it visually.
Speaker 1I think I should just pick my head okay, so you get a little offended that it looks like zero percent hair instead of 20 well, the problem is is it looks like I'm compensating, like it looks like I'm keeping this here? Oh, it looks like the bottom is there, but the top yeah whereas here it just looks.
Speaker 2It's very like I have like I'm bald, but it's also very like light roots. So it's, I can be. I can be one of those guys who doesn't have to pick it. Because of that, I think, okay, and I like that, look more like I know I don't ever want to pick one because some people look really creepy. Picked. Some people look great, but some people look really creepy. I don't ever want to bick one because some people look really creepy. Bicked. Some people look great, but some people look really creepy. I don't want to find out if I'm the creepy or the good-looking one and two.
Speaker 2It's just a lot of work like shaving a full shave, yeah, shaving my face alone is like that's treacherous. You know like it took me years to get a like really good system so that I'm not getting ingrown hairs and I do not want to figure that out with my head. Can't blame you the woes of having my mother's father, who is bald.
Speaker 1Yeah, they do say you get your hair from your mother's father. My mother's father had hair until he died. Peggy's husband.
Speaker 2We haven't talked about. Grandma Peggy in a minute. So we'll talk about Grandpa Lee. That's Grandpa Lee. Thanks for being bald, bucko.
Speaker 1Your dad's bald too.
Speaker 2My dad is bald.
Speaker 1So you kind of had it coming from both sides.
Speaker 2Yeah, but nobody else. None of his brothers are bald.
Speaker 1Oh, funny, just him.
Speaker 2Yeah, in fact, most of his brothers, if I remember right, have a relatively thick head of hair and he's got, I think, three brothers. That's bad, because they're my uncles.
Speaker 1You have three uncles.
Speaker 2I think there's one more in there. No, there's not. No, yeah, he's got a sister as well.
Speaker 1And she's got her hair too.
Speaker 2She has her hair. Her husband does not, but he's not related to me at all.
Speaker 1Speaking of hair, I have alopecia.
Speaker 2No, you don't.
Speaker 1I do Look alopecia. No, you don't. I do look.
Speaker 2It's just on the legs though right there, my dad's, my dad's hair is. He's completely bald on his legs.
Speaker 1That's not alopecia, it is. Yeah, it goes up your legs like right here.
Speaker 2My entire thigh is bald I have like I got like like right here kind of bald, but I always just think it's because of like underwear and shorts rubbage.
Speaker 1No, like I have literally don't like right here. Doesn't nothing's rubbing right there, it's just bald. No, I'll show you later Off camera.
Speaker 2Off camera.
Speaker 1Thanks, but yeah, it's leg. It's called lower leg alopecia interesting I get that from my dad. I guess I didn't get that from my grandpa.
Speaker 2Hair's fun yeah, have you ever?
Speaker 1seen a bald monkey creepy. Go look at that. It's just crazy how much hair transforms the way you look at something oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2Yeah, right, like go look at a bald chimpanzee. It's just crazy how much hair transforms the way you look at something.
Speaker 1Oh yeah for sure, yeah right, like go look at a bald chimpanzee, it's just disgusting. It's not disgusting, it's just, it's just freaky yeah abby's looking up the bald chimpanzee right now. She just gasped look, look, how muscly that guy is. It sees giant forearms, giant forearms and triceps.
Speaker 2He looks like a little oh, so everything's bald. Yeah, okay, so like hairless.
Speaker 1It's a hairless chimpanzee.
Speaker 2Jeez Louise.
Speaker 1A little ball of muscle.
Speaker 2That's like a they look way scarier Bald cat too. Yeah yeah, those are freaky. Speaking of animals, I saw a mom and two baby owls last night.
Speaker 1Two baby owls.
Speaker 2Yeah, getting ready to fly.
Speaker 1Oh, they're getting ready. Yeah, did they.
Speaker 2No, the neighbors who were talking to us about it. They said that it's like the next two weeks. They say it's every year. They get owls every single year. Oh, that's cool, yeah, and they live up in the tree next to their house and then, as soon as the like, the babies, are able to fly and and do their own thing, then the whole family will come and bathe in their little pond, like in their backyard oh really yeah, which is cool.
Speaker 2You never see owls here in utah. Like very rarely do you see owls here in utah well I'm sure they're. I'm sure they're around quite a bit.
Speaker 2But I see owls all the time at the cabin, but like in the valley, yeah, yeah, up in the cabin is up in the mountains but in my neighborhood there's also quite a few owls really, because there's some really big old trees yeah we have tons of trees and I it's the first time in last four and since we've lived over at in four years that I've seen an owl yeah, I love owls owls are awesome.
Speaker 2He was telling me a story. He said one of the owls last year he says they have like a barn cat because they live kind of next to this like horse place that has just like a cat that just wanders and gets the mice for him. And he said that they were just out talking to their neighbors and the dad owl swooped down and picked up the barn cat and got like 10 feet with it and the cat just freaked out and I was like it was trying to take the cat out.
Speaker 1Nice, yeah, birds birds are crazy.
Speaker 2We love like my wife and I love birds of prey like we think they're the coolest things ever I think they're the coolest things.
Speaker 1My wife is like thoroughly unimpressed I am thoroughly impressed because she grew up on a farm and there's golden eagles out there at the farm and owls at the farm, hawks at the farm, so she just so every time I point out a golden they were like pests to her no, not pests. They love them because they they're eating the gophers, the gophers and rabbits and stuff, but it's just like oh yeah, that's cool, I saw those all the time little hottie totty.
Speaker 2What are we talking about today?
Speaker 1um first of all, we're gonna get to stuff I mean, first of all I want to figure out why the name richard can have like five different nicknames that is a really good question it's like rich and rick, rich, rick, richard dick ricky and where did dick come from and when did it become a bad word? And like it's kind of funny, some of the old guys that still, that still have dick on.
Speaker 2Yeah, don't type that into google.
Speaker 1Do not do that, please it's always funny too, because you have, uh, the old dudes that their name was still dick. It's like, hey, this is dick yeah and you're 12 years old and you're like yeah, you never meet another dick there won't be another dick ever.
Speaker 2Rip to the dicks I also think that another name I can't. I actually can't remember this, but I had a friend named brock, but his first name was dick or richard. Sorry, his first name was Dick or Richard. Sorry, his first name was Richard, but he was. I feel like he also, as a kid, told me that there's a tie to Brock and Richard or something like that, cause I don't know if it wasn't his middle name. It wasn't like Richard Brock.
Speaker 1His name was Richard and they called him Brock.
Speaker 2Yes, I could be wrong. Somebody will research that for us. Yeah, please.
Speaker 1Please do.
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Speaker 1Well, let's talk about.
Speaker 2Should we talk about things that people want to hear about?
Speaker 1Let's talk about first niches, or niches.
Speaker 2I think I say both actually. Look it up, Abby, what do you say?
Speaker 1Niche.
Speaker 2I'm pretty positive that I say both of them.
Speaker 1But some people say niche, yeah, niche.
Speaker 2There it is. Thanks, Google people say niche yeah, niche Nice.
Speaker 1Thanks Google, thanks Abby.
Speaker 2Yeah, I do think I say both, but I would have thought that it is niche as well with that E at the end, and doesn't it have a tilde?
Speaker 1Well, I think it's a French word technically.
Speaker 2Yeah, so it's not a tilde. That's what it's called right in Spanish.
Speaker 1The accent over it. It's a tilde. Yeah, maybe I don't know. To be honest, I have no idea. I know. I just say it's.
Speaker 2There's an accent you speak spanish, but I took a year of it in college and I learned the things, the names of things, I have a minor in spanish actually.
Speaker 1Yeah well, you should have learned tilde. I don't remember what anything's called. I know where they are okay.
Speaker 2So niches, niches, let'ses, let's talk niches, let's do it. So when Mark and I were discussing this morning, we said, hey, we don't have a guest, we need a topic. We kind of thought let's talk about niches and and let's give a little preface of why Okay, at least, at least from my perspective why I thought it would be neat to talk about niche a neat niche, a neat niche. The reason why is because, as many of you may know, mark and I have a marketing agency. We also have a e-commerce tech company and we happen to interview a lot of founders in the e-commerce space.
Speaker 2So we are constantly like, whether it's collecting data through our software or working with clients or just jamming out with founders, we kind of have this like bird's eye view into businesses and their success. There are a lot of reasons that businesses are successful. One is they have got just an amazing product problem solution. That solves it. Other reasons they might not have an amazing product, but they have got just an amazing product problem solution it solves it. Other reasons they might not have an amazing product, but they have an unreal brand or they have a really good content strategy, like an amazing messaging and content strategy.
Speaker 2They're all, and sometimes it's multiple of these things as well. But then there's other people that just have like this niche, like they have just so niched in and they're so successful and they become essentially I'm going to use a word that people will argue, but they kind of somewhat become bulletproof because their messaging is so honed in to a very specific group of people or people searching for a very specific type of product. When we see meta issues, right like so, there's meta outages and there's things that happen with meta all the time, especially recently and their seasonality.
Speaker 2Yeah, and seasonality these niches very rarely experience those like even though cpms might be jacked up big time, or like meta goes out like it still works for the niche like so that's what I mean by like somewhat bulletproof yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1And so just to recap really quick, let's just talk about a brand with a really unique product would be something like dyson. Right, their product is so good. That's how they sold themselves for a long time was like product demonstrations. Yep, I'm not like you can argue with me about what vacuum you use, but that's how dyson got brought up, right? A brand with not a unique product, but a unique brand would be liquid death yes, an easy example yeah, water it's. There's nothing unique about anything they do.
Speaker 2Product nothing unique about their product but their brand everything unique about what they do from a branding perspective. Yes, in that industry.
Speaker 1Yes, Okay, okay, proceed. So then you have a niche company that has either a niche product that serves an underserved group of people or a niche brand that connects to an underserved or community you could say ignored community.
Speaker 2Yes, so let's some examples if we may. Let's start with maybe some examples of niche product. So niche product would be we had these, we had her on a podcast, on the podcast um sarah ebert from pressed floral pressed floral yes, niche product which is hey, we take your, we customize and take your wedding bouquets. Doesn't have to just be wedding bouquets, if I recall. Sorry if I'm, but you take your wedding book kind of where it started and we put it. I believe they flatten them and put it into a frame.
Speaker 1And they turn it into a keepsake.
Speaker 2Artwork keepsake that they can have that forever rather than throwing it away. And it's not a niche group of people, because it's literally anyone who's getting married Right.
Speaker 1Yeah, the audience isn't niche. Yes, I mean, we could argue all day if weddings are niche, maybe more sentimental people.
Speaker 2Yeah, for sure, the wedding industry is more niche than just every woman.
Speaker 1Right, but every woman or man goes through sentimental moments, and flowers tend to be more on the woman's experience of those moments, yep, and this is a way of preserving those moments throughout time. So what she did, though, is she created a product that solved a unique and niche problem that some people didn't realize was a problem, but it was a niche experience in that a lot of women were like I. They didn't want to throw away their flowers.
Speaker 1They just kind of felt bad right, yeah, like, oh, all these beautiful flowers, my wedding bouquet, which is so significant for women in that moment, is now just getting tossed. Yep, so how do you preserve it? She, she figured out how to serve and solve that really unique problem yeah, yep, uh and in a beautiful way right. It's unique. It's not just preserving it, it's turning it into. It's like a metamorphosis.
Speaker 2Nice, exactly Right.
Speaker 1Transforming it into something that can be with them forever.
Speaker 2Yeah, so there's pretty much anything in the heirloom keepsake space works right. Yeah, you know, we work with somebody who does like breast milk jewelry.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2Very, very niche project. Very niche because it's some people think it's weird and gross and most people do Like I would probably say more women do than don't.
Speaker 1I think that's changing, but you're probably right right now If you just did like a general poll of the public, abby breast milk jewelry.
Speaker 2As a non-mom where you would take your breast like your breast milk, freeze dry it, turn it into jewelry. She's got a weird face, she's not saying anything but she's uncomfortable with it.
Speaker 1Okay, but there are people who like that is really, if you end up having children, we'll revisit the. We'll revisit the question and see how you feel about it then.
Speaker 2But are wives who have had multiple kids probably much more accepting to something like that.
Speaker 1Correct, right, yes, well, it's a moment, it's a period of time that's finite, yeah, and it means a period of time that's finite, yeah, and it means a lot to some women.
Speaker 2Yes, it means a ton to some women. It's a way like one. They're the.
Speaker 1It signifies a lot of things to them. Connection yeah.
Speaker 2Health.
Speaker 1And so again.
Speaker 2yeah, quite possibly the most connected you will ever be with your baby outside of your baby being inside of you.
Speaker 1Right, and you will ever be with your baby outside of your baby being inside of you, right. And so niche, because it could be polarizing, because it seems weird, right, it's kind of like you know those companies that do placenta capsules and stuff.
Speaker 2Oh yeah.
Speaker 1So it's like most people are going to say that's weird, but there is a group, but there's group and there always probably will be.
Speaker 2That's a niche product and a niche group.
Speaker 1Yes, like the placenta stuff yeah yeah please reach out to us if, uh, you did that I did you did the placenta stuff we did yes, with one of our three yeah, did you have any? Of course not never no why not just take the placenta and just like grill it up?
Speaker 2that's. That's the most disgusting thing. It was a really, really uh like challenging process, but you have to like, and those pills just sat in my freezer well, because it's a biohazard too, right? Yeah, it's like you have to like, like it's a very interesting situation that you have to talk to the doctors about and they have to remove it, and then the person comes to the hospital within minutes or hours probably not minutes, but hours of the baby being delivered. But, but, but there is supposedly.
Speaker 2I don't know if science I don't, I don't know. My, my wife knows a lot about this stuff, but she didn't do it the next one. She didn't do lot about this stuff but she didn't do it the next one. She didn't do it the first, she didn't do it the last, which makes you think she didn't yeah, think it worked, or but but one of the significance, like the one of the reasons women do this, is because postpartum depression is such a huge thing.
Speaker 2That happens with well it's supposed to like resupply you with nutrients, right well, yeah, there's nutrients pieces of it, but it's also like it's also meant to be almost like an antidepressant, they say supposedly supposedly yeah yeah, yeah, we did not do that.
Speaker 1Um, I'm all about eating cow organs okay, so.
Speaker 2So we talked enough about niche products.
Speaker 1We've talked enough about organs.
Speaker 2Yeah, let's talk. Yeah, we really went down the rabbit hole with women's babies, so let's talk about niche communities.
Niche Products and Audiences
Speaker 1Niche communities is, for an example. There's a company out there called george hats. Their product is not necessarily niche, it's children's clothing, but their audience are boy moms which is an under very underserved market which, if you talk to boy moms there's, it's a very under talked to, it's a very underserved, it's a big community that unless you are a boy mom you would never know existed Right For the most part. Yes, and what's interesting about that community is and what is a boy?
Speaker 2mom Really quickly. It's not a mom who has, it's just a mom who has a boy Necessarily. It's a mom who only has boys. Yes, not saying that you can't be a part of a my mom.
Speaker 1My wife would consider herself a boy mom, even though we have a girl now yeah, but there's two boys recently and then the girl yeah, but in two years will she? I don't know yeah, yeah, she always will we'll see I don't know if she will. I'm quite positive she always will, but nonetheless, this is the reason why. It's because a lot of moms with boys feel as though the boy fashion or the boy community is often just kind of drowned out, right?
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Oh, there's not cute clothes, there's nothing that you can put on them, like you kind of just go quickly into Spider-Man it's very cheesy superhero or cheesy yeah, it's very cheesy or also very just like blend in and then this is again don't get offended out there. We know that girls can have holes in their jeans too, but, for example, my two boys every pair of pants that have not come out of george hats have holes in their knees. Yeah, every single pair. They have holes.
Speaker 1Now it's like they have a pair of pants and three months later there's holes in them yeah, or probably sooner yeah so so underserved community, very specific community, another brand and yes, their product is the little niche, I guess because it has some unique value props to it but yeah, yeah, but really it's more features, benefits, it's, you know, that are unique. It's really the brand which don't really sell that sell because she's a boy, mom right, so she speaks to this the other brand, um these.
Speaker 2We had these guys on the podcast. So there's a company called bruce bolt, chris hall, who's the cmo we had him on. So bruce bolt are batting gloves for baseball batting gloves. Okay, and baseball batting gloves is are not unique. You know, you like franklin and rowlings and you name wilson.
Speaker 1There's not a scientific advancement that's improved batting gloves. No, that's not accessible to every company.
Speaker 2It's probably like a golf glove. Right, it can help some people's blisters. But also I've now got to the point now where I golf all the time as somebody who helped launch and start a golf glove company and I never wear a golf glove anymore and it does not make me better or worse, I just like to feel more. Yeah. So anyways, bruce Bolt, when we had him on, he said something very interesting. It's like we don't serve lit, like. My immediate thought was like little league. Like oh yeah, like little leaguers would love this, but he's like no league. Like oh yeah, like little leaguers would love this, but he's like no, no, we are not the like little league, we're not just anyone in baseball. Like baseball is a small community already, but he's like no, no, we are the travel baseball community. What?
Speaker 1is baseball the third or fourth? It's the third sport biggest, biggest sport or fourth it's up there.
Speaker 2It's like cricket, nascar, soccer, baseball, but in terms of participation.
Speaker 1I think a lot of kids go through Little League, but man, I'm just thinking about because the high school team's only so big and a lot of people kind of phase out before even junior high.
Speaker 2But a lot of people play this travel ball community. Yeah, then you have travel ball, it's almost more important than high school and people don't play pickup baseball where?
Speaker 1we're from, they might in other places but no, no, no, very, yeah, that's.
Speaker 2That's sandlot, days, right, yeah, yeah, that's the 70s.
Speaker 1So like you phase out of this kind of sandlot phase pretty quick, right. So yeah, you get kids coming in and out of like little league, yeah, but the trap.
Speaker 2But the travel ball community and then you have travel ball is a very Because you have to travel to states that, If you think about it, the majority of the United States has a winter right. There's really only a few places that don't have.
Speaker 1Well, technically everyone has a winter, but you know what I mean, right, yeah?
Speaker 2Bad weather, very cold snow conditions that you cannot play baseball I think that's the idea. So if you're, in the Midwest, for example, or Utah.
Speaker 2You gotta go south yeah you're going south or you're going to East Coast or Southeast, right, and it costs a lot of money. So the travel ball community is a very these parents are very willing to spend a lot of money and so they sell these. Like I just bought my son $20 gloves because he plays little league and loves it. On Amazon these go for a hundred dollars, you know. And these parents because baseball is very superstitious and because people like it's also there's like a cool factor to baseball. You want to look cool. It's just a very underserved market and so they said let's have everybody in the travel community wear our gloves.
Speaker 1It's the prime drink of baseball gloves yeah.
Speaker 2So you got these products. You have niche products and you have niche audiences Yep and sometimes you get a little bit of both now what's? What's the example of both?
Speaker 1we had an example of both, of a niche product and a niche audience uh placenta pills there was another one I can't remember what it was off the top of my head.
Speaker 2Um, okay, you said what's the problem?
Speaker 1but what's the problem with a niche business? Your tam, yeah, your total, generally speaking, sometimes you can overcome that. But just to be fair and honest with everybody out there, right like your chances of growing a niche into something much, much bigger, you'll run into some really big struggles.
Speaker 2And you do have to define what much bigger is.
Speaker 1You do Because Bruce.
Speaker 2Bolt is a very good example of a niche community and they are a nine-figure brand.
Speaker 1Oh, is that official, or do we have to cut that out?
Speaker 2I think he said that.
Speaker 1Oh cool, I don't know.
Speaker 2I mean I'm not pulling that from. Oh cool, I don't know. I mean I'm not pulling that from something, and I don't know who else would have told me that besides him like I said, I don't know if that's just like, or I don't know if that's official yeah, okay, that's fair.
Challenges and Advantages of Niche E-Commerce
Speaker 1We were told that okay, well, yeah, that's, that's a really big business, right? Yep, but you, you do get to a spot a nine figure, eight figure, I'm pretty sure nine figure.
Speaker 2Now I'm second guessing everything.
Speaker 1It's been probably most most niches are going to cap out in the e-com space, right, like you're going to run into problems getting beyond a certain point. What that point is. But let's just call it 10 mil a year like it's because you're running into a marketing problem. For example, let's talk about breast milk jewelry. It's simply how many people are you going to convince of that that aren't already convinced?
Speaker 1right or are already in the mindset, maybe never thought about it yeah they are, you know, oftentimes probably a more homeopathic natural generally speaking, that's probably what those people tend to be attributes right now you can do different product offerings in that business to probably offset that, so you're not so focused on, maybe, the breast milk. But I think the point being is you just have to be aware that these kinds of companies and there's nothing wrong with being this type of company, in fact it's great to be this kind of company because you can fly as low as you want, you can make a great living, you can make way more money than anyone could ever imagine Yep, you making doing something and you don't go through the volatility that other brands go through.
Speaker 2So yeah, so you said like there wasn't what's the negative Tam?
Speaker 1Tam.
Speaker 2What are some of the positives? You're kind of getting into it. It's lifestyle.
Speaker 1Like, yes, there's problems with every business, but the lifestyle of that kind of business is hey, you don't deal with the same problems big companies are dealing with. Like we've seen niche companies to this day in meta are still getting cost per clicks that are like 40 cents yeah, 50 cents. They have ROAS numbers that people haven't seen since 2017, I mean exactly so.
Speaker 2So, like one, what Mark's essentially articulating is like your cost to acquire a customer is very oftentimes is very cheap, you know, or significantly cheaper, like we own a jewelry brand, you know, and it's insane the amount of money you have to spend to acquire a customer, because when there's nothing different, right, it's a great product.
Speaker 1But if it's, people don't buy unless the product is really, really unique. They're not buying product, they're buying brand, and you know there's a lot of brands. It's like supplements with mountain ops. People rotate through supplements all the time like nobody's really loyal to a supplement really good.
Speaker 2That's a really good example of community like yeah, niche community, that's a niche hunting community, but supplements are a dime, a dozen that's that.
Speaker 1Yeah, we should have brought them up. They are serving a niche community. Yep yeah, and they're a really big and they're big, yeah, yeah, so that's a, so maybe there's something like because, like what their whole thing is like, we're all about the outdoors and connecting to a higher power and yeah, so they have.
Speaker 2They have a tam. They've got like two tams, right. So they have a tam which is and guys for for tam, total addressable market. Right, so they have a TAM which is and guys for TAM, total Addressable Market. Just FYI, like they have a TAM, that is this which is all outdoors, right, but who they talk to is the hunting community and oftentimes that community can bridge out to climbers and mountain bikers.
Speaker 1There could be overlap, but again. But then they have this slant to them where it's like well, we're also about like we are a company that encourages people to connect with God.
Speaker 2Yeah, they are very religious Christian.
Speaker 1They have kind of this religious. You know, I don't think they said Christian in particular, but I'm sure that's probably what most of the hunting community would probably say they are.
Speaker 2Yeah, Well, I mean like they have Bible verses like all the time in there.
Speaker 1Oh, in their marketing Like on their Instagram oh, cool, yeah, so, yeah, so, okay, yeah, you're right Christian. And then so that narrows that market even down more right, because I'm sure a lot of hunters identify with that, but maybe a lot don't Sure.
Speaker 1So outdoor niche you can see how they, just like it goes, it gets smaller and smaller and smaller, but they've created a really successful business. So, and they're big, so you can. You can get big with a niche. But again, most of the time if you have a niche idea, that doesn't mean you can't be an incredibly successful business. It's just like what does success mean to you?
Speaker 2Yeah, it could mean that maybe your revenue is lower than what another brand could be, but your profits could be higher.
Speaker 1Your profits could be great.
Speaker 2Because you're not competing with everybody else, you're. You're not talking to everyone, you're talking to a very, very specific individual human being right and that tends to land better.
Speaker 2So the other like benefits of niche is like your content strategy is very like when, when you niche, like part of the reason why a lot of brands, I think struggle with content creation is because they are so wrapped up in like, well, what do we talk about? You know, like they never quite understand what direction they can go, and then when they take a direction and they don't see that it's working, they change it, whereas you know when you are a niche brand, it is very, very clear who you're talking to and and and gives you a very, very like detailed outline of what your content and messaging strategy should be.
Speaker 1Yeah, it makes all of the things we talk about just a little easier almost.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Right, like we've talked with these people. So honoring motherhood. She knows who her like. She knows it's not for everyone, yeah, she doesn't even try to lie to herself. She's not like oh, this is like we could, this is for every woman out there. She's like no, like this, this isn't A lot of people think this is weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, she'll admit it. She knows it's not for everyone, yeah, but she's been able to grow a very successful small business, yeah, a woman-owned, woman-run business.
Speaker 1The because of that? Because it's niche. There's no, there's no overreaching right, like it's not to say businesses aren't hard, but like it's smooth sailing when it comes to to marketing in a different kind of way yeah, so why are we talking about this?
Speaker 2okay, like one of the reasons why I wanted to bring this up was e-com is hard and it's harder than ever yeah, it's also easier than ever. Yeah, right, like it's like this, like double thing. It's easier than other ever, in the sense that it is like dude.
Speaker 2When we launched asher golf in 2017, like working through manufacturers was, was, impossible it was so hard and and and I was lucky enough to have, you know, my business partner who had brought me on, like he had like some background in that, so he kind of knew where to start. But if he didn't that would have been so hard, like Alibaba didn't exist, or if it did, it wasn't trusted. You know, I can't remember when Alibaba I mean it existed, it wasn't trusted.
Speaker 1You know, I can't remember when alibaba I mean it existed, I just it it wasn't on the map it wasn't on the map for regular yeah, people so so, like that's number one.
Speaker 2Like you know, I saw this guy created a tiktok video and he, uh, his tiktok video was like hey, I just found restoration like I found's manufacturer through Alibaba and I just bought $30,000 worth worth of outdoor furniture for like 4,500 bucks, yeah, and he like documented the whole process and he's like this is legit and this guy is a bougie bougie dude. It's not like he settles like he would. I mean the dude's building like a $7 million renovation right now.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2You know. So he is a bougie character, crazy, and so, like you, it's just, it's very easy to find it. You, you can hop on Shopify for a dollar a month for the first three months and start a Shopify store. So it's literally next to nothing. You know, like you've got an iPhone that can take very, very high quality imagery If you don't have it, whereas before, like but once again go back to Asher golf days we bought, like these light boxes and we'd set all of our golf gloves up and we had bought this camera, I mean, and we were editing it versus like nowadays, just be like, you know, you just hire someone. Yeah, you know, on fiber. So it's, yeah, you've got things like fiber. You've got um canva that you know. If you don't understand photoshop or anything like that, like you got Canva.
Speaker 1Now, yeah, so all the operations has gotten easier, but the marketing has gotten harder.
Speaker 2Totally so. That's the flip side, right? It's harder because your competition is so much greater because of how easy it is to start a business, so more people enter Yep. The second thing that not enough people talk about is six years ago, seven, seven years ago, like there wasn't really this creator economy, like influencer marketing, creators. It existed, for sure, but they were more of a dime a dozen versus yeah.
Speaker 1but now you have brands and yeah, are collaborating with creators, etc.
Speaker 2Yeah, now they're a dime, a dozen. Everyone's a creator I, I'm a content creator, you know, and so not only do you have brands like Nike and other businesses that are taking, like you know, paying and vying for people's attention, you just have amazing content creators who are going to outbeat CPMs all day long, because if TikTok is only pushing ads or Instagram is only pushing ads to people and not pushing creative which is why we go on Instagram and why we go on TikTok then they're going to go under.
Speaker 1For sure.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 2So you're up against all these brands, you're up against really good product marketing, you're up against content creators, and so it's hard and it's more and more expensive Like it's super, super expensive.
Speaker 2Content creators, and so it's hard and it's more and more expensive Like it's super, super expensive. So if you are in, I'm taking a long time to explain why we wanted to, why I wanted at least to talk about niches, but I'm getting to it right here. If you are struggling as a business and you are having a hard, you're hitting a wall, or you are having a hard time growing, or you haven't even started and you don't have a team or enough money or whatever, niching is a very, very great option for you to look at right, look at a niche community, look at a niche product and how you solve a problem, and it will be significantly easier for you to jumpstart. Like mark said, you may have a harder time becoming a hundred million dollar brand, but getting up to that two, five, ten million might be significantly easier yeah, and I think maybe the paradox of marketing is everybody, everybody, a human fear is being different than other people Totally.
Speaker 1But in marketing you have to be different. Yeah, and by being different, ironically will attract more people to you. Yeah, and I think that's just the mental jump that most brands have a hard time making. Yeah, and niching is just an easier way to get there. Yeah, because you don't really have an option. It's just this is what you do and this you know you know this is who you're talking to, but I think every business can learn from a niche business. And that is just be different.
Speaker 2I like your. I like what you said to how people are scared to be different. It's like a lot of Browns nowadays are kids who were in junior high and high school, which are all. I'm like. My point, my purpose in life in junior high and high school is to fit in, yeah Right. But you hear people all the time say like the moment you get out of high school you really embrace your differences and people like love you for it Because you're real, you're authentic, you're, you know, somebody people can trust.
Speaker 1Yeah, and. But even what's harder about a brand, though, is like you have to focus in on one of those like peculiarities.
Speaker 2Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1And as you zoom in, it's uncomfortable to project something peculiar.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1But then you'll find that a lot of people actually go. Oh, that's.
Speaker 2Holy cow. I relate to that.
Speaker 1I relate to that.
Speaker 2I love that. That's so funny, that's so cool.
Analyzing Brand Guidelines and Logos
Speaker 1Yeah, and a good example to get people over that mental leap is think about all these trends on social media where someone will say something like uh, here's a good one. There's this comedian guy who does these skits of himself. He like. He says like me, is me, when I was 13, mad at my mom, and he's in his room. It's like this compilation of him like freaking out in his room, like flipping off, like out the door.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah, he shuts the door.
Speaker 1Like switches to him to being like Wolverine. Yeah yeah, and how many people go? Oh my gosh, I did that too. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2But you would have never told people that you'd freak out like that, yeah, like nobody talks about it.
Speaker 1But he goes viral. We'll find him and shout him out. But it's funny because he's just finding this really awkward thing about his past that he's bringing up, but all of a sudden it just relates to everyone. Yeah, for sure. And zooming in on that, most people don't want to zoom in on it.
Speaker 2Right, yeah, for sure. I mean, probably by the time you listen to this episode, it's a couple episodes back, but we had another solo episode. Sorry, co, what did you call this?
Speaker 1We could call it a duet.
Speaker 2A duet? Yeah, a duet episode, but where you talked about the transatlantic accent.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And you relayed that to people's brand guidelines today. And if you look at everyone's brand guidelines, there's not a lot of color. If it is, it's pastel. It's all minimal, it's all neutral, it's very yeah it's thin writing, it's sans serif, it's, you know, like they're? They're not. They're not logos, they're their words.
Speaker 1Yeah, you know what?
Speaker 2I mean, it's like stance. You know, stance had like a logo, right, you can think of what the stance logo is and, and yes, they do put it on their sock yeah, still, yeah, they do but if you go to their website, it's stance on the website yeah you know they probably have the icon, you know somewhere in the footer or whatever, but it's stance. You know, everybody moved to that and that was like around um, that was probably around 2016, 2017. Yep, because we were trying to model Asher after Stance. You know, colored socks.
Speaker 1But now, everyone does it.
Speaker 2But now everyone does it and I loved how you said. Like you know, when Abby edited these videos, she put like all these really cool like 90s logos.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Right, you had MTV's logo, you had all these how great was MTV's logo you had.
Speaker 1You had, like, how great was mtv's logo, so sick you know, and they got rid of all the color.
Speaker 2Yeah so there's some food for thought.
Speaker 1Difference is good and you're seeing, and you're seeing that go back. I think people crave for a little different. Yeah, and think about the most classic brands of all time have not changed their logos, but their logos are very unique and have been so. Nike, yeah Right, and they're even going back to that like lowercase, semi-cursive look, but you have Nike. You have Coca-Cola, right.
Speaker 2Pepsi's gone through a lot of variations but they're going back to their original I mean, there's just something about classic looks that stand out yeah, for sure niche, so niche, niche it I like it all right, I don't have much more to say about niches me neither great opportunity to niche, fantastic opportunity all well, let's wrap it.
Speaker 2All right, that's a wrap. All right, guys. We'll see you guys next week. Thank you so much for listening to the unstoppable marketer podcast. Please go rate and subscribe the podcast, whether it's good or bad. We want to hear from you because we always want to make this podcast better. If you want to get in touch with me or give me any direct feedback, please go follow me and get in touch with me. I am at the Trevor Crump on both Instagram and TikTok. Thank you, and we will see you next week.