Really small niche business

9 replies
What did you do when you have a really small niche business? As if it's not difficult enough, what would you do if your customers are hardly found online?

I'm selling hiking/climbing gears and they're not normal gears, they are for extreme condition gears. I think about word-of-mouth ad but it's hard finding an adventurer with a wide network but at the same time isn't famous and ask for too much.
#business #marketing #niche #small #word-of-mouth
  • Profile picture of the author jimbo13
    What do you mean they are not online? How could you possibly know that?

    I've just looked up a walking forum in the UK with over 20,000 posts on 'Gear' section alone. Factor in views and posts have a ratio of over 10:1 like this forum, that is one heck of a chunk of exactly the right customer base to sell your stuff to.

    Walking Forum - Index

    There will be other sites plus Canadian , American equivalents which are probably larger due to population size.

    If you can speak a few European languages I think you'll find Italians love a bit of mountaineering in the Dolomites etc etc as do Germans and Austrians and you get the idea yes?

    And the above forum is just walking. You would do mountaineering, climbing, trekking all related forums.

    I am sure these things are on FB as well but as I have never even logged onto that site I can't tell you for a fact.

    What are you selling anyway? Is it your line?

    Dan
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    • Profile picture of the author Andy1912
      Originally Posted by jimbo13 View Post

      What do you mean they are not online? How could you possibly know that?

      I've just looked up a walking forum in the UK with over 20,000 posts on 'Gear' section alone. Factor in views and posts have a ratio of over 10:1 like this forum, that is one heck of a chunk of exactly the right customer base to sell your stuff to.

      Walking Forum - Index

      There will be other sites plus Canadian , American equivalents which are probably larger due to population size.

      If you can speak a few European languages I think you'll find Italians love a bit of mountaineering in the Dolomites etc etc as do Germans and Austrians and you get the idea yes?

      And the above forum is just walking. You would do mountaineering, climbing, trekking all related forums.

      I am sure these things are on FB as well but as I have never even logged onto that site I can't tell you for a fact.

      What are you selling anyway? Is it your line?

      Dan
      Ah, my bad. We are Australian company, and most of our customers are Australian. We are distributor of Ferrino an Italian brand. Our gears (sleeping bag, tent) are for extreme weather and they are more expensive than normal products. We can ship our products worldwide but all of countries you suggest have their own distributors and they have price/location advantage. We had just started using Facebook, it's give a nice feedback. We also contact some outdoor writers/bloggers and send our representative in some forum. Well, I need something, some ways to interact with our customers off the internet, that why I ask in the offline marketing forum.

      Thanks,
      Andy
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  • Profile picture of the author HorseStall
    jimbo13 gave you good advice. Sometimes a really narrow niche can be difficult. The key is to find related sites that you define your brand, when someone has a need they immediately think of you. You can also stretch the niche by appealing to regular climbers etc..
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    • Profile picture of the author jimbo13
      Andy

      Okay yes I can see the difficulty. I was just having a look at the main website and they have some seriously nice stuff (as expected from Italians)

      I guess if I bought some jackets and things I could wear them even when not trekking some mountain range due to winter weather here, so get more value in that sense.

      Is mountain trekking big in Australia? I've been on expeditions and thinking about it can't remember bumping into any Australians although you see many all over Europe in the Bars and with temping jobs.

      Travel centres in main cities probably know how many people come in and go on these types of holiday.

      I recall that when I was in Sydney there were Flightcentres all over the place but you will know some more.

      What about NZ?

      Dan
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  • Profile picture of the author Andy1912
    Thank jimbo,

    Australian is a heaven for trekking since we have many mountains and hills, but they are all in remote areas. Hikers and trekkers can freely go to those place, except national parks, without the need of registration/booking. Yes, I think of the the travel agents and information centres, the first are not interested in our business (they focus on normal travellers) and the later just cannot help us because they are kind of government offices.

    We stuck with only online marketing. I once stayed 3 days in a trekking site and saw a lot of potential customers but we can't just send a representative to each place. We really need to find a focus point.

    Andy
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    • Profile picture of the author jimbo13
      Right I'm going to have to go off and get myself some fresh air soon but have you done what I call the 'McKinsey Way'?

      Google them if you've never heard of them, they are world leaders in Bus. Consulting. Bit out of your price bracket though so don't call.

      However a main plank of what they do is advise large businesses in various strategic development areas.

      And one way they do this is to simply graft a working strategy from one industry say in Canada and apply it to a company in exactly the same industry in let's say South Africa for example.

      So I'm thinking on a similar vein but smaller level, could you hunt down a South African distributor and copy their model with a few tweaks.

      Perhaps Ferrino could advise, it would be in their interest after all.

      If not then go onto a couple of South African forums or Canadian forums and see if you can find out what small players are doing for their home markets.

      Only reason I am saying South Africa is because they are a warm country like Australia, have places to trek like Australia, speak English so you can understand their websites or forum groups, have smallish populations who would go trekking and therefore probably face the same problems and have overcome them if they have been trading for any length of time.

      They are also not a direct competitor of yours for the same reason you mentioned in one of your posts. A SA would not go onto a Australian site to buy what they could buy in SA.

      I don't know if you now this but when Richard Branson wanted to set up similar to Tower Records who invented the Music Megastore he just asked them for their blueprint and they gave it to him.

      HMV in the UK would never have done that as he would be their competitor.

      So do similar is what I am saying in too many words.

      Hope that is of some practical use to you Andy.

      Dan
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  • Profile picture of the author DazedandConfused
    There must be expedition clubs in Oz - Sierra Club, Mazama types...?
    Every Big Mountain worth climbing has a local club...and search and rescue...

    As a spokesperson, there is that 16 year old kid from California who just climbed Everest...get him to blog on...
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  • Profile picture of the author RentItNow
    I would think Adwords ads and lock up manufacturer keywords and product name/numbers would be a good source of clients.
    Signature
    I have no agenda but to help those in the same situation. This I feel will pay the bills.
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    • Profile picture of the author Andy1912
      Originally Posted by jimbo13 View Post

      So do similar is what I am saying in too many words.

      Hope that is of some practical use to you Andy.

      Dan
      Thank Dan,

      Really appreciate your advice,

      Andy

      Originally Posted by DazedandConfused View Post

      There must be expedition clubs in Oz - Sierra Club, Mazama types...?
      Every Big Mountain worth climbing has a local club...and search and rescue...

      As a spokesperson, there is that 16 year old kid from California who just climbed Everest...get him to blog on...
      Thank for the info, I need as many adventurers (who are not really famous) as I can get and ask them for review.

      About the clubs, sadly I tried that. And I feel it's similar to Google Adwords but with a lower rate of respond and very low rate of conversions. (because we only sell our gears online for the moment). When the brands gain more popularity we will create a reseller network and this method can work at maximum capability.

      Originally Posted by RentItNow View Post

      I would think Adwords ads and lock up manufacturer keywords and product name/numbers would be a good source of clients.
      Thanks,
      Even the manufacturer don't care about online ads or social network. This seems the reason why they don't concern about online ads, a short google adwords analysis, no local monthly search info, just global search rate:

      ferrino tents 1,000
      ferrino tent 2,400
      ferrino 110,000
      sleeping bag 673,000
      sleeping bags 673,000
      ferrino sleeping bag 210
      ferrino sleeping bags 170
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