I had a knock on my office door recently. One of the guys in the office down the hallway was a bit frantic as he opened my door. "Do you happen to have some White Out?” he asked. Now it has been a long time since someone has asked me for a bottle of White Out. Some of you may be young enough that you do not even remember the product. However, in its day, the little bottle of white liquid that covered up your mistakes and allowed you to type back on top of it was like gold. Why? Because in a day where typewriters (not computer monitors) sat on every business desk, White Out solved a very big problem. It covered up mistakes on important papers. And everyone had the problem of making mistakes on important papers every now and then.

White Out was the invention of necessity. As the story goes, Bette Nesmith Graham, a Dallas secretary, was looking for a way to cover typing mistakes. She mixed tempura paint and water to a color to match the paper she was working on, covered up her misspellings and retyped over the dried paint. Her boss never noticed. Before long, she was blending this concoction and bottling it in her kitchen. She called the mix Liquid Paper. From 1956 – 1980, Liquid Paper was all the rage. It had a huge niche market.

One of the biggest problems with business, especially new business, is the lack of understanding the importance of solving a problem for a niche market. There are several factors to consider in niche marketing.

1.     Does it really solve a problem? Before you launch your next big thing, you may want to ask yourself "who needs this?” If it truly solves a problem for a group of people, you have a good chance of successfully marketing and selling it. If it leaves people scratching their collective head wondering why they need your product or service, you may want to reconsider your offering.

2.     How is your marketing approach? You may have a great problem-solving product, but people still aren’t convinced they should purchase it. You may need to do a little awareness marketing. That should be a very simply message that gets at the heart of the problem the niche is feeling. If people don’t understand your product and connect it as a solution to their problems, you need to do a better job of communicating to them. For instance, when I purchased my last car, I wanted to know it would hold my entire family and a friend or two comfortably. I did not buy a two-seat Smart Car. A Smart Car would not solve my problem of transporting everyone at the same time (besides, I have been on rides at amusement parks that look safer than Smart Cars.) I needed something large. I am in a niche market of people with children who need transportation. The marketing materials for the automobile I purchased made a huge deal out of roominess and the ease of getting in and out of the vehicle. Simplify the message and market to the need.

3.     What stage is the market in right now? Niche markets change. Products cycle in and cycle out. You need to make sure your timing is on the upswing and not the down stroke for your product. There was a day when White Out was no longer needed. Businesses replaced typewriters with desktop computers that have word processing software. There was no longer a need for Liquid Paper. Bette Nesmith Graham sold her Liquid Paper business for over $47 million just before the switch to computers happened. She understood the needs of her niche were being solved by another product that allowed mistakes to be corrected before they were printed on the paper.