Niche Marketing in Action

by Teri Lussier

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

Last night two separate thoughts took a moonlight swim through the gray matter, and when I woke up this morning things made sense.

One thing that stuck in my head was Brian Brady’s post on niche marketing. So well put- a recipe for success. The other thought was about my dad. I spent yesterday afternoon with my parents which wasn’t unusual, but was delicious because it was just the three of us and that is a rare occurance. At any rate, this morning I realized that my dad was an expert at niche marketing.

My dad has led a very interesting life. If Charles Dickens had written about Depression era babies growing up in the slums of Dayton, my dad would be famous. His childhood was the type that either beats you down or makes you smart. Since my dad doesn’t do “beat down”, he’s smart, and because of his childhood, he’s very resourceful. He made his living as a self-employed sales rep in the tri-state area. He drove a lot. To save money, he did his own car repairs. He became expert at engine work, transmission replacement, all sorts of major car work. He loves this stuff. He loves cars, working with his hands, and creating something from nothing.

Once his business began to run itself, more or less, he could focus on car work as a hobby. He started, well, flipping cars, so to speak, for fun and profit. He loves the challenge of scouring a salvage yard for the perfectly wrecked car, putting it in running condition and selling it; using the profits to buy a nicer wreck, fixing, selling, etc. Being an adventurous sort, he gravitated towards what might be considered SUVs, but this was in the 1970s. There really was no such thing as an SUV- there were only 4x4s and they were used to haul stuff on farms, or truly went off road. No one drove those big, noisy, hard riding behemoths around town, except my dad. Or so we thought, until he joined with other 4×4 and off-road afficionados. He began to network with the salvage yards that carried 4x4s and they would share with him the tricks of the trade. He shared his passion with the off-road clubs. He read specialized magazines to keep up with emerging trends.

As he made the rounds of salvage yards, he noticed that the best bargains were ‘burn-outs’, as he called them, SUVs that had suffered engine fires; swap out the engine, replace the wire harness, detail the inside- Voila- a couple thousand dollars in profit. He began to develop a reputation in the salvage yards as the go-to guy for burn-outs. It became his highly specialized niche, and the yards began to call him, “Hey Pete! We just got this Suburban- engine fire. Wanna take a look?” The sellers were now calling him.

Because of all the networking, he also began to develop a reputation as the area expert for repairing and customizing 4x4s among the buyers (as a side note: he often put Cadillac seats in his 4x4s, because even though he liked to go off road, an old hip injury made it hard to sit on those school bus-like seats. The guy truly was ahead of his time). As I said, 4x4s were still unique, buyers had to actively search for vehicles, and they began to call him. He didn’t have to look for buyers, the buyers looked for him. I’m new to the concept of the Long Tail, but I’m thinking this fits the description pretty nicely.

There you have it- niche marketing and long tails: Mix something you are passionate about, with effective networking and great service, and the word of mouth should follow. I told you my dad was smart.