Impressions - April 2018 - 44

The sublimation process
has become a favorite for
fashion labels, sports-apparel
manufacturers and even local
teams.

Set specific goals for
your niche endeavor
and continuously
measure them.
imperative that you find a niche, then "own" it at a level that
makes it impossible for potential competitors to get a major
piece of the pie. While that may sound daunting, it actually
isn't - as long as you hyper-focus your niche to one specific
area you can serve well.
To start finding a niche, make a list of 10-20 topics and situations combined that you feel most comfortable discussing.
Don't give it a lot of thought; just start writing.Then, consider
how those items may match up with your business capabilities.
Once you find a possible match, think of all the ways you
could serve that niche and how its needs are not being met.
That will be the intersection of your message going forward
and your ability to provide a product for which customers
happily will pay a premium price.
Within this process, set specific goals for your new niche
endeavor and continuously measure them. If, after a period
of time (one to three months is not suitable; think more like a
year), you are not meeting the goals, try to refocus your niche
and goals toward what's working.
Market Examples
To help get those creative juices flowing, the following are
examples of niche markets and how some companies are maximizing their profits therein.
1. Faced.shop: One of the big advantages of sublimation
as a digital process is that you can customize a product with
images. For example, thanks to sublimation, grandma can have
her grandchildren's faces on a towel or coffee mug.
But the problem is most of us are not professional photographers with proper lighting and backgrounds. So when a
sublimation expert receives a photo taken with an iPhone, it
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i m p r e s s i o n s m a g . c o m APRIL 2018

appears dull or the background colors don't look right with
the foreground image.
The folks at faced.shop (https://faced.shop) saw a niche for
putting faces on sublimation-friendly items while solving the
image problem.Their customers get excited about getting their
faces or that of a loved one, including the furry variety, on all
sorts of unique products.All customers are left asking is,"Which
relatives need a towel with my face on it,and how many?"
2. Jane.com: This company not only discovered a better
channel for a popular product, but also a better way to let
customers take ownership of the final product.We have all see
the fun, holiday-themed garden flags in local home-and-garden
stores.The problem: Everyone buys the same generic flags.
Jane.com came up with designs centered on various holidays
or certain times of year, and allowed customers to choose a
design. Customers also can personalize flags with names, initials
and more. This means each customer can have a unique flag
and get a new one for any occasion.
3.YR Store Inc.: I was fortunate to attend a recent conference where Tim Williams, co-founder and CEO of YR Store
Inc. (thisisyr.com) discussed digital decorating and making the
products on demand for customers. His specialty is understanding technology, and he saw that retail brands were being left
behind because malls were closing and no one had a reason to
visit department stores.
YR Store develops unique pop-up stores with major retail
brands like Polo and Levi's. Now, customers can get original
Levi's products at the mall and have them customized to fit
their personalities.
Shirts sell for more than $100, and people line up to pay such
prices for these limited-edition products featuring brand-name
labels.The garment is decorated while customers shop and they
get a text message when it is ready.
These are just a few examples of specific niches being leveraged, and how sublimation and digital decorating help these
businesses own a space. Now, it's your turn. 
Aaron Montgomery has been involved with the garment-decorating and
personalization industry since 2000 and the digital-printing industry since
1997. He co-hosts the 2 Regular Guys industry podcast at 2regularguys.com,
and you can find blogs about a wide range of topics at aaronmontgomery.info.

https://www.faced.shop http://www.Jane.com http://www.Jane.com http://www.thisisyr.com https://faced.shop/ http://www.2regularguys.com http://www.aaronmontgomery.info http://www.impressionsmag.com

Impressions - April 2018

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