I love niche markets. I cater to them whenever I can. They mean low competition, high profits and lots of nice appreciative people to do business with. Best of all, there are hundreds of niche markets to go after. All you need to do is look around you. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Pets represent a multi-billion dollar market and the door is open to whatever types of products you want to offer: food bowls, place mats, collars, leashes and pet tags to name a few. Note, too, that ID tags for “pets” extends way beyond dogs and cats into numerous other niche markets. Halter tags for horses and ear tags for cattle, sheep and goats are a few examples of tags used by farmers, ranchers, zoos, 4-H clubs and, of course, pet owners. A couple more suggestions for pet ID tags include kennel nameplates which are attached to a carrier or kennel like those used in dog and cat shows. Horse stall signs are another niche market for pet ID nameplates. These are often simple frames with engraved plastic inserts that are quick and easy to make. The types of customers you might want to approach will mostly depend on the area of the country you live in and the type of personalization equipment you have. Sublimation, rotary engravers and lasers, for example, all bring their own flavor to this banquet of opportunity. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Tool marking is a great niche market with the potential for steady, repeat business. All hand tools owned by a government agency, including the military, are supposed to be marked with an ID barcode. Since most tools are either steel or chrome, they can be marked using a CO2 laser and a laser-markable coating, provided the metal hasn’t been coated in some way, or by using a fiber laser. The nice thing about fiber lasers is they don’t need a chemical bonding agent and they can mark any metal, coated or uncoated, including the newest super-hard alloys. I have never found a metal my 20 watt fiber laser can’t mark in one pass. Of course, mechanics also like identifying their expensive tools so don’t pass up local car dealerships and auto repair shops. The funeral industry is another viable market for ID products. One of the more popular items right now is T-shirts printed with a picture of the deceased. Custom memorial T-shirts can be worn by family and friends at a memorial event to honor the legacy of their loved ones and then kept as a sentimental remembrance. Some people take this a step further and start a memorial T-shirt fundraiser in honor of the deceased to raise money and awareness for a cause, such as cancer or heart disease. Sublimation, direct-to-garment printers or heat transfers can open a huge opportunity for shirts that people really want to have. Although you will probably have to offer a fast turnaround on these orders, there is a great demand for them. Talk with your local funeral homes about their market for these. And while you are there, talk to them about engraving plates for urns. I have done hundreds of these and they usually aren’t rush orders since urns are ordered and shipped after the ceremony. Don’t forget name badges for the funeral home employees. Every funeral home I know of uses them. Since we are on the subject of funerals, let’s think about pet funerals. These are big business now with people purchasing urns, grave markers, T-shirts, memorial plaques and gifts to memorialize their pets. I was in a pet cemetery a few months ago and they had over 100 different urns for sale. Each one required an engraved plate. You might even be able to sell the urns yourself but either way, you can make a few dollars of pure profit if you can engrave the brass plates for their urns. You can also offer grave markers for people to remember their pets by. Popular products today include garden stakes, garden stones and even granite headstones/grave markers. Have you ever noticed how ugly mailboxes are? People have all kinds of junky lettering on them that either looks like it was written by a six-year-old or is barely legible at all. Many only display the house number and even that is often difficult to find and read at night. Now granted, some people couldn’t care less and think that only the mail carrier has to read the information, but what about visitors or emergency crews? Why not create a niche market making mailbox signs that meet code and, better yet, look nice and can be read at night? There are lots of options. An engraved sign does the trick for many homes and businesses. For those who live in upscale neighborhoods, you might offer cast bronze. I like the ones I laser engrave using the glow-in-the dark plastics (they make glow-in-the-dark plastic for rotary engravers, too). Even if the sign has lost its charge after hours of glowing, as soon as headlights hit it, it lights right up. If the customer has a lamp post in their front yard, consider a sign to hang from that. There are all kinds of options. You could use cast bronze but you could also engrave regular exterior grade plastic and then laminate it to something thicker so it won’t bow in the sun’s heat. Or, you could use the Heavy Weights plastic from Rowmark which is either 1/4" or 1/2" thick. These have to be rotary engraved but they are tough as nails. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Another option to consider for house ID is becoming a distributor for mock neon LED numbers and letters that can be displayed in the front window of a house or elsewhere in the yard to help emergency crews find a house quickly. These LED letters and numbers simply snap together and are powered by an AC wall plug or batteries. Better yet, they are inexpensive, easy for the home owner to install and offer a 100 percent markup. Group gatherings like reunions and tour groups are big business. One of the ID products commonly used by these groups is name badges on a lanyard. Sublimation is a great way to offer not only a durable name badge but a personalized lanyard that can be saved as a souvenir after the event is over. Although many such groups might prefer less expensive paper badges in a plastic holder (you can make those too!), a fair number prefer something more substantial. I recently sublimated badges for a group of Europeans who came to the USA to tour historical railroad facilities and tourist railroads. Best of all, the number of tours and reunions is virtually endless. ID plates for framed pictures and artwork is another too-often-overlooked market, and one that is pretty big. Every picture framer in the country needs those little brass plates that attach to the frame or are mounted behind the glass of a hanging. Think, too, about the art galleries and museums around the country that need ID plates for pictures and artwork. Actually, any business, organization or place that displays pictures or artwork is a potential customer in this niche market. The late Mort Tuller, founder of Tucson’s Tuller Trophy Factory, became famous during a visit to the White House by pointing out the poor state of a brass nameplate under a portrait of President John F. Kennedy. His comments led to an order on the spot which subsequently led to repeat business making presidential portrait tags for the White House. Mort secured a similar order from a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Brass plates are the tradition for this application but 1/32" plastic such as FlexiBrass is ideal for applications where the engraved plate will be mounted under the glass. FlexiBrass is easy to read, looks exactly like brass and can be laser engraved and cut to any size. Although a control panel might not always be thought of as an ID plate, it really is. It identifies the various knobs, switches, lights and signals that make up the panel. In addition to industrial businesses, there are plenty of niche markets for control panels as well. For example, consider limousine and marine businesses.
One option is to fabricate metal control panels yourself using a rotary engraving machine and paint filling. If you aren’t set up for that type of work, another option is to make panels out of plastic or acrylic, or create overlays that can be applied to existing metal panels to identify the controls and make the panel more attractive. For example, you can laser cut 1/8" or 1/4" thick acrylic and paint fill or print it with a UV printer to produce a spectacular product and even offer back lighting. Overlays can be made out of thin plastic (1/16") or a thin sublimatable substrate such as Rowmark MATES to create a full-color panel.
Don’t forget the plumbers! Just as electricians need tags for electrical panels, plumbing contractors sometimes need labels or tags for pipes. Chemical-resistant labels are sometimes required but usually a simple self-adhesive label will do the job. Materials such as Rowmark MATES (for sublimation) or LaserLIGHTS (for laser engravers) are waterproof and won’t be affected by condensation or the heat in a hot water pipe, so long as they are applied when the pipe is dry and clean. Stainless steel or anodized aluminum tags that can be attached with “S” hooks can also be used.
Barcodes are everywhere. They are used by all kinds of companies and organizations to mark property, track inventory or even just to sell on Amazon. These codes are used by schools, the military and other government organizations and their subcontractors for tracking purposes. In fact, they are so heavily used that some companies have made an entire business out of selling that one product. Barcodes can be generated in CorelDRAW or other software programs and engraved or printed on metal, plastic or self-adhesive labels. Likewise, QR codes can be vinyl cut, printed or engraved on all kinds of substrates. These codes can be generated for free on the Internet and used to direct people to websites, YouTube videos, etc. |