Notes

Use Marketing Savvy to Stand Out From the Crowd
When your company is part of a business that's saturated with businesses like yours, how will you get noticed? It's about targeting a particular audience-finding a client base with a need it is possible to meet and then obtaining the word out in what you have to offer.

The wedding industry is a classic example. Most wedding shops concentrate on the bride. However, not TheManRegistry.com. The Man Registry, located in Shawnee Mission, Kan., may be the world's first gift registry for the groom, and it's really a booming business.

"I started to see a lot of my friends getting married, and just couldn't get excited about buying them linens or other conventional registry items," says Jimmy Horner, co-founder of the website. "I wanted to be able to get something that they would both use, like a barbecue grill or sporting equipment."

And you won't find linens on this website. Instead, participants can register for guy-friendly items such as a 6-drawer tool chest, a 2-person tent and digital video cameras. As well as the registry, the site also offers "Groom 101," an accumulation of informational articles that address topics including "Popping the Question: Guidelines" and "De-Stressing Prior to the Big Day."

Approximately 250 couples have registered since the site launched in March 2008. "People really seem to like the idea because t here is nothing out there like it," Horner says.

Whether you're starting small or expanding an established company, follow the lead of this business in making your organization stand out:

Look for a unique niche. The guys behind TheManRegistry.com saw their opportunity to target the groom-a previously ignored audience-and ran with it. They demonstrate why it's important to think outside the box when analyzing your marketplace. Will there be an untapped audience you could be reaching out to? What about something that may be offered in an innovative way?

Do your homework. Researching your market is just about the most essential things. After they selected their target audience, Horner and the other co-founders thoroughly researched the economy and all aspects of the marriage industry as a whole-not just the groom segment-to ensure their idea was feasible. "It is a recurring industry with a fresh client base every year," Horner says. "It's recession-proof-people are still likely to get married."

Expand marketing efforts. Scope out opportunities to operate a vehicle traffic to your organization. "You will need to look for various ways to bring in people from different areas," Horner says. For example, readers can register with receive the site's free monthly online newsletter, which contains links to articles on the webpage, top 10 10 registry products and polls. Couples that register on this website between specific dates also have the chance to win a NINTENDO WII GAMING CONSOLE gaming system, a promotion which has increased participation on the webpage. Regardless of how you do it, the more you obtain your name out, the higher.

Get online. There's no doubt about it: The popularity of online networking keeps growing rapidly, thanks in no small part to its convenience. That is why it's important to set up a presence on these sites. TheManRegistry.com has capitalized on this by establishing a presence on popular sites such as for example Facebook, MySpace and Wedding Wire. .

Boost media coverage. To really expand awareness of your business, try to increase media coverage by writing and sending out press releases to media outlets. Highlight something unusual or newsworthy about your organization to pitch to reporters. That's what Horner and his coworkers did. Therefore, TheManRegistry.com has been featured in stories by ABC News, theknot.com, Entrepreneur magazine, The Kansas City Star and numerous blogs. Once TheManRegistry.com was mentioned in several stories, other media outlets gained fascination with covering the business. "We've gotten a substantial amount of coverage in the media," Horner says. "Oftentimes, one story leads to another."

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