Market niche can be very profitable (Muzak = "Elevator Music")

A market niche is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focused. The market niche defines the product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that it is intended to target. It is also a small market segment.

Muzak – the company that brought elevator music to the masses back in the 1930s. The technology for piping audio over power lines was patented in 1922 by retired Major General George O Squier, and exclusive rights to the patent were bought by the North American Company. In 1934, under the corporate umbrella of ‘Muzak’, they started piping music into Cleveland homes.

Muzak seemed to have hit on a winning formula, but the advent of free commercial radio sounded the death knell for the company’s chosen route to market. With free music available on shiny new wirelesses, households were no longer prepared to pay for the Muzak service. Undeterred, the company focused its efforts on New York City businesses. As buildings in New York soared skywards, the lift/elevator became practically ubiquitous. Muzak had found its niche, and ‘elevator music’ was born.

So what ?? You might think.

It’s true that, compared to behemoths of contemporary media such as radio, television and now the internet, elevator music is small potatoes. But back in its heyday this was cutting-edge stuff, and it reached a lot of people. Muzak had the power to sway opinions and influence markets, so much so

that for music artists of that era, having your track played on the Muzak  network practically guaranteed a hit.

Technology has the ability to open up completely new markets, and to radically shake up existing ones. Internet is doing just that to us. The following video show that online ads only is not good enough, you can do so much better by doing it properly, and by that I meant doing some branding or providing opportunities to engage your audience before running ads

Branding is the  promoting of a product or service by identifying it with a particular brand, it can be done in many ways, running ads is only one of them, perhaps one of the most expensive ways, but surely you can try other methods before running ads, such as having a website, writing articles, maintaining a blog, or posting in your social media.