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A niche market^[1] is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing. So the market niche defines the specific product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that is intended to impact. It is also a small market segment. For example, sports channels like STAR Sports, ESPN, STAR Cricket, and Fox target a niche of sports lovers. Every product can be defined by its market niche. As of special note, the products aimed at a wide demographic audience, with the resulting low price (due to price elasticity of demand), are said^[who?] to belong to the mainstream niche—in practice referred to only as mainstream or of high demand. Narrower demographics lead to elevated prices due to the same principle. So to speak, the niche market is a highly specialized market aiming to survive among the competition from numerous super companies.

In practice, product vendors and trade businesses are commonly referred as mainstream providers or narrow demographics niche market providers (colloquially shortened to just niche market providers). Small capital providers usually opt for a niche market with narrow demographics as a measure of increasing their financial gain margins.

Nevertheless, the final product quality (low or high) is not dependent on the price elasticity of demand; it is associated more with the specific needs that the product is aimed at satisfying and, in some cases, aspects of brand recognition (e.g., prestige, practicability, money saving, expensiveness, planet environment conscience,^{[clarification needed]} power, &c.).

Niche audience[link]

Technology and many industrial practices changed with the post-network era. There is a new drive for niche audiences because audiences are now in much greater control of what they watch. It is very rare to have a substantial audience to watch a program at once, with the few exceptions of American Idol, Superbowl and the Olympics. Still, networks do target particular demographics. For example, Lifetime targets women and MTV targets youth. In this context of greater viewer control, networks and production companies are trying to discover ways to profit through new scheduling, new shows, and relying on syndication. This practice of "narrowcasting" also allows advertisers to have a more direct audience for their messages. ^[2]

Online niche marketing[link]

An often used technique for affiliate marketers is Internet-based niche segments of larger markets, referred to as niches. A website can be developed and promoted quickly to uniquely serve a targeted and customer base, giving the affiliate a small but potentially durable source of revenue. This technique can then be repeated across several other niche websites. A bigger niche is harder to market to as the expense of online advertisements increases according to the popularity of the keywords used (on Adwords, for example).

Some niches may become saturated with marketers, increasing competition and thus reduce the slice of the pie available to each competitor. One solution is to find smaller, "undiscovered," but still profitable, niches, usually by searching out the best keywords to target. These lower cost keywords are called long-tailed keywords, as in the long tail of secondary keyword phrases that usually follow the main keyword in popularity of number of searches conducted by internet users. Because some are so obscure as to have few or no clicks per month, the trick is to find the right ones to target.

References[link]

• Lotz, Amanda D. (2007) The Television Will Be Revolutionized. New York, NY: New York University Press. Ch. 3

Look up niche market in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Shama Kabani (born April 25, 1985) is a businessperson, technology entrepreneur, best-selling author, international public speaker, and web and television personality. She is chief executive officer of the Marketing Zen Group, a full-service web marketing agency she founded in 2009.^[1]

Her book The Zen of Social Media Marketing: An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue is among the top three selling web marketing books on Amazon.com.^[2]

Kabani is the host of Shama.TV, an online web television show about new media technologies and business,^[3] and a columnist on Portfolio.com.^[4] Her writings on entrepreneurship, marketing, and digital and new media trends also appear regularly in Forbes magazine.^[5][6][7]

She has been featured on a variety of media outlets, including Business Week,^[8] Dallas Morning News, Entrepreneur, Fast Company,^[9] Inc. Magazine, The New York Times,^[10] Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal,^[11] CBS News, Fox News, MSNBC,^[12] and Good Morning Texas.^[13] Kabani has also been on the covers of Color Magazine,^[14] SPAN Magazine, and Online Marketing Strategies Magazine.

Kabani was honored as one of the Top 25 entrepreneurs who were under 27 years of age in North America by Business Week.^[15] She is a recipient of the Technology Titan - Emerging Company CEO award.^[16] In 2011, she was named one of four “Super Sonic Youth” by Entrepreneur Magazine, which called her a “Zen master of marketing.” Business Insider named her one of the “20 Young Professionals to Watch in 2012.”^[17]

Background[link]

Kabani was born Shama Hyder in Goa, India in 1985. When she was 9 years old, she and her family immigrated to the United States, settling in Carrollton, Texas. In 2003, she graduated from Carrollton's R. L. Turner High School. She attended The University of Texas at Austin, graduating with a master’s degree in organizational communication in 2008.^[18]

Marketing Zen Group[link]

As the founder and CEO of The Marketing Zen Group, Kabani runs a web marketing firm with an emphasis on social media marketing based in Dallas, TX. In 2009, the firm was launched with $1,500 and has experienced annual growth at an average 400%. Kabani directs the company’s 25 full-time virtual employees, delivering social media and digital public relations services for clients that range from publicly held Fortune 1000 companies to privately held small businesses and non-profit organizations. The company serves clients worldwide, including companies in Europe, Asia and Central and South Americas.^[19]

"The Zen of Social Media Marketing"[link]

Kabani’s book The Zen of Social Media Marketing: An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue surveys a variety of social media tools, from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn, and offers detailed instructions on how to use them, step by step. The first edition of the book garnered positive reviews when it came out in 2010. Below was one review on Fast Company:

If you’re looking for a solid book on how any small-to-midsized business or solopreneur can get started and leverage social media, look no further. Shama Hyder Kabani’s “The Zen of Social Media Marketing is what you’ve been waiting for.^[20]

The book’s second edition has also been released.^[21][22]

Public speaking[link]

As an international public speaker, Kabani has presented keynotes and workshops internationally on social media, entrepreneurship, technology, and similar topics.^[23]

In July 2011, Kabani was part of the eleven member delegation of young American and Danish entrepreneurs who traveled to Cairo to share ideas with young Egyptian entrepreneurs on how to build a successful business. The trip, arranged by the Young Entrepreneur Council, in coordination with the U.S. State Department’s new Global Entrepreneurship Program, USAID, the governments of Denmark and Egypt, and several other entrepreneurship organizations, was part of the Obama administration's international strategy to encourage entrepreneurship in countries, like Egypt, which have strong Muslim populations. The visiting group of entrepreneurs—seven from the United States (including Kabani) and four from Denmark—along with leaders of business organizations, conducted a week-long startup boot camp.^{[24][25][26][27]}

Association with the media[link]

Kabani is the author of a weekly business advice column, "Ask Shama" on Portfolio.com.^[28] She is also a regular contributing writer to Forbes magazine.^[5]

She has been featured on Business Week, Entrepreneur, Fast company, Inc. Magazine, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CBS News, Fox News, MSNBC, and other media outlets.^[29] In March 2012, she also shared advice with Inc. Magazine.^[30]

Shama.TV is a web television show hosted by Kabani, which covers new media technologies, trends, and marketing strategies.^[3] She also hosts two weekly segments on the television station CW 33, KDAF-TV, in Dallas: Tech Zen with Shama and Socially Sound with Shama.^[31]

Interviews[link]

The media has interviewed Kabani on entrepreneurship and other topics; below are some of the topics she has been interviewed on:

The The Zen of Social Media Marketing with the EXHIBITOR Magazine.^[32]

Her background and entrepreneurial skills which were shared with ClaudiaChan.com.^[33]

Entrepreneurship and the Marketing Zen Group with IdeaMensch; she also gave business advice and shared some of her personal interests and likes.^[21]

Honors and awards[link]

• Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25 in North America – Businessweek, 2009^[15]
• 40 Under 40 – Dallas Business Journal, 2009^[34]
• Technology Titan Award for Best Emerging Company CEO, 2010^[35][36]
• Women in Business Award – Dallas Business Journal, 2011^[37]
• Named one of four “Super Sonic Youth” - Entrepreneur Magazine, 2011
• 20 Young Professionals To Watch In 2012 – Business Insider, 2011^[17]
• 10 Most Influential and Powerful Women in Social Media - Ron Hudson’s Immediate Influence blog, 2010^[38]
• Inductee, Educational Foundation "Hall of Honor" - the C-FB ISD Educational Foundation.^[39]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Shama.Tv
• The Marketing Zen Group
• Shama Kabani on Twitter
• Shama Kabani on Facebook
• "Ask Shama" column on Portfolio.com

Derek Sivers

Derek Sivers (born September 22, 1969^[1]) is best known for being the founder and former president of CD Baby, an online CD store for independent musicians.

A professional musician (and circus clown) since 1987, Derek started CD Baby by accident in 1998 when he was selling his own CD on his website, and friends asked if he could sell theirs, too. CD Baby went on to become the largest seller of independent music on the web, with over $100M in sales for over 150,000 musician clients.

After he won the 2003 World Technology Award, Esquire magazine's annual "Best and Brightest" cover story said, "Derek Sivers is changing the way music is bought and sold . . . one of the last music-business folk heroes."

In 2008, Derek sold CD Baby to focus on his new ventures to benefit musicians, including his new company, MuckWork, where teams of assistants help musicians do their "uncreative dirty work". His current projects and writings are all at sivers.org.

Derek is married to Sajitha, and they reside in Singapore.^[1]

CD Baby[link]

Derek Sivers bequeathed his company to a charitable trust for music education, and had them sell it to Disk Makers. This agreement allows him to receive the minimum allowed by law for such agreement of 5% per year of the company's sale price (annually $1,100,000 pretax, based on a sale price of $22 million as reported by Sivers^[2]) until death, while upon death the remainder if any will ultimately go into the trust.^[2]

Bibliography[link]

• Anything you want (2011, The Domino Project)^[3]

External links[link]

• Derek Sivers - Sivers' personal website
• MusicThoughts - thoughts on music translated in nine languages
• TED speaker page - Sivers' presentations at the TED Conference
• MuckWork - outsourcing of support tasks for musicians
• Sivers Reading Recommendations - business books that Sivers has read along with his notes on each

Interviews:

• EDay Emerce 2010 with Ronnie Overgoor in Rotterdam
• Mitch Joel - Six Pixels of Separation podcast
• Jay Baer - Convince & Convert
• Mixergy
• Forbes - Michael Ellsberg
• Escape from Cubicle Nation
• Eventual Millionaire
• Brain Pickings - by Maria Popova
• Amber Rae
• IdeaMensch
• Duct Tape Marketing
• Ariel Hyatt
• Marketing Over Coffee
• Fear.Less
• 10 Questions 10 Answers

References[link]

• Small, M (2009). "Berklee Today". Indie Musician Advocate

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