The Milkman Cometh

You’ve probably had one form of food delivery service or another in the past month or so to your home, apartment or dorm room – and it was probably pizza. The days of milkmen however, who delivered farm-fresh milk to everyone’s doorstep before the crack of dawn, might be making a comeback.

A small organic milk delivery service in New York City, Manhattan Milk Company, has done just that, delivering not only milk but other USDA-certified organic dairy products to customers who place web orders online, every day of the week. Through mostly word-of-mouth advertising alone, the company has grown from zero customers to approx. 50 customers per day, in a very short amount of time. Clients of the service claim that the product takes them back to “the good old days” of personalized, convenient dairy delivery, when it was completely normal for every person on the block to have a weekly milkman, dropping off milk in the early hours of the day. The bigger picture however, is much more significant than a few cartons of milk.

Niche marketing is what the two guys behind Manhattan Milk Company are cashing in on, and although it’s nothing new, it has really taken off in the past two or so decades. The concept is simple: offer a product or service that, while only appealing to a small percentage of the general population, will generate business through an unparalleled level of quality and service. The milk delivery market may be a small and relatively new space, but because Manhattan Milk delivers [literally] a high-quality product in a market with few other competitors, it is able to thrive (which is really saying something in such a weak economy). Marketing to a small niche of the population, if done right, can prove to be both very profitable and very sustainable.

If more companies were able to cash in on this simple but lucrative concept, the state of small business in America may very well be surviving better than it is currently. Seeing as America is predominantly a service economy – meaning we actually make more profit in providing services than actual products (think the airlines, hotel and hospitality industries) – new service businesses would likely fare very well. In San Gabriel Valley, a predominantly Chinese area of east Los Angeles, small inexpensive massage parlors have cropped up like wildfire. Days of the $100 massage are still very real in west LA, but in San Gabriel Valley one can have an hourlong foot massage (complete with hot tea and a huge comfy leather lounger) for under $20. Hardly anyone knows about San Gabriel Valley on the west side of town – but if they did, I’m sure people would be flocking across the city to cash in on such a great deal.

Will niche marketing become mainstream? I’m not sure, but if you have a great product (or service) and the means to promote it, even locally within your own immediate community, take a cue from the guys at Manhattan Milk Co. It might just take off.