Huge New Market Opening Up
Have you all been following Prop 8? I'm sure the Californians among us have been immersed in Prop 8 this month--it's a huge issue, and Prop 8 may well become the test case for an eventual Supreme Court ruling on the Constitutionality of gay marriage in the U.S.
I am NOT seeking to comment--or to hear comments--on gay marriage as a social or moral issue here. But, because my brother is gay (and a speaker/trainer on diversity issues for a major corporation), I get regular "newsfeed" and analysis on the developments. Here are some aspects that may be interesting to all you marketers.
1. Many gays and lesbians have begun to think it inevitable that the Supreme Court will be ruling (in their favor) on gay marriage over the next few years. (Many straight people have too, of course--but for the purposes of this blog post, let's just stick with how the LGBT community is viewing things.)
2. The expectation that the legal rights and privileges are in the pipeline affects different people in different ways, of course. But for many (according to my brother) there is a feeling of "Why not go ahead and have the symbolic ceremony now?" Don't sweat it over which state to head to--just make the public vows, have a grand celebration, and wait for the other pieces to fall into place at the national level.
3. There is a market waiting to explode here, whether the Prop 8 ban on gay marriage becomes that momentous SC test case or not. Many pundits and sociologists have commented that there is a decided idealism and hope about marriage--as celebration and as institution-- among the LGBT community. Sentiments that, on a broad scale at least, have been waning among heterosexuals in the U.S. and other industrialized countries.
4. This market will steer marriage products and services in profound ways. Just think about it. This is, for gays, both an exchange of vows AND a proclamation of pride. This is also, for many, a sticky wicket--a maze of uncharted etiquette, mixed feelings among family members, and an interesting mix of tradition and newness.
So, consider the market for gay wedding invitations.
For different sorts of wedding rings and engagement rings
For photographers who are sensitive to the potential swirl of issues and feelings surrounding the event.
For destination wedding packages in places sympathetic to the marrying couple.
The list could go on. gayweddingrings.org is available, by the way. I checked. Traffic isn't fantastic, but I predict it will be--so there's my little piece of bonus material for today.
What other stuff in the news is predictive of new markets opening up? While I don't want to get into a debate over gay marriage, I'd love to hear from the news junkies here what market tie-ins they see in the big issues of this summer.
Recent Comments
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You're spot on Maureen. Gay marriage has been allowed here in England for some time where a family friend is a registrar (licenced to conduct marriages) and said that she was amazed at the number of gay marriages each month. Yes, the marketplace is on it's way there, too.
Maureen, I haven't posted this anywhere in the forums. I got the idea from Kyle and Carson's book "Who loves Money" where they talk about doing a similar thing for World cup 2006. I made a full website, 2-3 hubpages and 2-3 squidoo lenses and got them all ranked for the keywords I wanted. That is the thing about trend spotting, the competition is so low that you can easily get as many webpages ranked on the first page as you want. In fact, I remember I actually built 2-3 websites on my own and got them all ranked for different keywords. I tried adwords, but Google declined my ads for some reason. Although Kyle and Carson said, in their book, they used adwords for their campaign, but that was in 2006 when Google wasn't so uptight. As for the websites, it took effort to get them ranked and all those websites are useless now. I have even removed all the websites now. But I made some good money that month which I am now investing in my other long term projects.
Jay, my daughter and I just watched that video--and it was pretty unbelievable. Wow. Thanks for that--and the Singorama link.
andys43us, what made you decide to go all-out on the World Cup this year? And did you do a full site, or did you leverage Adwords and landing pages? (Forgive me if you've already shared this info here on WA--I'll go take a look at your recent blog posts after I finish writing this. I'm just curious to know how you went about things and what worked best for you....
Oh, and sometimes, when I'm being a total hermit, Digg is my only source of US news also. :-)
Great idea Jay. Maureen, trend spotting is an amazing thing, especially because there is so little competition. I made a good amount of money with the FIFA world cup 2010 that's why I am always on the lookout for new trends. Even though they don't last long, there is still a huge chunk of money that is just waiting to be made. I wish I could give you some other trend ideas. But I don't have any, the only US news I get are from Digg, and the latest one of them was when some conservative members formed a group and were burrying news on Digg, and the HOPA girl. But I don't think we could make any money from those. :S
re: Jackie Evancho, check out the vid that started it all. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPITHzdUUDk
re: Web-based singing lessons, check out Singorama.com
@andys43us: Thanks so much for the feedback. I figured if I opened up the "catching the wave" discussion, I might hear from others about things that would never occur to me.
@magistudios: Jay, your comment is a great reminder of how many issues we in the U.S. forget are NOT burning issues in other countries. The more I learn about marketing, the more I realize it's smart to assume nothing and listen/observe a whole lot. Which (shocker, I know) also actually seems to work well for various interpersonal and conversational skills. :-)
Your response/tips are exactly what I was hoping for in writing about same sex marriage. I had not heard of Jackie Evancho--though I'm sure my 13-year-old has. Question: are there Web-based singing lessons with affiliate programs?
Thanks for your comment!
The same sex marriage discussion seems like an old topic for myself as it's a law that has been passed here in British Columbia, Canada for several years now. I had a quick Google search for 'gay wedding invitations' and found www.outvite.com, looks like a cool site, no affiliate program though.
In regards to trend spotting (one of my favorites), I'd look into America's got talent 9 year old opera singer Jackie Evancho as she is exploding in popularity right now. Making a fan site or some sort of info site and promote singing lessons would be a great way to make some sales.. Oops! did I just reveal a strategy!? ;)
Great post Maureen. Catching the wave before it's even begun is one of the best and easiest ways to make some big money. Thanks for the heads up.
Great post Maureen. Catching the wave before it's even begun is one of the best and easiest ways to make some big money. Thanks for the heads up.
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Thanks, Maureen, for this unique perspective on gay marriage. Never seen it analyzed this way before.