Niche Fan Targeting via Legion of Collectors
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about our world these days, it’s that as technology and choices get more abundant, niche markets emerge that really pay off if you target them.
Maybe niche isn’t the word so much as focused. You should focus your branding nowadays in my opinion. Whereas companies back in the day could make multiple products, I believe we’re starting to gear more towards a specialized society.
Case and point, monthly subscription boxes. The first one I ever heard of was Lootcrate:
The concept is pretty simple. You pay a monthly subscription fee and, every month, you receive a box with a random assortment of collectibles or “loot”.
I thought this concept was only for pop culture entertainment, but as time went on, I started seeing other markets catch on to the idea. Example, Graze:
Not to step too far away from pop culture, DC comics has been sending “Legion of Collectors” boxes every other month for a yearly fee of $150. In these boxes come DC themed collectible items (figures, shirts, pins, etc), some of which only come in these boxes.
I think DC has discovered that people are very much into a la carte style ways of enjoying the things they like (see: Netflix, Hulu, etc), and have decided to tap into their very loyal fanbase to try and deliver collectible content to their most diehard fans.
DC has realized that they have a market of fans that believe strongly in their brands / characters and, if they are willing to buy monthly issues of a comic book, would definitely be willing to pay a yearly subscription for exclusive collectibles every other month.
This is an ingenious idea to me. You lock in your most valuable customers and send them new swag every other month. DC tries to market this further by making it random, potentially making it so that a fan gets exposed to many different types of toy brands or new superheroes that they may not have been tracking before but may now start consuming. DC also runs a Legion of Collectors blog that showcases and applauds their most loyal fans, both incentivizing Legion of Collectors fans to keep doing so or new people to join.
https://legionofcollectors.com/legion-of-collectors-superfan-spotlight-tara-dean/
I think that we are going to see more versions of this as time goes on across other markets. Marvel comics has their own box as well and, as noted above, so many other types of boxes now exist.
I think marketing and products are going to start shifting more and more towards niche a la carte service. Companies are going to have to position themselves specifically and start charging recurring fees if the product they make is something like a channel or similar to the DC Legion of Collectors boxes.
I’m excited to see just how many specialty services like this can exist in the near future! Maybe even more of the companies I enjoy will go this route!
-Jason
