Even though you know you've created a great product, you need to spend time researching the types of retailers that will be a good fit.  The founders of Belli Cosmetics, Annette Rubin and her husband, Jason Rubin, M.D., quickly realized that typical retail stores weren't the only venue for their line of maternity skin-care products.  Inspired by the birth of their first child, Annette, 36, and Jason, 37, had an idea for skin-care products that would be safe for pregnant women.  They launched their company in 2000 and started peddling the products to nontraditional locations like spas and the offices of obstetricans and gynecologists.  Annette, a former Estee Lauder executive, evaluated exactly how to find the right match.  "How do I deliver an upscale prestige product to market, but broaden its points of distribution and keep it appropriate to those points of distribution?" she asked herself.  "Where can I take this line where it'll still make sense for the brand?  I can take it into independant maternity boutiques, high-end pharmacies, OB/GYN [offices], department stores, spas and even gift boutiques."

Marketing your product through a targeted niche can save you a ton of money.  Instead of spending your precious resources marketing your product on too large a scale-- say, to magazines or newspapers that serve everyone-- it's more effective to pick out targeted groups that are more likely to need your product.

That type of savvy targeting served Issaquah, Washington-based Belli Cosmetics very well.  Not only can you find their products in those doctors' offices and maternity boutiques frequented by moms-to-be, but also in spas, certain Nordstrom stores, as well as Drugstore.com, shooting projected year-end sales to more than $2 million.