Marketing business finds its niche in Great Falls

Four years after stepping into a vacant warehouse at the Great Falls airport, Calgary-based Edge Marketing is quite comfortable in its U.S. shoes, so to speak.

Each month, the warehouse distributes thousands of shoe inserts, a product named Sole Custom Footbeds, to customers worldwide.

It’s Edge Marketing’s second stab at creating a successful model to bring new ideas to the market quickly.

Originally, the company peddled a lawn-edging device that attaches to grass trimmers.

"We sold the product to Sears, and there was some success. But we didn’t have a distribution plan that allowed us to pinpoint what was going right and what was going wrong," said Mike Baker, Edge Marketing’s owner. "The product needed stronger consumer awareness."

So, he tried something new.

Back in his college days, Baker’s painting business brought in money to pay tuition. But it also left him with a bad back.

"I started looking at the insole market and playing around with what was under my feet," he said.

The market was fragmented, with a great gap between the over-the-counter products sold in pharmacies and grocery stores and the more expensive custom-made products.

"There were a few niche companies for middle-of-the-road products but no clear leaders," Baker said. "It looked like an opportunity, and that seems to be true."

By JO DEE BLACK
Tribune Staff Writer

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