I was flipping through one of those junk mail advertising circulars that landed in my mailbox a couple days ago, and I noticed a colorful, full-page glossy advertisement on page two. This ad must have cost big bucks. Knowing what I know about advertising costs in my area, this must have been close to a $1,000 outlay (or more).
Avoid Poor Positioning with IT Marketing
But, it was one of the worst ads for positioning that I've ever seen. To prevent you from making the same IT marketing mistakes, I'm going to point out a couple of the biggest problems I saw. The headline read: “Computer Repair, I Come to You.” “I Come to You” isn't a unique benefit anymore. If you're doing strictly retail, of course it's a nice benefit that you make house calls. But most computer services firms aren't just going after retail customers anymore. With B2B, no one is going to lug their 25-node LAN into your shop to have you work on it. So “I come to you” is nothing unique. a totally wasted headline. You just lost your window of opportunity to grab someone's attention.
Don't Mention Price in Your IT Marketing
Then the ad went on to say: “Computer Repair A+ and Microsoft Certified Professional, Repairs, Upgrades, One-on-One Lessons and Tutoring”. Once again, nothing unique. These things are just like everyone else in the business. But what caught my eye is half of the ad says in big letters with a color screen behind it: “Don't pay $40, $60 or $80 an hour for computer repair! Call us!” And then there's a big retail-looking coupon right next to it that says in big green letters: “$20 an hour, in-home service”. Well, I'd like to congratulate this company. They win Joshua's idiot of the week award for poor IT marketing.
They're making every classic mistake there is!
Mistake #1: They have no target. They're trying to go after their local slice of seven million small businesses and it's way too hard to do that. They're not even narrowing it down to small businesses. They'll go out and fish someone's stuck AOL disk out of their CD-ROM drive. They'll go out and repair a $79 ink jet printer.
Mistake #2: They're advertising price. Obviously this isn't even a price that could be sustainable. Do the math. Even at 75% percent utilization (very unlikely with this advertising strategy), this company is never going to make it. Figure 30 hours a week at $20 an hour. That's only $600 a week. There is no way this company is going to be in business for the long haul.
Mistake #3: They are saying nothing unique. This one is very important. What can you do that will help you be unique? You need to narrow down your focus and your specialization.
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