Question

Topic: Strategy

Educate Consumers On Diy And Still Get Biz Leads?

Posted by miketorrettinni on 1/21/2017 at 7:44 AM ET 250 Points
I'm starting career in sales and will start selling DIY products for consumers. So I was thinking of creating a short e-book or set of articles, videos how anybody can do some DIY at home, without any tools.

And in return I would be able to have call to action something like '... but if you don't want to mess with all these tools you need for DIY, just use our All-in-one tool...'

So, the idea is to educate people and at the same time to show that DIY in not always easy, practical and doesn't save you money. Also to get my name out and to promote that I do sell this All-in-one tool.

I think I've seen this before, but not sure where I can find an example.

Could this work? Any suggestions how to go about it, from experience?

Thank you!

Mike
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 1/21/2017 at 2:58 PM Accepted
    This isn't that uncommon. For example, many of the free or open source software programs have added value service or products that can be purchased to enhance the usability. So taking a free item and making it a charge item.
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 1/21/2017 at 11:13 PM Accepted
    Rather than show how you could DIY (but create a mess), why not feature great ideas/projects that were done, and show how your tool made it better, faster, easier, more accurate, etc.?
  • Posted by miketorrettinni on 1/23/2017 at 6:43 AM Author
    Jay, great idea! But I do not have much to show, yet. I will build the list of projects to showcase in next 12 months, but not too much right now. So, I was thinking of starting on both strategies, showcase initial projects and also how to avoid making a mess without my tools - to capture both leads.

    Peter, I'm trying to think how to relate to free, open source software with paid up-sale options, but can't see how. How do you see the correlation?

  • Posted by Mike Steffes on 1/23/2017 at 12:50 PM Member
    I think Jay (buy your tool) fleshed-out Peter's idea (free DIY work driving a purchase) in a direction that highlights the correlation.
  • Posted on 1/24/2017 at 4:36 PM Accepted
    I think you are absolutely on the right track. DIY/how-to articles are some of the most popular on the Internet, so you should be able to build an audience fairly easily. Some thoughts:

    1) This sounds like it would be a very good product to showcase on YouTube. Simply record yourself or someone else working on a real project using the tool (This Old House-style. Not an infomercial that skips all the hard steps.)

    2) Pinterest could be another good outlet with a visual outlet, giving step-by-step instructions with pictures.

    3) Make sure to research SEO keywords so you can get a sense of what your target audience is searching for.

    4) For your articles, focus on giving solid advice rather than a hard-sell.

    5) If you need help, there are plenty of content marketers hanging around this forum that you could hire to do the work for you.
  • Posted by miketorrettinni on 1/25/2017 at 6:44 AM Author
    Aha, now I see the correlation. It makes sense, showcase the benefits of the tool. And suggestions from Alexa are great, thank you! I will do that.

    I'm still thinking of addressing people who are not interested in watching DIY videos with my tool, but are only looking for videos with what tools they have. I think there is a large percentage of people that don't know yet how or are just about to start their own DIY and are only looking for tips on using the tools they have, and are not interested in any other tool - either because this is the first they are doing such job or do not know the pain, yet.
    I hope I described the target consumer: people that are not interested in tools, probably any tools like mine. I would show/educate them how to do it.

    Any thoughts on this?
  • Posted by Mike Steffes on 1/25/2017 at 8:03 AM Accepted
    Educating a market takes piles of money and calendars of time. If your market doesn't have enough people feeling the pain that your tool is designed to free them from...well, that's a problem. This is the sort of issue that needs to be resolved at the idea validation stage (before spending time and money on the idea).
    The path now is to show/tell people the benefits TO THEM of using your tool—time saved (to do other things), money saved (to live the good life), and anything else people in your target market may value.
    There's really two extremes: build on a sand foundation, or a solid foundation. People have made a lot of money selling things built on sand; but fortunes have been made by sales built upon a solid foundation.
  • Posted by miketorrettinni on 1/28/2017 at 7:03 AM Author
    Thank you for all ideas!
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