Advertising your computer repair business can be a bit overwhelming. 68.7% of American homes have internet access, and the number rises sharply in more densely populated areas. That means you have over half of your community, town, city, or county as possible customers.
You could take a generalist approach and randomly advertise to as many people as possible and hope you appeal to some of those people. That works for well-established companies with large advertising budgets. But there is a much cheaper and more effective method of advertising that involves targeting a small niche of your potential customer base.
In the Finding a Niche series of blog posts I will profile different possible customer niches that you can target for your computer consulting business.
Today we will focus on the unique needs of stay at home parents. I’ve had some success with this niche in the past, and I feel if targeted properly, it can be a lucrative subsection of your business.
Customer Profile
Age: 25-35
Income: Moderate
Location: Suburbs
Need: Usually one parent stays at home to take care of children while the other works full time. Often times they also work part time using a home computer. They don’t have time to troubleshoot technical issues that may arise due to obligations with the children.
Technician Work -load: Simple to moderate break/fix, training.
Customer Description
A stay at home parent is like the CEO of their household. They are responsible for making sure all the wheels of the family are greased and turning efficiently, which includes the family computers. I’ve found that many stay at home parents also work part time on their computer doing things like blogging, webdesign, writing, transcriptions, and various other activities. The precious few hours they have to work on the computer is valuable and if the computer breaks, they need it fixed ASAP.
These customers are normally available to meet you during the day, so you’ll be able to keep regular business hours without the need to set up evening or weekend appointments. They also tend to have their hands full when you arrive, so you can take care of the computer in relative peace without someone looking over your shoulder (I know we all hate that!). Depending on how many children they’re looking after, it can be a hectic environment, so focus is key.
Finding This Customer
Stay at home parents tend to run errands during the day, so hanging flyers in grocery stores, libraries, and churches will help you reach these customers. It’s important that your flyer stand out from the crowd as they will normally be competing with a bulletin board plastered with other flyers.
Since stay at home parents often come and go during the day, so door hanger advertisements may be an ideal way to get their attention as they’re returning home. You can cover a neighborhood in the morning and ensure that they will be seen sometime during that day. Since a parent’s time is precious, make sure your door hanger offers some kind of discount or special to make it worth their time to check it out.
They also tend to spend a good deal of time on the computer. You can utilize a google adwords campaign or a Facebook ad targeted to parents between 25 and35. This will ensure your services are put in front of surfing moms and dads.
Services to Offer
Some ideas of services to offer this niche include:
- Computer tune-up
- Computer security (to limit the access children have online)
- Backup Solutions (to protect family photos)
- Web design, SEO (for moms with side businesses)
- General break/fix
Marketing Techniques
Once you’ve located your niche, it’s important to build a marketing message around their needs. This will take some experimentation as every situation is different, but there are some things to consider.
Make sure to highlight some concerns stay at home parents might have, such as lack of time , worry over loosing family photos, or protecting children from adult websites. Then offer ways to solve them, such as quick turn-around time, backup solutions, and setting up parental controls. If you do in-home work, talk about the time that will save your customers from driving to a computer shop across town.
Word of mouth is also important, as stay at home parents tend to talk to one another. Make sure to leave behind a memento from your visit so that your customer will have something to show or give to someone else.
Have you had success with this niche? What techniques do you use to focus your advertising?
