Thinking about marketing our own work or service can sometimes be confusing.
You may even have a qualification in marketing or many years of experience in marketing other people’s stuff. Still, doing it for your own business can be challenging.
In my video series over the past few weeks (if you don’t know what that is you can view the series here), I’ve been talking about marketing, value creation and positioning.
The latest one was about marketing a TV show – The Repair Shop. I wanted to unpack that with you here in this update.
Just briefly I could mention three things at a very high level. This is just one way to look at the show. I’m sure there are different ways to look at it.
Marketing Trifecta
Who is it for?
On the surface, the show is for anyone who has a broken object which has any personal meaning.
What’s it for?
Fixing things rather than throwing them away. Keeping the old tradition (crafts & techniques) alive.
What’s the promise?
If you have a family heirloom or an object with significant sentimental value that is broken or in disrepair, the experts in the show will bring it back to life. You can, in turn, start using it again and pass it down to future generations.
Values the show creates
Nostalgia
Often, objects that come to The Repair Shop are from past generations or from people’s childhood, which evokes a lot of memories and emotions.
Legacy
Getting something from the distant past fixed, and bringing it back to life, means it can be passed onto a future generation.
Self-affirmation and actualisation
While the objects themselves may have no huge monetary value, the meanings that owners place on them are often self-affirming.
Positioning*
*Positioning is one of those things you can do for branding your products and services. If you’d like to find out how I progressed with my own positioning you can find out from my other coaching videos (positioning pt 1 and pt 2)
There are so many axes to look at but two examples I would share with you are:
This has been a really fun exercise.
As you can see, when you read an analytic take on The Repair Shop, it’s quite obvious what the show is really about, but people don’t often look beyond the surface level.
How could you look at your own work based on this exercise?
