In a world surrounded by technology and resources, DIY becomes a lot easier and a lot more accessible as seen today.
You can find almost all the information you need with a simple Google search if you want to. For those that don’t want to, that’s okay too. Many businesses are run on the idea of do-it-yourself or have options for those willing to DIY. But, there are also some businesses and services that are too hard to convert to DIY because of the resources and knowledge necessary.
What characteristics make it hard for a business to go DIY?
As favorable as DIY may be for some, not all businesses can go this route and there are certain characteristics of a business or industry that make it hard for them to do so. Let’s dive in.
1. Industries requiring extensive knowledge
To be DIY, you must be able to do the task or project as if you were hiring someone else to do the job. Therefore, anything requiring extensive knowledge before being able to do a task can make it tricky when trying to execute DIY.
2. Niche industries
Niche industries can be hard to go DIY as they are typically quite innovative, and not everyone may understand your business or even be willing to learn. To be able to go DIY, you first would need to discover your customers’ understanding of your business and tailor your business in a way that is intuitive.
3. Face-to-communication
Businesses centered around human interaction can make it harder for a DIY business model as these businesses require face-to-face communication. Businesses under the financial and insurance sector are a good example as they both require in person interaction to some extent. In other words, AI cannot replace humans – for now at least.
4. Theft is unavoidable/hard to manage
DIY business models are hard to execute where theft is unavoidable or hard to manage. A good example of this is self checkout kiosks in department or grocery stores. Self checkout kiosks require an honesty system and it is expected that people ring in their items correctly – but this is hard to manage. Some stores have even removed some of their self checkout kiosks, like Canadian Tire has in North Bay Ontario.
5. Industries serving an older demographic
Some businesses simply cannot go DIY, based on the demographic they are catering to. Older generations are typically not as technologically savvy, and as well they are not as mobile as younger generations. Therefore these businesses usually require face to face interactions and are very much hands on. Examples of businesses that fall under this category would be medical/healthcare.
Examples of services/applications tough to go DIY:
- Medical/health services: doctors, dentists, physio, massage therapy etc.
- Investment banking
- Plumbing/electrical
- Pest control services
About the series authors
The team at Adacado have been pioneering Dynamic Creative and programmatic advertising since late 2009. It all started as a platform with full service, where creative costs scaled into crazy 6 figure numbers. From the get go this made no sense at all, however big brands and agencies were satisfied, at least at the moment in time. Adacado knew this was not sustainable and began almost immediately shifting to self-serve and now to a fully DIY advertising platform that allows an agency or brand to create and launch a campaign in minutes.
Sounds like an instant success. No, we are not quite there yet! In fact we are a frustrated group of people as we watch in amazement, while prospective customers glow about its capabilities and ease of use…. But when it comes to rolling up their sleeves and doing the job (becoming DIY) they procrastinate, stall, ask for help, almost everything imaginable, except getting the job done themselves.
Thank goodness for our customers who recognized the proverbial opportunity of DIY, have figured out how and why to use Adacado, and have quickly become perennial customers with ever increasing usage. They keep our hopes alive.
So why not everyone? Not sure, so the journey goes on… Adacado continues to improve and educate, and has decided that perhaps the basics of DIY are not that obvious, so we have set out on a venture to learn more and more about DIY, and pass on our learnings, with the hope that it will encourage more people to become DIY with more things, including advertising.
We hope you enjoy the series!
The Adacado Team
