Marketing Foreign Language FTA

[kingofku]

I'm thinking about marketing an antenna/ird combo aimed at the foreign language market - not a new concept I know, but I think there may be some willing takers. I was going to do some print advertising in the local paper and wanted to get some feedback from those of you that have done or are currently pursuing this. All suggestions including pricing and equipment choices will be gladly accepted.



Thanks.

[scooterz56]

I know Globecast does a lot of this and we get a couple of call a month to do installs. I give them my price to install it ($175) and we have yet to do an install.

[AntAltMike]

I tried that a decade ago, but found it to be a waste of my time for a number of reasons. For one, nearly all the prospetive buyers have freinds who have similar systems and therefore know where to buy the hardware for the same price you pay for it. They also know who to call to get in installed cheap, which tends to put a limit on what you can charge.

Then, there was the Arabic receiver that put up its menu instructions in Arabic. I can interpret idioma and Francias, but I can't make any sense out of Arabic characters. I suspected that he had misadjusted the LNB local oscillator frequency offset, but I had no way of locating that adjustment.

I tried to get Saudi 1 for one of the Saudi princes (there are a lot of them, but they are all rich), and I scanned that satellite several times with two different receivers and they each listed a couple hundred channels but not Saudi 1. Unfortunately, there was no one I could call at Saudi 1 to see of they were on the air. When I enetered the technical specs of the channel, I still couldn't build it.


One woman called me to tell me she had bought a dish and receiver from GlobeCast and wanted it installed. I told her they could give her a list of installers. She said they had told her that she could arrange her own installation locally, and that their authorized installers would do so for $199

She said they had given her a list of six local authorized installers, but five of them didn]t reply to her voice mail message, and the other, who I know to be a substantial company, said they would do it, but for $399. I told her that indicated to me that the other companies have concluded they can't make any money installing at $199.

The last tie I did a GlobeCast installation for a university language lab, I was on hold from 5:30 PM Eastern until 7:00 PM, at which time I got a message that their service department was now closed for the day and to call back tomorrow

[kingofku]

Originally Posted by AntAltMike

I tried that a decade ago, but found it to be a waste of my time for a number of reasons. For one, nearly all the prospetive buyers have freinds who have similar systems and therefore know where to buy the hardware for the same price you pay for it. They also know who to call to get in installed cheap, which tends to put a limit on what you can charge.

Then, there was the Arabic receiver that put up its menu instructions in Arabic. I can interpret idioma and Francias, but I can't make any sense out of Arabic characters. I suspected that he had misadjusted the LNB local oscillator frequency offset, but I had no way of locating that adjustment.

I tried to get Saudi 1 for one of the Saudi princes (there are a lot of them, but they are all rich), and I scanned that satellite several times with two different receivers and they each listed a couple hundred channels but not Saudi 1. Unfortunately, there was no one I could call at Saudi 1 to see of they were on the air. When I enetered the technical specs of the channel, I still couldn't build it.


One woman called me to tell me she had bought a dish and receiver from GlobeCast and wanted it installed. I told her they could give her a list of installers. She said they had told her that she could arrange her own installation locally, and that their authorized installers would do so for $199

She said they had given her a list of six local authorized installers, but five of them didn]t reply to her voice mail message, and the other, who I know to be a substantial company, said they would do it, but for $399. I told her that indicated to me that the other companies have concluded they can't make any money installing at $199.

The last tie I did a GlobeCast installation for a university language lab, I was on hold from 5:30 PM Eastern until 7:00 PM, at which time I got a message that their service department was now closed for the day and to call back tomorrow

I've heard bad things about the Globecast IRD and quite frankly, I can probably do better sourcing equipment elsewhere. In the past when I would get a call - if they had their own gear -- $250.00. If not, $625 for stationary and $825 for motorized. If they were serious, I'd get the job....if they were shopping around....oh well.

[SkyV]

go to satelliteav.com they have pretty good system and do own support.