While hardly the onset of the living dead/zombie apocalypse, the rush to attract, inform and sell home management services to consumers is reaching epic proportion, with new service introductions and the re-awakening of non-cable company firms that once focused solely on remote home security.

Comcast’s (News - Alert) full-court press for Xfinity Home has hit the airwaves and direct mail hard, and has been joined by once low-key home security monitoring firm ADT. Mediacom Communications, a cableco based in New York, launched its entrant into the fast-expanding market segment Monday, the first day of The Cable Show in the nation’s capital.

Learn, and Live

I still firmly believe education is the key to success in home management services given the many aspects and components to the offering that give consumers unprecedented control of their residence. Comcast has done a solid job of this out of the gates in an integrated media launch that I critiqued.  I strongly recommend the cable industry group – NCTA (News - Alert) – create a unit charged with producing informative educational materials to get the many and varied consumer demographics up to speed on these services as it would profit both parties.

Home management services enable consumers to control/automate as little or as much of their dwelling as they choose, in many cases remotely. These areas include alarms, temperature, lighting and environmentals such as air quality (or lack thereof), video surveillance and motion. Cameras, sensors, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and temperature gauges are the primary components. The common requirement is high-speed Internet access.

Big Bucks Theory

The potential for cablecos to cash in on this very real consumer market demand is hardly theory. With continued losses in pay-TV subscription services, cablecos need – and have – a lucrative revenue generator that builds off their foundation in the broadband economy.

Many operators are seeing bigger sales of Internet access than TV services in the consumer services segment. Home management services provide a multi-faceted equipment and service offering with consulting and installation elements as well.

Analytics Define Strategy

Strategy Analytics (News - Alert) includes home medical services as part of its fascinating smart home services view and has already identified willingness to buy these offerings by a series of segments it created and defined. This consumer survey-based research should turn pay-TV frowns upside down for cablecos who hopefully will avoid a one-size-fits-all offering for consumers.

"We found strong interest and willingness to pay for both security and remote monitoring among the top segments," stated Bill Ablondi, director of Smart Home Strategies advisory service. "Except for Practical Greens, these are the same groups most likely to have smartphones and tablets - products we see as accelerating consumers' desire to be connected to everyone and everything important in their lives, including their homes."

Smart Service DemographicsStrategy Analytics said it identified six segments: Impressers, (those whose lifestyle impresses others) and Affluent Nesters, (higher income households that invest in improving their homes) are the largest groups of early adopters. There’s also Practical Greens, (environmentally conscious, middle-income households) and Convenience Seekers, (young males willing to pay for convenience).

From the firm’s release: each segment shows “significantly different attitudes and behaviors, which will require marketers to tailor benefit statements in order to successfully trigger adoption,” according to the research. In addition to pinpointing the best prospects and identifying buying motivations for smart home capabilities, the firm added, research also quantifies fees consumers are willing to spend for the selected services. Impressers and Affluent nesters represent the best overall near-term market opportunity because of their size, interest and the amount they are willing to pay.

The Bottom Line

It’s crystal clear from the multi-faceted makeup of the services and diverse age and behavioral demographics that it will take smart cablecos to effectively sell smart home management services. Operators need to get smart and educate consumers on the services in a painless manner to set the stage for a service offering that portends to be a cash cow.

Concurrently, cablecos need to fend off a resurgent group of entrenched security monitoring service providers – not staggering zombies - working hard to expand their offerings and take their message to the masses via integrated advertising efforts in the same markets that Comcast and others are launching in.

Learning about and educating diverse groups of consumers are the key to cableco success with home management services. It’s better to get smart, than to get schooled by the competition.

Stay tuned.