Can doors be sexy?

Rock-style videos and edgy lifestyle consumer marketing are the way to go for the Ballymena door maker, says Apeer’s Asa McGillian.

The problem with residential doors of course is that pretty much everyone sees dozens of them every day; they are a day-to-day thing that we seldom really acknowledge, until they go wrong or we decide to buy a new one as part of a package of refurbishments.

But other home improvements, such as kitchens and wardrobes for example, will be changed periodically perhaps every 10-15 years, as part of a need to repair a few hinges perhaps, but very much driven by a desire to improve the aesthetics.

We want to move the decision to replace a main entrance door from being a stress purchase or one that is part of other work being carried out, to one that is driven by an understanding of just how much that simple entrance door can radically change the aesthetics of a home. That they will also make it more secure, more convenient and better insulated, is incidental.

And that is why we launched a range of new marketing materials to be introduced for all Apeer products spread throughout 2020, with a radical new video introducing our increasingly popular Silka door range: https://youtu.be/84Qh3RLZyFM

Essentially it is more akin to a rock video or one introducing an upmarket car than anything previously produced to promote residential doors. The reason is that we want to reach consumers who may not be looking for a new front door, but who upon stumbling across the video, will watch it because they are intrigued by the imagery and music.

We then want to show them that there are some pretty sexy doors out there that will really make their home look fabulous. We want to inspire, to lift a door purchase out of the sphere of a distress purchase that takes place perhaps twice in a lifetime, to something they do because they want to radically and simply change the look of their home. And we believe our Silka video will do just that.

The video is accompanied by a suitably hard-edged ‘ear-worm’ sound track that is as memorable as the imagery. And being video we can deliver it through an extraordinary range of media. In fact, video is the fastest developing of all media, and research has shown that product videos can increase purchases by 144% with 87% of marketing professionals now saying they use video as a marketing tool. Among consumers, 62% of people said they were more interested in a product after seeing it in a Facebook Story.

The Silka video is the first of five being produced as part of a campaign designed to appeal directly to homeowners, in support of Apeer’s retail installer network located throughout the UK. Videos will be accompanied by print and digital brochures and other material and promoted heavily through a digital marketing campaign, including Facebook and Google ads and SEO, to drive leads to our new website and on to our trade partners. A 25% increase in these leads is a key benchmark for the campaign.

Ultimately, we want to break new ground with our campaign, to plant ideas in homeowners’ heads that didn’t exist previously. And then we want them to buy an Apeer door. And for that we have a few more tricks up our sleeve.