Marketing life-raft

Ultraframe’s marketing director Alex Hewitt explains how the company’s Lockdown Toolkit helped its customers to sell remotely during the pandemic.

We are absolutely certain that marketing is a vital tool that has not only helped our customers to survive through the various lockdowns and regulations, but to actually prosper and grow.

Back in early 2020 remote selling was a completely new way of working for most of us. In the glass and glazing sector, companies are highly skilled at selling in homes and showrooms and so when both of these options were taken away, many companies were unsure of how they could continue to generate leads and sell.

The demand was still there, as we all realised that our homes weren’t big enough for the whole family to be in all at once for months on end, and so we launched our Lockdown Toolkit, which is designed to help customers generate and capture leads and sell remotely.

We worked with Icaal to define and create a range of remote selling tools that were simple to use, delivered real results, and were mostly free.

The Lockdown Toolkit was well received by numerous Ultraframe customers, and helped them to continue to flourish through a very difficult trading period. So much so that when the latest lockdown was announced in January 2021, we decided to further enhance the package on offer and remind our customers of the huge selection of remote selling tools that are available to them.

Here is a summary:

• Chatbots allow our customers to auto-respond on their website and social media channels without staff having to be available 24/7.
• Our Quoting Engine can be tailored by our customers to their own pricing so that potential customers can get a quote online, and generate a lead.
• The Virtual Appointment add-on allows homeowners to book an appointment, and then have a full sales consultation by video call.
• We also created free-of-charge Content Blocks for retailers’ websites which allow a homeowner to explore the features of our roofs in an interactive way.
• Coming soon is a series of emails that can be sent to homeowners who have enquired about conservatories, extensions, orangeries, and replacement roofs. The emails contain lots of useful information and are a great way to keep a lead warm.
• We’re also adding a Proposal Generator, which is available free of charge to existing CRM users. This gives companies the ability to create custom-branded proposal templates and add unique content including videos, image galleries, VR Tours, awards, accreditations, and client testimonials.
• The Proposal Generator tool is available within an advanced Icaal CRM system which is available to Ultraframe customers at a subsidised rate. This allows users to manage their leads and more.
• Our Virtual Reality Tours have also been upgraded. They allow a website visitor to look around a room, from ceiling to floor.

We have also introduced further marketing support in the in the form of webinars. These cover topics such as how to make the most of the Lockdown Toolkit and other topics about the new remote selling world.

Our newly launched Garden Rooms, which have their own dedicated marketing toolkit, are also covered in these webinars. We have created an online designer, beautiful retail brochure, and a pricing and ordering tool to help our customers sell these enchanting living spaces that are so popular right now.

While we have always appreciated the power of marketing, this was never truer than over the last 12 months, and our customers who have taken advantage of the Lockdown Toolkit have the sales figures to back this up.