Your own marketing department
Gary Morton, chairman of The Boing Boing Group, looks at how fabricators can create a sales edge for installer customers with intelligent investment in IT and marketing collateral.
Companies often talk about offering marketing support to their customers and there is, without question, a whole host of marketing collateral available from all levels of the fenestration supply chain. What hasn’t been clear is how to access and best use these business-growing tools.
As fabricators, we know it is our responsibility to provide our customers with this information in a comprehensive and readily accessible form. When armed with the correct, creative, personally branded collateral, sales opportunities can only increase.
Much of the sales installers secure is based on their personal brand and local reputation. When looking for quotes, homeowners’ decisions often come down to three options: a company recommended to them; a local company they are already aware of; or, one of the high-profile national retail brands. At this stage in the process all these companies have the chance to provide a quote.
What will set a company apart is professional marketing, as much as their pricing. Savvy installers are recognising that they can reap rewards by providing something genuinely different to customers. By establishing Central Hub, we will be offering installers as much support as they could ever need.
Supporting customers in any way we can makes commercial sense. Offering marketing support is more than just a ‘nice to do’ for customers. It helps drive retention, loyalty and advocacy. Sources say that the cost of acquiring a new customer is up to 30 times that of keeping an existing one. It makes both financial and business sense for everyone involved to nurture and invest in the already established relationships. According to the 80/20 rule 20% of customers bring in 80% of sales – so why wouldn’t we work with our existing customers to help them be the very best they can?
For all these reasons, The Boing Boing Group has gone back to the drawing board when it comes to defining the marketing support we offer. Through our own product and company development over the last three years, we’ve discovered the amount of high-quality marketing collateral out there is astounding. The challenge has always been how we make this readily available to our customers and in a format that best suits their needs. A web-based hub struck us as the best option in this digital age and so Central Hub was born.
Central Hub will be an online portal exclusive to customers of CentralRPL and CentralASL, providing access to a wealth of brochures, POS materials, technical information, IT solutions, samples, photography and videography services. We’ve invested heavily in this online solution and will be launching it at the FIT Show in May where we will be personally demonstrating the scope of what Central Hub has to offer.
Everything The Boing Boing Group does is focused on maintaining the customer intimacy we are renowned for, and providing powerful marketing support through Central Hub is just another example of this commitment.
